Empirical research on sustainable business model innovation for industrial enterprises driven by digital capability in China

Abstract

Introduction In the era of Industry 4.0, the digital economic environment has high uncertainty and unpredictability. As an critical subject of the real economy, traditional industrial enterprises need to use digital technology and disruptive thinking to innovate their business models in order to help enterprises better and faster realize digital transformation and sustainable development if they want to survive and develop in such a complex and volatile market environment. In accordance with this, the purpose of the study is an empirical study of the relevant processes. Materials and methods Through literature review and analysis, the theoretical models of digital ability, sustainable business model innovation, digital opportunity discovery and digital opportunity creation are constructed. The measure scales of the above four variables are also designed. Through the empirical research on the questionnaire survey of well-known industrial enterprises in 31 provincial administrative regions in China, the descriptive statistical analysis, structural analysis, correlation analysis and regression analysis of variables of the questionnaire were carried out by using the data analysis software SPSS 22.0. Results The study showed, that the digital ability of industrial enterprises have a significant positive impact on sustainable business model innovation. Digital opportunity discovery and digital opportunity creation play a continuous intermediary role between them. The theoretical model and hypothesis have been verified. Conclusions The views and conclusions of this research can find practical implementation for industrial enterprises in the current digital environment. However, the establishment, application and promotion of enterprises' digital capabilities and the mechanism on how affect business model innovation are a complex, long-term and dynamic process. Whether enterprises in different industries or in different regions can obtain the same research conclusions in different development stages and different economic environments remains to be further studied.