Research on the impact of digital transformation and innovation efficiency of enterprises: evidence from Chinese A-share listed manufacturing enterprises

Drawing on resource orchestration theory, this study examines how digital transformation affects innovation efficiency and how this relationship varies across organisational and institutional conditions. Using panel data from 3,081 Chinese A-share listed manufacturing firms from 2008 to 2022, we find an inverted U-shaped relationship between digital transformation and innovation efficiency. This pattern suggests that digital resource accumulation enhances innovation efficiency when firms can effectively integrate and deploy digital resources, but its marginal benefits decline when resource acquisition outpaces firms’ bundling and leveraging capabilities. High-skilled talent is positively associated with innovation efficiency but does not significantly moderate the nonlinear relationship, and state ownership attenuates the nonlinear pattern observed among privately controlled firms. These findings shift attention from the amount of digital resources firms possess to the alignment between resource acquisition, integration, and deployment, and providing a more contingent explanation of how digital transformation creates innovation value in manufacturing firms.