The Effect of Corporate Resource Abundance on the Transformation and Upgrading of Manufacturing Enterprises from the Perspective of Whole Process Innovation

Abstract

Exploiting a comparative advantage through resource endowment is a way to promote the transformation and upgrading of enterprises and high-quality economic development. Based on resource-based theory, this paper takes the listed companies of China’s manufacturing industry as a sample and classifies them into leading, potential, catching-up, and exiting enterprises according to the abundance of financial and human resources. In terms of the research perspective, this paper adopts resource abundance as the starting point to explore its impact on enterprise transformation and upgrading and incorporates technological innovation into the framework to investigate its transmission mechanism. The results indicate that the resource abundance of enterprises directly promotes the transformation and upgrading of enterprises. Notably, the mechanism identification test suggests the following. (1) From the perspective of innovation investment, innovation investment intensity is an important channel for manufacturing companies to transform and upgrade. (2) From the perspective of innovation direction, higher levels of resources allow leading enterprises to accelerate transformation and upgrading through product and process innovation. In contrast, catching-up enterprises tend to foster product innovation rather than process innovation to transform and update, while potential enterprises are likely to foster process innovation to transform and update rather than product innovation. On the other hand, the path of transformation and upgrading through product or process innovation is obstructed for the exiting enterprises. (3) From the perspective of innovation output, all but the exiting enterprises can be transformed and upgraded by increasing their innovation output. Overall, considering the impact of corporate innovation behavior, this research offers new insights into the relationship between resource abundance and transformation and upgrading, and it provides inspiration for promoting transformation and upgrading in Chinese manufacturing enterprises.