加快战略变革是企业响应时代号召、获取竞争新优势的必然选择。数字经济时代，明晰数字化技术驱动企业战略变革的内在机理，考察公司治理能否发挥“助推器”作用，已成为学术界关注企业数字化转型的焦点。基于战略变革理论，选取2012—2022年1350家上市公司数据，通过构建有调节的中介效应模型进行实证检验，研究发现：①数字化技术应用能够显著驱动企业战略变革，经过测量偏误、内生性等稳健性检验后该结论依然成立；②数字化技术主要通过优化资源配置、增强应变能力、降低运营成本3种机制驱动企业战略变革，公司治理能够显著增强数字化技术对3种机制的促进作用，进而驱动企业战略变革；③当企业处于成长期时，公司治理仅能增强数字化技术对降低运营成本的促进效应。当企业处于成熟期与衰退期时，公司治理有助于增强数字化技术对3种机制的促进作用。据此，企业应充分利用数字化技术实现强配置、抗波动、降成本，积极改善公司治理能力，驱动企业战略变革并获取竞争新优势。

China attaches great importance to the development of the digital economy,continuously promotes the deep integration of digital technology and the real economy, coordinates advances in both the digital industry and the digital transformation of traditional industries, and accelerates the building of the country's cyberspace strength and a digital China. In response to the call of the times, it is an inevitable choice for corporates to accelerate strategic change so as to implement national strategies and gain new competitive advantages. In the era of the digital economy, clarifying the inherent mechanisms of digital technology driving enterprise strategic change and examining whether corporate governance can continue to play a “catalyst” role has become one of the focuses of attention in the field of enterprise digital transformation. Corporate strategic change is a risky behavior of disruptive innovation, and achieving strategic change urgently requires scientific and sound corporate governance to safeguard the inherent needs of shareholder interests. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to clarify the impact mechanisms of digital technology application in driving strategic change and how corporate governance can ensure the smooth progress of strategic change. This is of great practical significance for enterprises to respond to the call of the times and gain new competitive advantages.
This study assumes that digital technology can drive strategic change in enterprises by optimizing resource allocation, enhancing adaptability, and reducing operating costs, and corporate governance enhances the impact of digital technology on optimizing resource allocation, enhancing adaptability, and reducing operating costs, thereby driving strategic change in enterprises. Drawing on theories such as strategic change, it selects data from 1 350 Chinese listed companies from 2012 to 2022 and uses multiple linear regression models, moderated mediation models, an instrumental variable approach, a robust two-stage least squares method under high collinearity, as well as PSM-DID to empirically test the impact mechanisms of digital technology application in driving strategic change and the moderated mediation effects of corporate governance.
Empirical evidence shows that the application of digital technology can significantly drive strategic change in companies, which is confirmed by robustness tests such as measurement bias and endogeneity. Mechanism analysis finds that digital technology mainly drives strategic change in companies through three mechanisms: optimizing resource allocation, enhancing adaptability, and reducing operational costs. The moderated mediation analysis finds that corporate governance can significantly enhance the promoting effect of digital technology on the three mechanisms, thereby driving strategic change in companies. Further research reveals that among the three moderated mediation effects, only reducing operational costs is significant in the growth stage, and all three effects are significant in the mature stage and decline stage. The research results indicate that applying digital technology for strong configuration, resilience to volatility and cost reduction in conjunction with comprehensive corporate governance is of great strategic significance for driving strategic change and gaining competitive advantages. Thus, enterprises should actively apply digital technology to empower strategic activities in the value chain, and build long-term competitiveness with digital technology as the core; digital technology is expected to play a significant role in improving their capabilities in strong configuration, resistance to fluctuations and cost reduction, and enhancing their corporate governance capabilities.
The marginal contribution of this study mainly lies in two aspects. Firstly, it explores the impact mechanisms of optimizing resource allocation, enhancing adaptive capacity, and reducing operational costs from the perspectives of production factors, tools, and processes, which enriches the research on the impact mechanisms of digital technology-driven strategic change in companies. Secondly, it provides beneficial supplements to the mechanism research on digital technology-driven strategic change in companies. On the basis of the moderated mediation model, it investigates how corporate governance enhances the promoting effect of digital technology on three mechanisms from the perspective of overall governance and conducts a heterogeneous analysis of moderated mediation effects over the lifecycle.