Can ICT investment promote collaborative innovation? New evidence from enterprises listed on China’s GEM

The fourth technological revolution is promoting the continuous breakthrough of information and communication technology (ICT) and its wide application in various industries. ICT investment has become an important factor affecting corporate collaborative innovation. This study empirically investigates the impact of ICT investment on corporate co-innovation from a dynamic capabilities perspective, using data from Chinese A-share Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) listed companies from 2009 to 2022. The results show that ICT investment can significantly promote collaborative corporate innovation. Mechanism analysis shows that such investment promotes collaborative innovation by improving the absorptive, integrative, and transformational capacities of a firm’s dynamic capabilities. Heterogeneity analysis shows that such investment can significantly promote collaborative innovation only under conditions of higher R&D breadth, weaker risk-taking ability, a better technological environment of cooperation, or higher economic policy uncertainty. This is an early study on the impact of ICT investment on collaborative innovation using listed firms’ panel data and further tests the economic mechanism of dynamic capabilities. This study suggests that emerging market countries should play a leading role in ICT investment to help firms enhance their co-innovation.