How Digital Transformation Promotes Disruptive Innovation? Evidence from Chinese Entrepreneurial Firms

How to enhance disruptive innovation to build sustainable competitive advantage has become an essential issue in strategic management research. However, few studies exist to elucidate the influencing mechanism of disruptive innovation in the context of the digital era. Using multivariate regression analysis and bootstrapping method, we examine the underlying mediating mechanism and contextual condition in the relationship between digital transformation and disruptive innovation. Our results demonstrate that the digital transformation of entrepreneurial firms has a significant positive effect on disruptive innovation. Interorganizational collaboration mediates the relationship between digital transformation and disruptive innovation. Moreover, we demonstrate that dynamic capabilities positively moderate the indirect effect of digital transformation on disruptive innovation through interorganizational collaboration. Our findings contribute to disruptive innovation research by explaining the mediating mechanism of how to utilize digital transformation to promote disruptive innovation vis interorganizational collaboration. Our results also explain how dynamic capabilities interact with interorganizational collaboration and significantly affect disruptive innovation.