Does Digitalization Strategy Affect Corporate Rent-Seeking? Evidence from Chinese-Listed Firms

Abstract

The issue of corporate rent-seeking, which stems from the misuse of authority, remains a critical concern for the international community. Drawing on agency theory and resource dependence theory, this study explores the relationship between corporate digitalization strategies (DSs) and corporate rent-seeking. We test our theoretical hypotheses by utilizing panel data encompassing Chinese A-share listed companies from 2004 to 2021. Our findings suggest that corporate DSs have a significant negative influence on rent-seeking. Several robustness tests support this conclusion. Moreover, our analysis indicates that a DS is particularly effective in curtailing rent-seeking behaviors within state-owned enterprises (SOEs) compared with their non-state-owned counterparts. However, contrary to our hypothesis, a DS is less effective in suppressing corporate rent-seeking among firms where the executive team has legal backgrounds. These findings suggest that top managers, especially within SOEs, should prioritize the early formulation of digital transformation strategies to reduce rent-seeking behavior. Additionally, when implementing digital transformation, firms should carefully integrate members with legal backgrounds into their executive teams and strengthen ethical education and supervision for executives with legal expertise.

Keywords

• digitalization strategy
• digital transformation
• corporate rent-seeking
• legal background
• legal expertise
• nature of enterprise ownership