Corporate digital transformation and safety production performance: empirical evidence from A-share listed companies

Abstract

This paper examines the influence of enterprise digital transformation on safety production performance. Our results indicate that digital transformation significantly improves the safety performance of China’s listed enterprises. Furthermore, a series of cross-sectional analyses confirm that the effect of digital transformation on safety production performance is more prominent not only in regions with higher levels of marketisation and stronger enforcement of safety production systems but also in markets with higher competition and stronger supervision. Moreover, the proposed effect is also more significant in corporations with higher capital intensity and lower financing constraints. The mechanism tests reveal that digital transformation improves the quality of internal control and optimises corporate innovation, thereby improving the safety production performance. Our findings highlight the impact of digital technology application on enterprise production safety performance, serving as a valuable reference for promoting the development and implementation of digital technologies in the field of production safety.