Panel study demonstrates increased total factor productivity with artificial intelligence in enterprise firms, indicating corporate innovation and younger leadership drive efficiency gains.
Key Points
To determine whether, how, and under what organizational conditions artificial intelligence technologies improve enterprise total factor productivity.
Analyzed longitudinal panel data comprising 40,960 observations from 4,395 listed Chinese enterprises between 2003 and 2022.
Employed econometric modeling alongside a Random Forest machine learning framework to evaluate relationships, identify trends, and compare actual versus predicted productivity values.
Tested corporate innovation capabilities as a mediator and top management team age composition as a moderator of the productivity relationship.
Each additional unit increase in artificial intelligence technology corresponds to a 0.046-unit increase in enterprise total factor productivity.
Corporate innovation capabilities mediate the relationship between artificial intelligence and productivity, accounting for 22.176% of the total effect.
The presence of younger members within the top management team positively moderates the beneficial impact of artificial intelligence on enterprise total factor productivity.