Innovate Digitally via State Involvement: The Impact of State Capital Participation on Private Corporate Digital Technology Innovation

The injection of state-owned capital is expected to provide enterprises with richer innovation resources and strategic support, potentially offering private firms a solution to the challenges of digital technology innovation. Against this backdrop, this study takes Chinese A-share listed private enterprises from 2013 to 2023 as the research sample. It examines the introduction of state-owned capital into private firms as the entry point. Drawing on resource dependence theory and employing a combination of theoretical analysis and empirical testing, the paper systematically investigates the impact and mechanisms of state-owned capital participation on private enterprises’ digital technology innovation. The findings reveal that state-owned capital participation significantly promotes digital technology innovation in private firms. Mechanism analysis further indicates that the alleviation of financing constraints and the mitigation of managerial short-termism play mediating roles in this relationship. Moderation tests show that supply chain stability positively moderates the relationship between state-owned capital participation and digital technology innovation. Heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that the innovation-promoting effect of state-owned capital participation is more pronounced in firms with established bank-enterprise relationships, in high-tech industries, and in regions where local governments place greater emphasis on the digital sector. This study extends the application boundary of resource dependence theory in the field of state-owned capital participation. It offers a new theoretical perspective for understanding the role of mixed-ownership reform in advancing the high-quality development of private enterprises.