Does judicial informatization affect firms’ digital innovation intention during the COVID-19 pandemic?

ABSTRACT

Using firm-level data in China from 2020 to 2021, this study uses text analysis and machine learning methods to construct an index of corporate digital innovation and examines the connection between judicial informatization and firms’ digital innovation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our estimation finds that judicial informatization contributes to increasing firms’ digital innovation, especially in the high-tech industry. The results remain unchanged under a series of robustness tests. These findings extend the existing research on the impact of judicial informatization and the determinants of firms’ digital innovation, providing reference for firm executives and policy makers.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• judicial informatization
• digital innovation
• China

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• K30
• O34
• O39

Acknowledgements

We appreciate the financial supports from the Humanities and Social Sciences Planning Project of the Ministry of Education, China (Grant No. 20YJA790098), and the Key Projects of the National Social Science Foundation, China (Grant No. 21AZD005).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2023.2244229