Regional digital infrastructure, enterprise digital transformation and entrepreneurial orientation: Empirical evidence based on the broadband china strategy

Advancing enterprise digital transformation (EDT) and developing its positive impact result in substantial knowledge and information demand inside and outside enterprises. Although research from the perspectives of internal organizational management, operational performance, and policy dividends exists, we have yet to fully understand the important role played by regional digital infrastructure (RDI) in interorganizational connectivity. Using the resource-based view (RBV), we investigate the relationship among RDI, EDT and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) using a sample of Chinese A-share listed enterprises from 2011 to 2019. Our empirical results show that RDI is an external driver of EDT and EO, where EDT plays a mediating role in the relationship between RDI and EO. In greater detail, RDI has a stronger driving effect on nonstate-owned or mature enterprises’ EDT. Our findings enrich the research on the antecedents and consequences of EDT from the perspective of infrastructure and entrepreneurship. By spotlighting the external drivers of EO, our findings also extend the theoretical framework of the entrepreneurship-oriented resource-based view.