Facilitating or Constraining? Institutional Investors and Corporate Digital Transformation: An Empirical Study Based on Chinese Listed Companies

This article presents an empirical study on the impact of institutional investors' shareholding on the level of corporate digital transformation based on sample data from Chinese A-share listed companies from 2016 to 2020. The research findings indicate a significant inhibitory effect of institutional investors' shareholding on corporate digital transformation. In comparison to pressure-resistant institutional investors, pressure-sensitive institutional investors exhibit a stronger inhibitory effect on corporate digital transformation. Furthermore, short-term holding institutional investors display a more pronounced inhibitory effect on corporate digital transformation when contrasted with long-term holding institutional investors. Notably, there is no difference between high-shareholding and low-shareholding institutional investors.