Cross-Owner and Corporate Digital Technology Innovation

In the context of the rapid development of the digital economy, corporate digital technology innovation has become a key driver for promoting high-quality economic development. We base our study on the data of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2023 and empirically examine the impact of cross-owners on corporate digital technology innovation and its mechanism of action. We find that cross-owners have a significant positive effect on corporate digital technology innovation, and this conclusion remains robust after a series of robustness tests, such as the instrumental variable method and propensity score matching. Our heterogeneity analysis indicates that the positive effect of cross-owners is more pronounced in companies with a lower proportion of institutional ownership, higher audit quality, and a higher degree of separation of ownership and control. Mechanism analysis reveals that cross-owners mainly enhance the digital technology innovation capability of corporates through two pathways: improving internal control quality and curbing earnings management. Our findings are consistent with the theoretical logic that cross-owners optimize the allocation of innovation resources and mitigate agency problems through collaborative governance mechanisms. This study provides new evidence for understanding the governance effects of cross-owners and has important implications for improving corporate innovation governance mechanisms.