The Impact of the Digital Economy on Innovation: A Review of Existing Literature

As a product of the synergy of technological innovation and institutional innovation, the digital economy has brought about 'creative destruction' to traditional economic forms, and its development is key to ongoing innovation (Zhang, et al., 2020). Existing research has identified several channels through which the digital economy impacts innovation. Firstly, the permeability, substitutability, and collaboration of digital technologies allow for their integration into R&D activities, reducing the search and management costs of external knowledge for R&D departments, accelerating the accumulation of knowledge on the basis of existing stock, and bringing substantial improvements to knowledge production efficiency (Cai & Niu, 2021; Tian & Li, 2022). Secondly, the digital economy can enhance innovation efficiency by optimizing the allocation of capital factors and leveraging the effects of human capital and industrial structure (An & Zhang, 2021). Thirdly, the continuously developing digital technology infrastructure, the gradual integration of digital technology with traditional economy, and the emerging new industries and business models supported by the maturing digital economy all contribute to the improvement of social production efficiency (Wang, et al., 2020). Furthermore, the digital economy can improve regional innovation environment, enhance regional innovation capability, and subsequently affect enterprise innovation level (Han, et al., 2021).