How to Realize Digital Competitive Advantage: The Synergistic Logic of Digital Investment and Specialized Investment for SRDI Enterprises

Abstract

Digital investment and specialized investment spent by specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative (SRDI) enterprises are crucial to China’s efforts to build digital competitive advantage and develop new quality productive forces. Drawing on the panel data from 1,421 Chinese SRDI enterprises over the period 2012–2023, this paper clarifies the meaning and measurement indicators of digital competitive advantage and examines how digital investment, specialized investment, and their synergy affect it. The findings show that both digital investment and specialized investment exert an inverted U-shaped effect on digital competitive advantage. Moderate levels of either type of investment can help enterprises gain digital competitive advantage, whereas excessive investment hinders the development of that advantage. The synergy between digital investment and specialized investment, by contrast, promotes the positive growth of enterprises’ digital competitive advantage. Heterogeneity analysis further shows that these effects are more pronounced among SRDI enterprises in eastern China, in highly competitive industries, among high tech enterprises, and among enterprises with a higher degree of digital transformation. This paper enriches competitive advantage theory in the digital context, offers theoretical guidance for the synergistic optimization of digital investment and specialized investment in SRDI enterprises, and identifies a strategic direction for building their digital competitive advantage.

Keywords

specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative (SRDI) enterprises / digital competitive advantage / digital investment / specialized investment

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Higher Education Press