How Does Manufacturing Intelligentization Influence Innovation in China from a Nonlinear Perspective and Economic Servitization Background?

Abstract

Under the trend of high-quality economic development and economic servitization in China, it is of great significance to study the impact of manufacturing intelligentization on innovation and its mechanisms. This study uses a sample of 30 of China’s provinces from 2008 to 2020 to empirically test the effect of manufacturing intelligentization on innovation performance from a nonlinear perspective and examine the intermediary mechanism of diversified agglomeration of producer services against an economic servitization background. The study finds that intelligentization has a significant inverted U-shaped impact on innovation performance. It shows that the positive marginal intelligentization effect on innovation gradually decreases, and intelligence inhibits innovation when it exceeds the threshold. In addition, diversified agglomeration of producer services can improve innovation performance, and intelligentization has an inverted U-shaped effect on this diversified aggregation. Thus, the nonlinear influence of intelligence on innovation performance has a channel of diversified agglomeration of producer services. Furthermore, human capital has a reverse moderating effect on the inverted U-shaped relationship between intelligentization and innovation performance. This conclusion can help to promote the innovation-driven and sustainable development of China’s economy under the intelligent manufacturing strategy.

Has Artificial Intelligence Promoted Manufacturing Servitization: Evidence from Chinese Enterprises

“…To mitigate this concern, the Heckman two-step method is employed. The estimation results in column (9) indicate that the inverse Mills ratio (IMR) does not surpass the 10% significance level test, suggesting the absence of a significant sample selection bias issue in the empirical regression analysis undertaken in this study. (5) Endogeneity Issue.…”

“…Several scholars have also examined the relationship between AI and servitization, exploring it from the perspective of dynamic capabilities [7] and within the context of Servitization 5.0 [8]. These scholars have conducted an analysis of the inverse U-shaped impact of AI-driven manufacturing intelligence on innovation performance [9], as well as an investigation into how various AI-based solutions support firms in co-creating value within the B2B (Business to Business) industrial market [10].…”