Excerpt
Excerpt
Going Digital: Implications for Firm Value and Performance. Suraj Srinivasan, May 19, 2019, Paper, "We examine the firm value and performance implications of the growing trend of non-technology (non-tech) companies adopting digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, machine learning. For the entire universe of US public listed firms, we identify companies that are going digital using textual analysis of disclosure of digital-related words in corporate financial reports and conference calls. We first show that digital adoption by non-tech firms has dramatically grown in recent years. Non-tech digital adopters exhibit greater stock price co-movement with technology companies than with their industry peers, suggesting that the digital activities are making them similar to tech firms. The digital adopters hold more cash and are larger, younger, and less CapEx-intensive. Digital adoption is associated with higher valuation — market-to-book ratio is higher by 7-21% than industry peers – and is higher for firms that are younger, more CapEx-intensive, exhibit higher sales growth and are in industries where digital adoption is prevalent." Link