Does data elements and artificial intelligence synergy drive disruptive innovation? Evidence from China’s A-share listed companies

Hypothesis 1. data elements and artificial intelligence synergy facilitates corporate disruptive innovation.
Hypothesis 2. data elements and artificial intelligence synergy broadens the development pathways for corporate disruptive innovation by enhancing the level of digital-intelligent capability.
Hypothesis 3. data elements and artificial intelligence synergy enhances the efficiency of corporate disruptive innovation by improving production and operational efficiency.
Hypothesis 4. data elements and artificial intelligence synergy enhances corporate disruptive innovation capability by strengthening market profitability.
In consideration of the State Council’s 2012 policy document “Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Science and Technology System and Accelerating the Development of the National Innovation System” (Zhongfa [2012] No. 6), which explicitly implemented the innovation-driven development strategy and deepened reforms in the science and technology system, we select A-share listed companies from 2012 to 2023 as our initial research sample. The sample is filtered according to the following criteria: (1) Exclusion of financial and insurance firms; (2) Exclusion of companies with special treatment (ST, *ST) or abnormal financial conditions, specifically those with a debt-to-asset ratio exceeding 100%; (3) Exclusion of observations with missing key variables. The final baseline regression sample comprises 28,365 firm-year observations from 3,015 distinct listed companies. Patent text data are sourced from the WinGo Financial Text Data Platform, while corporate fundamental information and key financial data are obtained from the CSMAR database.