Confucian culture and corporate digital leadership

This research examines the impact of Confucian culture on corporate digital leadership within Chinese listed companies. Using a dataset of 25,333 firm-year observations from 2010 to 2023, we apply two-way fixed-effects models to isolate the specific influence of regional cultural norms. The empirical results demonstrate that firms located near Confucian heritage sites exhibit significantly stronger digital leadership, defined as the allocation of intangible assets toward digital transformation strategies. Mechanism tests indicate that Confucian culture drives this outcome through two specific channels. First, it fosters financial prudence by reducing executive risk-taking and leverage. Second, it attracts patient institutional capital by establishing an environment of trust. Further analysis reveals that this positive effect is more prominent in digital economy industries and among larger enterprises. Robustness checks, including instrumental variable approaches and propensity score matching, confirm the validity of these findings. This study links traditional values to modern technological strategy and offers actionable insights for policymakers and executives aiming to facilitate digital innovation.