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Abstract

As the most active field in China’s economic development, the digital economy is crucial to the high-quality development of enterprises. Taking Chinese-listed agricultural enterprises as research samples, this paper discusses the effect of the digital economy on promoting the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises and the mechanism behind it from the perspective of total factor productivity of enterprises. The study found that the digital economy significantly promoted the improvement of total factor productivity of agricultural enterprises and enabled the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, and this conclusion remained valid after controlling for endogeneity and conducting robustness tests. In terms of action mechanisms, the digital economy is conducive to promoting green innovation and promoting the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises; However, entrepreneurial activity has a masking effect. Further analysis shows that the digital economy plays a more significant role in promoting non-resource-intensive agricultural enterprises located in northern China. At the same time, the higher the industrial structure and financial development level of the region, the more positive impact the digital economy can play. This study verifies the impact mechanism of the digital economy on the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises and provides enlightenment for China’s the digital economy policy-making and enterprises’ the high-quality development strategy decision-making.

Plain language summary

How does the digital economy affect the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises?

This article aims to study the impact mechanism of the digital economy on the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, clarify the transmission role of green innovation and entrepreneurial activity between the two, and better propose relevant countermeasures and suggestions to promote the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises and provide impetus for the implementation of rural revitalization strategies. Using structural equation model and taking Chinese listed agricultural enterprises as research samples, this paper explores the mechanism of digital economy on high-quality development of agricultural enterprises from the perspective of enterprise Total factor productivity. Research has found that the digital economy significantly promotes the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, and green innovation plays a mediating role between the two. However, increasing entrepreneurial activity is not conducive to the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises. Further analysis reveals that for agricultural enterprises located in the northern region with non-resource intensive characteristics, the digital economy plays a more significant promoting role; Meanwhile, the higher the industrial structure and financial development level of the region, the more positive the digital economy can play. The limitation of this study is that it has not fully explored the path of the impact of the digital economy on the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises. Future research can explore the role of financing constraints, human capital, and other factors in the relationship between the digital economy and the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises.

Keywords

digital economy high-quality development green innovation entrepreneurial activity

Introduction

Agriculture is the fundamental industry that human society relies on for survival and sustainable development. For China, a big agricultural country, issues related to agriculture, rural areas, and farmers is the top priority for the Communist Party of China. Without the modernization of agriculture and rural areas, there would be no modernization of the country. In order to accelerate the process of modernization, the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China made a major decision and plan—implementing the rural revitalization strategy. In July 2020, the National Rural Industry Development Plan (2020–2025) prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs was released, which further emphasized and explained the importance of rural industries. The No. 1 document of the CPC Central Committee and The State Council in 2022, “Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and The State Council on Comprehensively Promoting the Key Work of Rural Revitalization in 2022,” pointed out that rural industries should be focused on to promote rural development. It can be seen that the prosperity of rural industries is the basis for promoting the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy and the key to promoting agricultural and rural modernization. High-quality development is the theme of China’s economic and social development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period and beyond. The 20th CPC National Congress Report points out that the high-quality development is the primary task for comprehensively building a modern socialist country. Without the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises—Agricultural enterprises are guided by people’s livelihood and pursue a balanced and fully sustainable development model of green innovation, high effectiveness efficiency, high efficiency, and high quality, We couldn’t achieve the high-quality economic development and rural industrial prosperity. As the micro foundation and important subject of developing and expanding rural industries, agricultural enterprises are the backbone support for promoting the revitalization of rural industries. They shoulder the important mission of increasing farmers’ income, optimizing agricultural industrial structure and promoting agricultural modernization. It can be seen that the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises is of great significance to the implementation of rural revitalization strategy and the high-quality economic development.

Since the 21st century, digital technologies represented by big data, cloud computing, and blockchain have developed rapidly, making the digital economy the most powerful driving force in economic development (Zhou & Chen, 2022). Internationally, the digital economy has a strong momentum of development and a huge scale, accounting for a high proportion of GDP, fast growth, deep integration with all walks of life, strong penetration, and promoting the transformation and upgrading of the three industries. Even under the influence of COVID-19, the scale and growth rate of China’s digital economy’s added value are still rapidly increasing. According to IDC, the size of the global digital economy is expected to be higher than 62% of GDP in 2023 (Fang & Hou, 2021). In 2025, the digital economy will be deeply integrated with all fields, and the digital economy will occupy a dominant position in the global economy. The digital economy, as a new driving force for China’s economic development, provides a good opportunity for the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises. How to give full play to the role of the digital economy in promoting the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises is the key to realizing the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas.

High-quality development of agricultural enterprises is an important starting point for the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas. However, low-technology and low-efficiency agricultural enterprises are gradually eliminated. The digital economy, as the most active sector of China’s economic development, is deeply integrated with all walks of life and can empower traditional industries from all aspects. The digital economy is integrated into various fields of China’s agriculture through digital technologies such as big data, the Internet of Things, and cloud computing (Y. H. Chen & Hong, 2022). It can be seen that the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises inevitably needs the boosting role of the digital economy. Therefore, how to seize the development opportunities of the digital economy and accelerate the realization of the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, it is necessary to systematically and deeply study the mechanism of the digital economy affecting the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises.

Based on the above research background, this paper hopes to clarify the transmission effect of green innovation and entrepreneurial activity between the two by studying the influencing mechanism of the digital economy on the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, so as to put forward relevant countermeasures and suggestions, boost the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, and provide impetus for the implementation of rural revitalization strategy.

Taking Chinese-listed agricultural enterprises as research samples, this paper uses Internet-related indicators to measure the development level of the digital economy in the region where the enterprises are located, and uses the total factor productivity to describe the high-quality development level of the enterprises.

The contributions of this article are mainly as follows: First, most of the existing research focuses on the impact of the digital economy on the high-quality development of manufacturing enterprises, but less attention is paid to the impact on agricultural enterprises. This paper explores the relationship and action path between the digital economy and the high-quality development of enterprises, which enriches the research on the relationship between the digital economy and the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises. Second, this paper reveals the mediating role of green innovation between the digital economy and the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, the masking effect of entrepreneurial activity, and the influence of geographical location, resource intensity, regional industrial structure optimization, and financial development level between the two, which not only enriches the research in related fields. It also provides enlightenment for the government to guide and support the high-quality development of enterprises. It is believed that the digital economy can improve entrepreneurial activity (Zhao & Yi, 2022), and the improvement of entrepreneurial activity is conducive to the benefits of enterprises (Lyu et al., 2022). However, entrepreneurial activity has a masking effect between the digital economy and the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, which provides a new perspective for relevant scholars. Therefore, to find the best way how to seize the development opportunities of the digital economy and accelerate the realization of the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, it is necessary to systematically and deeply study the mechanism of the digital economy affecting the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises.

The other parts of this paper are arranged as follows: the first part is a literature review and theoretical analysis; The second part introduces empirical research design; The third part is the main empirical results and analysis; The fourth part is heterogeneity analysis; The fifth part is the discussion and conclusion.

Literature Review and Theoretical Analysis

Literature Review on the High-Quality Development of Agricultural Enterprises

Davis first proposed the concept of agricultural enterprise in 1957. He defined agricultural enterprise as an organization involved in the production, processing, storage, transportation, sales, and other links of agricultural products as well as the operation of farms. The definition of agricultural enterprise by most domestic scholars is similar to that of Davis. According to the regulations of the National Bureau of Statistics, the agricultural industry includes agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery, and the secondary and tertiary industries derived from it. In 2017, the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China first put forward the concept of “the high-quality development,” and pointed out that China’s economy has shifted from high-speed development to the high-quality development stage. The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed that the high-quality development is the primary task of building a modern socialist country in an all-round way, and we should focus on promoting the high-quality development. From the perspective of the subject of high quality, high quality can be divided into three levels: the micro subject is enterprises and products, the medium subject is industry and city, and the macro subject is economy, public services, etc. (B. P. Ren, 2018). J. C. Li et al. (2019) concluded that the high-quality development is to meet people’s growing needs for a better life as the fundamental purpose; With “innovation, coordination, green development, openness and sharing” as the fundamental concept; Taking high quality as the fundamental requirement; Innovation as the fundamental driving force; Take sustainability as the fundamental path. High-quality development of enterprises is a state of development in which enterprises can make full use of various resources and achieve strategic coordination with other enterprises in the supply chain, so as to improve product quality, optimize processes, and maximize benefits for stakeholders (Zhou et al., 2021). High-quality development of enterprises can be defined not only from the perspective of development paradigm but also from the goal state (S. J. Huang et al., 2018). The core of enterprises’ the high-quality development lies in the quality of products and services, resource utilization ability, enterprise operation and management mechanism, enterprise performance, and social reputation (Shi & Tang, 2019). In summary, this paper holds that agricultural enterprises are engaged in the production and service of agricultural products and related to the supply chain of agricultural products. The high-quality development of agricultural enterprises is a balanced and sufficient sustainable development model oriented by people’s livelihood, pursuing green innovation, high effectiveness efficiency, high efficiency, and high quality.

The research on the influencing factors of the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises can be roughly divided into three perspectives: natural environment, finance, and technology. From the perspective of the natural environment, compared with the secondary and tertiary industries, agriculture is more affected by the environment and climate, and is prone to unpredictable natural disasters, which may affect the output of agricultural enterprises, thus restricting the development of agricultural enterprises. From the perspective of finance, because agriculture needs a long production cycle, weak ability to resist risks and insensitive to the market (Fu & Bai, 2021), China’s agricultural enterprises are generally faced with the problem of “high input, low profit” structure imbalance (Wang et al., 2022), so agricultural enterprises, especially small and medium-sized agricultural enterprises, have high financing constraints; From the perspective of technology, agricultural enterprises are faced with difficulties such as insufficient understanding of digital transformation, weak technical foundation and insufficient talent reserve (Z. H. Wang, 2023). Digital transformation of agricultural enterprises is the only way for the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises. To sum up, the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises is mainly affected by the natural environment, the financial level and the technical level. Empirical research on how the digital economy affects the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises is still relatively lacking.

Literature Review on the Digital Economy

The term the digital economy was first proposed by Tapscott (1996), an American IT expert. Tapscott believed that the digital economy is a new type of networked economy, and the core factors of its development are multimedia, information channels and the Internet. In 2016, China proposed in the G20 the digital economy Development and Cooperation Initiative that “the digital economy refers to a series of economic activities that use digital knowledge and information as key production factors, modern information networks as important carriers, and the effective use of information and communication technology as an important driving force for efficiency improvement and economic structure optimization.” There are mainly the following viewpoints on how to evaluate the development level of the digital economy. Q. Y. Xu et al. (2018) concluded that most national government departments estimate the scale of the digital economy in a specific region by statistics, or compare the development of the digital economy among different regions based on multiple measurement indicators to evaluate the development level of the digital economy. The evaluation of the development level of the digital economy in China is roughly the same, the most important is to evaluate the development level of digital infrastructure or Internet, and then measure the output or transaction related to digital (J. Liu et al., 2020), the application of digital technology (Wan & Luo, 2022), and digital financial inclusion (T. Zhao et al., 2020). To sum up, this paper argues that the digital economy is an economic activity that takes data as the core and relies on Internet technology to promote industrial digitization and digital industrialization, so as to improve efficiency and optimize economic structure.

Research on the digital economy mainly focuses on two aspects: the driving force of the digital economy and the impact of the digital economy on the high-quality economic development. In terms of development driving force, the development driving force of the digital economy can be divided into external driving force and internal driving force. The external driving force is mainly financial support and digital infrastructure construction. The level of financial support can significantly affect the development level of the digital economy (Wang et al., 2018), and proactive fiscal policies can promote the development of the digital economy (Fan & Xu, 2020). At the level of digital infrastructure, the better the construction of digital platform is, the more sufficient the development and application of data is, the more popular the Internet technology is, and the more sufficient the impetus for the development of the digital economy is (G. Liu & Zhang, 2019). Moreover, digital technology can promote the digital transformation of traditional industries (Gong & Wang, 2019), and on this basis, the key technologies of the digital economy can be upgraded and made breakthroughs, thus promoting the development of the digital economy (Luo, 2019). In terms of the high-quality economic development, the digital economy has provided a new driving force for China’s the high-quality economic development, which not only optimizes and upgrades China’s traditional industries, but also provides a new development model for China’s agriculture, industry and service industry, and improves enterprise performance and people’s quality of life (Cao, 2018). the digital economy mainly promotes the high-quality economic development through the following aspects: first, improving innovation ability by collecting and processing information and technology; second, improving the efficiency of information communication in various regions; third, improving production efficiency to achieve the high-quality products and services; fourth, improving the level of public services (Song, 2019); fifth, improving entrepreneurial activity (Zhao et al., 2020), and the sixth is to ease financing constraints to promote economic growth (Liu et al., 2022). At the same time, the digital economy can promote the upgrading of low-level production factors through Internet technology, and improve the transaction efficiency and quality of enterprises and consumers by accelerating the flow and transmission of information and knowledge, so as to meet the requirements of improving the supply and demand system of the market (J. Wang, 2019). The digital economy not only changes people’s consumption behavior and lifestyle, but also has a huge impact on the consumer market (Yeow et al., 2017), but also impacts the traditional industrial pattern and accelerates industrial optimization and upgrading (Yoo et al., 2010). To sum up, this paper holds that the driving force of the digital economy development can be divided into external and internal driving forces. The external driving force is policy support and financial support, and the internal driving force is the need for rapid development of the digital economy to match the needs of industrial upgrading and optimization. However, the research on the impact of the digital economy on the high-quality development is still not comprehensive enough, and there is a lack of research on the impact of the digital economy on the enterprise level.

Mechanism of the Digital Economy Influencing the High-Quality Development of Agricultural Enterprises

Theoretical Basis

According to Schumpeter’s theory of innovation and endogenous growth, technological progress through research, development, and innovation activities is an endogenous factor of economic growth (Aghion & Howitt, 1992). The “creative destruction” of these R&D and innovation activities promotes technological progress, which in turn promotes endogenous economic growth (Aghion et al., 2009). The the digital economy helps to gather innovation elements and promote the high-quality development (Fan & Wu, 2022). The development of the digital economy can make production factors and production relations gradually develop to digitalization, which can reduce the search cost, copy cost, transmission cost, tracking cost, and verification cost in economic activities, and will change the paradigm of economic and social development (B. Huang et al., 2023). The digital economy may promote the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises through the following channels: first, the digital economy is conducive to the use of digital technology, accelerate the communication of information and resources, efficient use of innovative resources, stimulate green innovation, bring opportunities for enterprises to transform and upgrade (Tan et al., 2015), and boost the high-quality development of enterprises at the technical level; Second, the digital economy is conducive to improving entrepreneurial activity, and the entry of new enterprises will lead to intensified market competition, thus forcing enterprises to integrate resources and improve total factor productivity; Next, from the above perspective, this paper will analyze the mechanism of the digital economy influencing TFP to promote the high-quality development of enterprises.

Mechanism of Action

The arrival of the digital economy era brings new opportunities for the high-quality development of enterprises. The digital economy can affect the high-quality development of enterprises through the following ways: First, in terms of product R&D and production, enterprises can directly involve consumers in product R&D and design through open digital innovation platforms, so as to meet customers’ diversified needs and reduce market risks and inventory pressure (X. Z. Zhao, 2017); At the same time, with the help of advanced information technology, enterprises can upgrade and optimize the original R&D and manufacturing links, improve production efficiency, and make the production mode intelligent (Cao, 2018). In terms of enterprise innovation, the digital economy is conducive to improving the output and efficiency of enterprise innovation (K. Ren et al., 2023), and it can improve the quality of products and services by improving the innovation ability of enterprises, so as to meet the requirements of China’s industrial green development (Song, 2019). the digital economy can not only promote internal innovation of enterprises (Shen et al., 2022), but also promote cooperative innovation among enterprises (Jiang & Pan, 2022). In terms of corporate financing, the digital economy can reduce corporate financing constraints, help enterprises to better finance, and promote the high-quality development of enterprises (Sheng & Xu, 2022). In terms of the supply chain, enterprises can improve the efficiency of information communication through digital technology, thus improving the efficiency and quality of transactions between enterprises and customers in the upstream and downstream of the supply chain (J. Wang, 2019). It can be seen that the digital economy can promote the high-quality development of enterprises from five aspects: benefit growth, innovative development, green development, cooperation and openness, and social sharing.

From the perspective of green innovation, the digital economy can use digital technology to promote green innovation, so as to promote the high-quality development of enterprises. With the advent of the digital era, the digital economy enables all fields of social life and production, opening up a new development path for innovation activities (Zhang, 2019). The development of the digital economy has significantly improved the frequency and rate of innovation, optimized and reformed the production link, and enhanced industrial production efficiency, so as to achieve low-energy and high-efficiency technological innovation (Kohli et al., 2019). Wei et al. (2022) found that the digital economy can promote green innovation by promoting economic aggregation and improving the financing environment, which plays a more significant role in promoting green innovation in small and medium-sized cities. Meanwhile, low emissions and high output brought by green innovation can promote the high-quality economic development. At the micro level, the digital economy helps enterprises to use digital technology, accelerate the communication of information and resources, make efficient use of innovative resources, and stimulate green innovation (Lyytinen et al., 2016); From the macro level, the digital economy can improve regional information infrastructure, provide good innovation mitigation, and then form a regional innovation ecosystem (X. L. Xu & Hou, 2022). Innovation is the engine for enterprises to achieve high-quality development. Green technology innovation negatively affects enterprise performance in the short term and positively affects enterprise performance in the long term. The former has a certain lag on the latter (Jia & Zhang, 2023), and the integration of industry and finance and environmental regulation plays a negative role in the relationship between the two. Government subsidies have a positive moderating effect (Zhao et al., 2022). Specifically, enterprises’ green innovation in technical solutions, product design, and technological processes can improve economic and environmental benefits to achieve the high-quality development of enterprises (D. Y. Li et al., 2018), so green innovation is an inevitable choice to achieve the high-quality development. At the same time, the green absorption capacity plays a great role in green innovation, and the digital economy is conducive to the improvement of enterprises’ green absorption capacity (Y. Du & Wang, 2022). Enterprises can use the digital economy to carry out green innovation, improve the total factor productivity of enterprises, and then achieve the high-quality development of enterprises (W. X. Cheng & Qian, 2021), in which green innovation plays an intermediary role. In summary, this paper further proposes that green innovation plays an intermediary role between the digital economy and the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises.

From the perspective of entrepreneurial activity, the digital economy can promote the high-quality development of enterprises by improving entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial activity is closely related to the entrepreneurial environment (Stenholm et al., 2013), the advent of the digital economy has significantly lowered the threshold for people to start a business and increased their enthusiasm for entrepreneurship. the digital economy can broaden information channels, enhance social interaction, and improve people’s ability to identify entrepreneurial opportunities (Zhou & Fan, 2018). The popularization of digital technology accelerates the flow of information between supply and demand, optimizes and accelerates the matching and transaction of products (T. Zhao et al., 2020), and reduces market risks. Moreover, the digital economy can have an impact on entrepreneurial activity through its economic characteristics such as economies of scale, penetration effect, and cost reduction effect (Z. Li & He, 2021). The improvement of the objective entrepreneurial environment brought about by the digital economy and the reduction of entrepreneurial costs and transaction costs have significantly increased entrepreneurial activity. With the improvement of entrepreneurial activity, enterprises are facing increasing competitive pressure, and new and old enterprises have to take a series of measures to promote the high-quality development of enterprises. In terms of products and services, enterprises will continue to innovate to meet the new needs of consumers, while also innovating in product production technology to meet the concept of green development; In terms of governance structure, enterprises optimize resource allocation and continuously improve corporate governance structure to improve efficiency (Lyu et al., 2022). In this process, the industrial structure is also optimized and upgraded (X. T. Chen et al., 2021). The digital economy can improve enterprise innovation performance by increasing R&D investment and upgrading human capital (Jiang & Pan, 2022). Some scholars also pointed out that entrepreneurial activity can not only mediate the relationship between the digital economy and the high-quality economic development (T. Zhao et al., 2020), but also the relationship between digital finance and the integrated development of rural industries (W. F. Meng & Ren, 2023). It can be seen that the digital economy does not have a simple direct impact on the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, but has a more complex impact mechanism. In conclusion, this paper believes that entrepreneurial activity plays an intermediary role between the digital economy and the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises.

Based on the above analysis, this paper proposes the core research hypothesis: the digital economy can positively affect the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, and green innovation and entrepreneurial activity play an intermediary role between the two, the research framework is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Research framework.

Empirical Research Design

Model Construction

This paper focuses on exploring the impact of the digital economy on the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, so referring to the method of T. Zhao et al. (2020), the following baseline model is established for testing:

$Hqde a_{i, t} = α_{0} + α_{1} Dig e_{i, t} + α_{2} Z_{i, t} + μ_{r} + δ_{t} + ε_{i, t}$ (1)

In Model (1), i represents the enterprise, t represents the year, r represents the industry type of the enterprise, Hqdea_i,t represents the high-quality development level of agricultural enterprise i in year t, Dige_i,t represents the digital economy index of the region where agricultural enterprise i is located in year t, Z_i,t represents a series of control variables, μ_r represents the industry fixed effect is controlled, δ_t represents the time fixed effect is controlled; ε_i,t represents the random disturbance term.

Variable Measurement and Description

Measurement of the High-Quality Development Level of Agricultural Enterprises

Most of the existing research measures the high-quality development of enterprises from the five aspects of innovation, coordination, green, openness, and sharing. Considering the availability and objectivity of data, this paper decides to adopt the research method of Yan et al. (2023) to measure the high-quality development level of enterprises by the total factor productivity (TFP) of enterprises. Total factor productivity (TFP) reflects the maximum output that an enterprise can achieve under the given factor input. This paper collects second-hand data through the Mark Data Network, obtains the operating income (Y), net fixed assets (K), number of employees (L), and total operating cost (M) of listed companies, calculates the total factor productivity of enterprises through formula (2), and measures the high-quality development level of agricultural enterprises, which is recorded as Hqdae, where λ is the regression coefficient of Y to K, L, and M.

$\begin{matrix} Hqde a_{i, t} = \ln (Y_{i, t} / 10000 + 1) - λ_{1} l n^{2} (K_{i, t} / 10000 + 1) \\ - λ_{2} l n^{2} (L_{i, t} + 1) \end{matrix}$ (2)

Measurement of the Digital Economy Development Level

This paper will refer to the research method of Zhao et al. (2020) and Wei et al. (2022) to measure the development level of the digital economy from the aspect of the Internet, that is, the number of Internet broadband access users per 100 people, the proportion of computer software and software industry employees in urban units, the total amount of telco services per capital, the number of mobile phone users per 100 people, and the number of Internet broadband access users per 100 people. The four indicators are standardized, and the development index of the digital economy is obtained by principal component analysis, which is expressed as Dige. The data of the above indicators can be obtained from the China City Statistical Yearbook and the Research Center for Digital Finance of Peking University.

Measurement of Green Innovation

Some scholars measure the level of corporate green innovation from the perspectives of green process innovation and green product innovation (Xie & Zhu, 2021), while others measure the level of urban green innovation from the perspectives of green patents, green inventions, government research expenditures, and the number of people serving science and technology (Gong et al., 2022). Referring to the practice of Dong and Wang (2019), this paper uses the output of green patents per capital to measure the level of regional green innovation and add 1 for logarithmization, and uses green to represent green innovation. The data were collected from the website of the State Intellectual Property Office.

Measurement of Entrepreneurial Activity

Y. Z. Du et al. (2020) measured entrepreneurial activity in a region by the number of new businesses per million people. Mao and Lu (2020) measured entrepreneurial activity in the region by the number of new enterprises, foreign investment attracted, venture capital attracted, patent grants, and trademark registrations. Referring to the research of Qian et al. (2020), this paper uses the ratio of the number of employees in urban individuals and private enterprises to the total number of employees to measure it. The data are obtained from the Enterprise Big Data Research Center of Peking University, and the Entrepa is used to represent the entrepreneurial activity.

Measurement of Control Variables

Because urbanization degree, economic development degree, human capital level, and fiscal science and technology expenditure intensity may all interfere with the model, the above variables are selected as control variables. The degree of urbanization (City) is represented by the logarithm of permanent resident population, the degree of Economic Development (Economic) is represented by the logarithm of per capital GDP, the ratio of the number of college students to the permanent resident population is represented by Human capital (Human), and the intensity of fiscal expenditure on Science and Technology (Science) is represented by the proportion of government financial expenditure on science and education in GDP. The above data can be obtained from China City Statistical Yearbook.

Data Sources and Descriptive Statistics

This paper obtains the basic information of listed companies through the CSMAR database, selects 70 agricultural enterprises, and obtains the total factor productivity of these 70 agricultural enterprises from 2011 to 2019 through the Mark data network. The data of the digital economy index and digital financial inclusion index are from China City Statistical Yearbook and the Digital Finance Research Center of Peking University. The data of entrepreneurial activity are from Enterprise Big Data Research Center of Peking University. In terms of data processing, this paper uses regression equation, linear interpolation and so on to fill the vacancy value, and finally collects 465 valid data. The descriptive statistics of the variables are shown in Table 1. The minimum value of the enterprise’s the high-quality development level is 1.043, the maximum value is 5.449, and the standard deviation is 0.732, indicating that there are great differences in the level of the high-quality development among different enterprises. The mean value of the digital economy index obtained by principal component analysis is approximately 0, with a large standard deviation of 1.518, a maximum value of 8.646, and a minimum value of −1.621, indicating that there are significant differences in the level of the digital economy development in different regions. In addition, there are significant differences in entrepreneurial activity, green innovation, urbanization, human capital level, economic development level, and fiscal science and technology expenditure intensity in different regions.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics of Variables.

Variable	N	Mean	Sd	Min	Max
Hqdae	465	3.371	.732	1.043	5.449
Dige	465	−8.00e-08	1.518	−1.621	8.646
Green	465	1.267	1.092	.095	2.951
Entrepa	465	.193	.115	.0263	.673
City	465	6.352	.578	4.654	7.413
Human	465	.0393	.0299	.003	.128
Economic	465	11.08	.458	9.786	12.21
Science	465	.0277	.00950	.0130	.101

Empirical Results and Analysis

Results of the Baseline Regression

The regression results of the impact of the digital economy on the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises are shown in Table 2. Column (1) is the univariate regression results of fixed year and industry, Column (2) and Column (3) are the regression results of fixed year and fixed industry with control variables added respectively, and column (4) is the regression results of fixed year and fixed industry with control variables added. The results show that the regression coefficients between the core explanatory variable Dige and the explained variable Hqdea are significantly positive at the level of 1%, indicating that the digital economy can promote the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, and the results are consistent with the theoretical analysis mentioned above. This paper holds that the digital economy can provide advanced information technology for agricultural enterprises, improve the efficiency of information communication, help different enterprises to cooperate, and help enterprises to use digital technology for innovation, so as to promote the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises.

Table 2.

Baseline Regression.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
Variable	Hqdae	Hqdae	Hqdae	Hqdae
Dige	.0464***(.0161)	.120***(.0237)	.0631***(.0213)	.0932***(.0245)
City		.363***(.0652)	.287***(.0706)	.290***(.0710)
Human		1.937*(1.032)	2.719**(1.109)	2.966***(1.089)
Economic		−.488***(.137)	−.296***(.104)	−.510***(.132)
Science_		−14.69***(5.081)	−2.903(4.809)	−10.24*(5.292)
cons	3.146***(.120)	6.660***(1.519)	4.501***(1.187)	6.942***(1.442)
Fixed effect of year	YES	YES	NO	YES
Fixed effect of industry	YES	NO	YES	YES
N	465	465	465	465
R ²	.185	.131	.234	.258

p < .1. **p < .05. ***p < .01.

Mediating Mechanism Test

The above basic regression shows that the digital economy can promote the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises. The theoretical part analyzes the impact of the digital economy on green innovation and entrepreneurial activity, and holds that green innovation and entrepreneurial activity can mediate the relationship between the digital economy and the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises. In order to verify the correctness of the transmission mechanism, this paper draws on the relevant research of Wen and Ye (2014), and constructs the mediation effect model, as shown in model (3) and model (4). Mediator represents mediating variables, which include green in and enterprise innovation and entrepreneurial activity. This paper mainly focuses on α₁, β₁, γ₁, and γ₂, if α₁, β₁, γ₁, and γ₂ are all significant, it means that Mediator plays the mediating role in the influence of the digital economy on the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, and the regression results are shown in Table 3.

Table 3.

Mediating Effect Test.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)
Variable	Hqdae	Green	Hqdae	Entrepa	Hqdae
Dige	0.0932***(0.0245)	0.104***(0.0213)	0.0647***(0.0228)	0.0331***(0.00423)	0.154***(0.0254)
Green			0.109***(0.0578)
Entrepa					−1.831***(0.348)
Controls	YES	YES	YES	YES	YES
Fixed effect of year	YES	YES	YES	YES	YES
Fixed effect of industry	YES	YES	YES	YES	YES
Sobel test			Z = 2.309**		Z = −2.792***
N	465	465	465	465	465
R ²	.258	.757	.311	.464	.301

p < .05. ***p < .01.

$Mediato r_{i, t} = β_{0} + β_{1} Dig e_{i, t} + β_{2} Z_{i, t} + μ_{r} + δ_{t} + ε_{i, t}$ (3)

$Hqde a_{i, t} = γ_{0} + γ_{1} Dig e_{i, t} + γ_{2} Mediato r_{i, t} + γ_{3} Z_{i, t} + μ_{r} + δ_{t} + ε_{i, t}$ (4)

The test of green innovation. The regression coefficient of the digital economy in Column (2) of Table 3 is 0.104, which passes the 1% significance level test, indicating that the digital economy has a positive impact on green innovation; Column (3) of Table 3 reports the joint effect results of the digital economy and green innovation on the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises. The regression coefficients of the digital economy and green innovation are significantly positive at the level of 1%, respectively. In addition, the regression coefficient of the digital economy in Model 3 is slightly lower than that in Model 1 without mediating variables, and it passes the Sobel test with a Z value of 2.309 and is significant at the level of 1%, indicates that there is a mediating effect. According to the above results, the digital economy has a promoting effect on green innovation, which is conducive to the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, and green innovation plays an intermediary role.

The test of entrepreneurial activity. In Column (4) of Table 3, the regression coefficient of the digital economy is 0.0331, which is significantly positive at the level of 1%, indicating that there is a positive correlation between the digital economy and entrepreneurial activity; Column (5) of Table 3 shows the joint effect of the digital economy and entrepreneurial activity on the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises. The regression coefficient of the digital economy is significantly positive at the level of 1%, but the entrepreneurial activity is significantly negative at the level of 1%. The above results show that there is a masking effect of entrepreneurial activity, that is, the digital economy does improve entrepreneurial activity, but the increase in entrepreneurial activity does not have a positive impact on the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises. The possible reasons for this result are as follows: Most new start-ups are non-agricultural enterprises, which cannot inject new vitality into agricultural enterprises and occupy certain resources. Therefore, the improvement of entrepreneurial activity has a negative impact on the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises. However, the negative impact of the digital economy on the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises is smaller than the positive impact of other paths.

Robustness Test

Endogenous Treatment

Considering the endogenous problem caused by missing variables and measurement errors, this paper decides to refer to the method of Q. H. Huang et al. (2019) and T. Zhao et al. (2020), and uses the number of telephones per 100 people in each prefecture-level city in 1984 multiplied by the number of Internet ports in China in the previous year to construct the interaction term, which is used as the instrumental variable of the core explanatory variable Dige. The regression results of the instrumental regression method are shown in Column (1) of Table 4. The results show that the regression coefficient between the digital economy and the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises is 0.300, which is significantly positive at the level of 1%.

Table 4.

Endogenous Treatment.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)
Variable	Hqdae	Hqdae	Hqdae	HqdaeF1	HqdaeF2
Dige	0.300***(0.0773)			0.0912***(0.0258)	0.0968***(0.0279)
DigeL1		0.0956***(0.0265)
DigeL2			0.101***(0.0309)
Controls	YES	YES	YES	YES	YES
Fixed effect of year	YES	YES	YES	YES	YES
Fixed effect of industry	YES	YES	YES	YES	YES
N	452	394	330	394	330
R ²	0.210	0.273	0.281	0.272	0.285

***

p < .01.

In order to alleviate the endogenous problem caused by mutual causality, the core explanatory variable Dige is lagged by one period and two periods, and the explained variable Hqdea is advanced by one period and two periods respectively. The regression results are shown in columns (2) to (5) of Table 4. The results show that the regression coefficients of Dige are significantly positive at the level of 1%.

In summary, after eliminating the possible endogenous problems, the conclusion that there is a positive correlation between the digital economy and the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises is still valid, which further proves the robustness of the model.

Replacement of Explanatory Variables

In order to further test the robustness of the research conclusions, this paper refers to the measurement method of the development level of the digital economy by T. Zhao et al. (2020), incorporates the digital financial inclusion index into the original index system, calculates the digital economic development index Dige1 and Dige2 by entropy method and principal component analysis method respectively, and replaces the explanatory variables for regression. The regression results are shown in Column (1) and column (2) of Table 5, and the regression coefficients are 1.048 and 2.470 respectively, which are significant at the level of 1%.

Table 5.

Robustness Test.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
Variable	Hqdae	Hqdae	Hqdae1	Hqdae2
Dige1	1.048***(0.286)
Dige2		2.470***(0.631)
Dige			0.109***(0.0274)	0.142***(0.0334)
Controls	YES	YES	YES	YES
Fixed effect of year	YES	YES	YES	YES
Fixed effect of industry	YES	YES	YES	YES
N	465	465	465	465
R ²	0.259	0.262	0.243	0.210

***

p < .01.

Replace the Explained Variable

The total factor productivity of enterprises used in this paper to measure the high-quality development level of enterprises is obtained by using the generalized method of moments proposed by Bludell and Bond (1998). In this paper, the method of Olley and Pakes (1996) (OP method) and the method of Levinsohn-Petrin (2003) (LP method) will be used to recalculate the total factor productivity of enterprises, and Hqdae1 and Hqdea2 will be obtained. The regression results are shown in Column (3) and column (4) of Table 5, and the regression coefficients are .109 and .142 respectively, which are significant at the level of 1%.

To sum up, after replacing explanatory variables and explained variables respectively, the regression results are still significantly positive correlated, which once again verifies that there is a significant positive correlation between the digital economy and the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises.

Heterogeneity Analysis

Geographic Location

As agricultural enterprises are easily affected by climate and geographical environment, and there are obvious differences in climate and geographical environment between the north and the south of China, and there are certain differences in the economic development level of cities in the north and the south, therefore, the impact of the digital economy on the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises may have regional heterogeneity, and it is necessary to conduct heterogeneity analysis. According to the geographical location of agricultural enterprises, this paper divides agricultural enterprises into two groups: south and north, with the first line of Qinling Mountains and Huaihe River as the dividing line, and conducts regression respectively. As shown in Table 6, the role of the digital economy in promoting the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises in the southern region is not significant, while in the northern region, the role is significant at the level of 1%. The reasons for this result may lie in the following points: First, there are many plains in northern China, the Northeast Plain and the North China Plain are two major grain-producing areas, and the cultivated land area is large, which is suitable for large-scale instrument agriculture. Enterprises can greatly improve the total factor productivity of enterprises by applying digital technology to production and processing processes through the digital economy ; Second, the southern region focuses on the development of secondary and tertiary industries, and agriculture accounts for relatively little, so the impact of the digital economy is not significant; Third, compared with the southern region, the digital economy in the north started late and developed slowly, but this technology and information spillover effect reduced research and development costs, more accurately controlled industry risks, and provided new momentum for the improvement of total factor productivity of agricultural enterprises in the north.

Table 6.

Heterogeneity Analysis 1.

	South	North	Resource	Non-resource
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
Variable	Hqdae	Hqdae	Hqdae	Hqdae
Dige	0.0295(0.0270)	0.237***(0.0807)	−0.132(0.0950)	0.146***(0.0350)
City	0.386***(0.0888)	−0.175*(0.105)	−0.0160(0.0669)	0.520***(0.100)
Human	2.449*(1.247)	4.267*(2.340)	3.480*(1.976)	4.063***(1.542)
Economic	−0.231(0.153)	−1.781***(0.319)	−0.0419(0.157)	−0.957***(0.186)
Science_	1.433(6.702)	−39.68***(6.537)	−3.907(7.149)	−21.84**(9.187)
cons	3.421**(1.585)	23.85***(3.738)	3.468*(1.785)	11.10***(2.249)
Fixed effect of year	YES	YES	YES	YES
Fixed effect of industry	YES	YES	YES	YES
N	311	154	221	244
R ²	0.223	0.385	0.111	0.228

p < .1. **p < .05. ***p < .01.

Resource Intensity

Agricultural enterprises are production and operation units mainly engaged in agriculture and involved in the production, processing, sales and other links of agricultural products (Zhang et al., 2022). Agricultural enterprises mainly engaged in planting and those mainly engaged in processing and sales need very different resources and technologies, and their demands for digital technologies are different. Therefore, the digital economy may have heterogeneity in the degree of resource intensity for the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises with different main businesses. According to the standards stipulated in the Industrial Classification of National Economy, this paper divides the agricultural enterprises that belong to Class A (mainly planting and breeding) into resource-intensive enterprises, and divides the agricultural enterprises that do not belong to Class A (processing, retail, etc.) into non-resource-intensive enterprises, and conducts regression respectively. As shown in Columns (3) and (4) of the following table, the regression coefficient of the digital economy on the high-quality development of resource-intensive agricultural enterprises is negative and insignificant, while it has a significantly positive promotion effect on non-resource-intensive agricultural enterprises. The reason for this result may be that resource-intensive agricultural enterprises need less digital technology and capital and are less affected by the development of the digital economy, while non-resource-intensive agricultural enterprises’ production process is more related to digital technology and have greater demand for technology and capital. Therefore, the development of the digital economy can significantly promote the high-quality development of these agricultural enterprises.

Degree of Optimization of Regional Industrial Structure

The upgrading of industrial structure refers to the evolution process of industrial structure from agriculture to industrialization and then to service and information. The proportion of value-added of tertiary industry in GDP is usually used to measure the degree of industrial structure upgrading. The degree of industrial structure upgrading may affect the relationship between the digital economy and the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises in the following aspects. Firstly, the optimization of industrial structures can better lead the development direction of green innovation (Wang et al., 2022). Regional efficient green innovation can provide new technologies for enterprises and enable enterprises to achieve the effect of low emissions and high output, which is conducive to the digital economy to improve the total factor productivity of enterprises by promoting green innovation; Secondly, the higher the level of industrial structure is, the higher the balance of knowledge and capital intensity is, and the more significant the role of the digital economy is. Referring to the existing literature (Zhou & Chen, 2021), this paper distinguishes the degree of the optimization of the industrial structure according to the median ratio of the tertiary industry’s added value to GDP, and conducts a group test. As shown in Columns (1) and (2) of Table 7, the positive correlation between the digital economy and the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises is more significant in the regions with a high degree of industrial structure optimization. The results show that when the degree of industrial structure is higher, the digital economy can more effectively promote the high quality of agricultural enterprises, which is consistent with the theoretical speculation above.

Table 7.

Heterogeneity Analysis 2.

	Low industrial	High industrial	Low financial	High financial
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
Variable	Hqdae	Hqdae	Hqdae	Hqdae
Dige	−0.111(0.121)	0.0742*(0.0442)	−0.00190(0.126)	0.0775***(0.0241)
City	0.0909(0.0970)	0.346***(0.110)	−0.0310(0.107)	0.409***(0.130)
Human	6.486***(1.451)	3.283*(1.941)	12.88***(3.361)	5.738***(1.612)
Economic	−0.455**(0.199)	−0.280(0.259)	−1.418***(0.208)	0.0759(0.205)
Science_	13.48*(7.887)	−12.39**(4.885)	−28.62***(6.947)	−11.04(9.528)
_cons	7.303***(2.435)	4.008(2.482)	18.46***(2.546)	−0.144(2.045)
Fixed effect of year	YES	YES	YES	YES
Fixed effect of industry	YES	YES	YES	YES
N	233	232	233	232
R ²	0.340	0.321	0.393	0.323

p < .1. **p < .05. ***p < .01.

Regional Financial Development Level

the digital economy brings a lot of innovation opportunities for enterprises, but enterprises need funds to carry out innovation, and they must solve the capital needs in digital innovation activities by financing from the financial market. Therefore, the higher the level of financial development in the region where the enterprise is located, the lower the cost of obtaining funds for the enterprise, which is conducive to the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises promoted by the digital economy. Referring to the practice of Li and Zhang (2022), this paper uses the ratio of the balance of loans to GDP at the end of each city to measure the level of traditional financial development in the region, and divides the sample enterprises into the group with high level of traditional financial development and the group with low level of traditional financial development based on the median of this index, and then conducts regression by group. The results of columns (3) and (4) of Table 7 show that the role of the digital economy in promoting the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises is more significant in the regions with high level of financial development, which supports the theoretical analysis of this paper.

Discussion and Conclusion

Conclusions of the Study

The era of the digital economy brings new impetus and opportunities for the high-quality development of enterprises. Based on the relevant literature on the digital economy and high quality of enterprises, this article analyzes that the digital economy can promote high-quality development of agricultural enterprises by promoting green innovation. Taking the listed agricultural enterprises in China from 2011 to 2019 as the research sample, this paper explores the impact of the digital economy on the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, as well as its mechanism and heterogeneous influencing factors.

The results show that: first, the digital economy can promote the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, green innovation plays a mediating role between the two, and entrepreneurial activity plays a masking effect in this process, that is, the negative impact of the digital economy on the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises through the influence of entrepreneurial activity is smaller than the positive impact of other paths; Secondly, from the perspective of geographical location, due to the differences in geographical environment, the digital economy development process and industrial structure between the north and the south of China, the positive impact of the digital economy on the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises is more significant in the northern region. From the perspective of resource intensity, the lower the resource intensity of enterprises is, the more conducive the digital economy is to the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises. In addition, the higher the level of industrial structure and financial development in a region is, the more significant the role of the digital economy in promoting the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises is. This paper explores the relationship and action path between the digital economy and the high-quality development of enterprises, enriches the research on the relationship between the digital economy and the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, and proves that the digital economy is the key factor driving the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises.

Implications for the Literature

Under the background of the digital economy era, China’s economy has entered a stage of the high-quality development, enterprises as the micro subject of China’s economic system, play a huge role in promoting the high-quality economic development, the relationship between the digital economy and the high-quality development of enterprises has attracted the attention of scholars, but relevant research is still not comprehensive enough. The theoretical contributions of this paper are mainly as follows:

First, most of the existing research focuses on the impact of the digital economy on the high-quality development of manufacturing enterprises, and less attention is paid to the impact on agricultural enterprises, and this paper explores the interrelationship and role path between the digital economy and the high-quality development of enterprises, and enriches the research on the relationship between the digital economy and the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises. At the same time, it provides insights for scholars to explore how the digital economy can have an impact on the high-quality development of enterprises in other industries.

Second, this paper reveals the mediating role of green innovation between the digital economy and the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, the concealing effect of entrepreneurial activity. It is believed that the digital economy can increase entrepreneurial activity, and the improvement of entrepreneurial activity is conducive to the efficiency of enterprises, but entrepreneurial activity has a concealing effect between the digital economy and the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, the digital economy, by increasing entrepreneurial activity, will actually have a negative impact on the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, which is inconsistent with previous research findings, which provides new perspectives for relevant researchers.

Implications for the Field of Practice

First, we need to strengthen the construction of digital economic infrastructure and accelerate the digital transformation of industries. The report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to “accelerate the development of the digital economy, promote the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy, and build digital industrial clusters with international competitiveness.” According to the research in this paper, the digital economy has significantly promoted the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises. First of all, the government should increase Internet investment in areas with relatively backward the digital economy development to improve the level of the digital economy development. At the same time, rural areas are closely related to agricultural enterprises, so the government should improve rural digital infrastructure and build digital villages. Secondly, the digital economy plays a more significant role in promoting non-resource-intensive enterprises. The government should encourage enterprises to transform to the direction of knowledge and technology intensive and accelerate the digital transformation of industries.

Second, we should optimize the business environment of the digital economy and promote digital industrialization with high quality. The 14th Five-Year Plan calls for “accelerating digital development and building a digital China.” This study reveals the impact of regional industrial structure optimization and financial development level on the relationship between the digital economy and the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, and provides theoretical support for government departments to formulate relevant policies. Government departments should optimize the business environment of the digital economy, improve the level of financial development, and provide sufficient resources for the development of the digital economy and the improvement of total factor productivity of enterprises. At the same time, we should promote digital industrialization, upgrade the industrial structure, optimize and rationalize the industrial structure, so as to better play the enabling role of the digital economy, and further boost the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises.

Third, the concept of green development should be used to drive the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, and the policy guidance of green innovation should be strengthened. Green development is an important part of the new development concept. The report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that “promoting green and low-carbon economic and social development is a key link to achieve the high-quality development”. This study reveals the specific mechanism of the digital economy affecting the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, examines the intermediary role of green innovation in it, and provides theoretical guidance for the digital economy to promote the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises. The government should introduce relevant policies to guide, encourage and support enterprises to carry out green innovation, and at the same time, improve the protection of green innovation achievements and pay attention to innovation talents, so as to improve the innovation enthusiasm of enterprises and individuals. Enterprises should establish and improve an effective incentive mechanism to encourage employees to innovate and cultivate an innovative organizational culture, so that agricultural enterprises can achieve the high-quality development through green innovation.

Limitations and Future Research

First, the use of total factor productivity to measure the high-quality development level of agricultural enterprises is not accurate and comprehensive, and total factor productivity focuses more on measuring the efficiency growth of enterprises, and does not evaluate the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises from other dimensions. Future research can measure the high-quality development of enterprises from the five dimensions of benefit growth, innovative development, green development, cooperative development and social sharing, so as to better measure the high-quality development level of enterprises

Second, this paper is more limited in sample selection, this paper only studies listed agricultural enterprises, and the lack of research on unlisted agricultural enterprises makes the sample not universal, which may lead to inaccurate experimental results. Further research on unlisted agricultural enterprises could be conducted in the future to obtain more accurate conclusions.

Third, this paper only analyzes the role of green innovation and entrepreneurial activity between the digital economy and the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises, and future research can explore the roles of financing constraints and human capital in the digital economy and the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises.

Fourth, considering the impact of Covid-19, this paper only collects data from 2011 to 2019, resulting in insufficient data, and the impact of the digital economy on the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises during the new crown pneumonia epidemic period can be explored in the future.

Fifth, the paper fails to clearly explain how the digital economy significantly affects non-resource-intensive firms located in the southern region, where the industrial structure of the cities is advanced and the financial development is low. Future studies could collect more sample data for further research to clarify the controversial results.

Footnotes

The authors would like to acknowledge the scholars who have proposed valuable modifications to the content of this study.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,authorship,and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research,authorship,and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by Science and Technology Development Plan of Jilin Province: “Research on the Effect,mechanism and Policy of Green Innovation in Manufacturing Enterprises driven by digitalization in Jilin Province,” grant number: 20230601040FG. This research was funded by Philosophy and Social Science Research Project of Jilin University: “The influence research of enterprise network structure on income distribution,” grant number: 2018QY036. This research was funded by the Jilin Philosophy and Social Science Think Tank Fund Project “Research on Fostering New Quality Productivity in Jilin Province,” grant number: 2023JLSKZKZB102.

Ethical Approval

This study does not involve ethical statements.

ORCID iDs

Lina Ma

Tianci Wang

Data Availability Statement

All data can be obtained from Mark Data Network. The website link is as follows:

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The Impact of Digital Economy on the High Quality Development of Agricultural Enterprises: Evidence From Listed Agricultural Enterprises in China

Abstract

Plain language summary

Keywords

Introduction

Literature Review and Theoretical Analysis

Literature Review on the High-Quality Development of Agricultural Enterprises

Literature Review on the Digital Economy

Mechanism of the Digital Economy Influencing the High-Quality Development of Agricultural Enterprises

Theoretical Basis

Mechanism of Action

Empirical Research Design

Model Construction

Variable Measurement and Description

Measurement of the High-Quality Development Level of Agricultural Enterprises

Measurement of the Digital Economy Development Level

Measurement of Green Innovation

Measurement of Entrepreneurial Activity

Measurement of Control Variables

Data Sources and Descriptive Statistics

Empirical Results and Analysis

Results of the Baseline Regression

Mediating Mechanism Test

Robustness Test

Endogenous Treatment

Replacement of Explanatory Variables

Replace the Explained Variable

Heterogeneity Analysis

Geographic Location

Resource Intensity

Degree of Optimization of Regional Industrial Structure

Regional Financial Development Level

Discussion and Conclusion

Conclusions of the Study

Implications for the Literature

Implications for the Field of Practice

Limitations and Future Research

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

Ethical Approval

ORCID iDs

Data Availability Statement

References