Digital transformation (DT) is a pivotal driver in enhancing the transfer of scientific, knowledge, and technological achievements (STAT), thereby fostering the growth of knowledge-based productive forces. While digitalization represents a complex, multi-dimensional process, the mechanisms facilitating its impact on STAT remain underexplored in the context of innovation systems. Using a panel data set of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2001–2023, this study analyzes this relationship and investigates its operational pathways. The results reveal that DT substantially accelerates STAT, with consistent and stable outcomes that are robust to rigorous evaluation through the Heckman two-stage procedure and instrumental variable estimations. Mechanistically, this research reveals that DT facilitates the STAT process by augmenting patent portfolio quality, refining resource allocation efficiency, promoting the platform ecosystem embedding effect, and enhancing dynamic capabilities—four channels that reflect its role in strengthening knowledge absorption and innovation governance. The analysis of heterogeneous treatment effects demonstrates systematically more potent impacts in enterprises with streamlined cost structures, higher growth potential, intensified industrial competition, and state-owned ownership structures. Enterprises operating in environments with strong financial regulation and high market competition show a more pronounced role of DT in promoting STAT. These findings advance the theoretical and empirical scholarship on digital innovation and knowledge transformation while informing enterprise strategies that leverage digital capabilities to scale innovation commercialization.
Liu et al. (Fri,) studied this question.