Technology Empowerment and Internal Governance Substitution: How Generative Artificial Intelligence Reshapes Corporate Investment Efficiency

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-825-2_51How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Customer Concentration; R&D Intensity; Pharmaceutical Manufacturing; Resource Reallocation; R&D Human Capital

Abstract

Against the backdrop of normalized centralized volume-based procurement (VBP) and tighter price and fulfillment constraints in pharmaceutical distribution, customer structure has become an important supply-chain determinant of long-term innovation. Using 2,653 firm-year observations from 324 Chinese A-share-listed pharmaceutical manufacturers during 2011–2024, this study examines the relationship between customer concentration and R&D intensity with firm and year fixed effects. Customer concentration significantly reduces R&D intensity, and the result remains robust to alternative measures and city-by-year fixed effects. Decomposition tests show that customer concentration does not significantly reduce absolute R&D expenditure but is associated with faster revenue growth, indicating a dilution effect in R&D intensity. Mechanism evidence points to resource reallocation toward fulfillment capacity and weaker R&D human capital. The negative relationship is concentrated among firms with a higher share of technically oriented executives, lower digital transformation, and lower business diversification. These findings extend the customer-dependence perspective on pharmaceutical innovation under VBP and offer implications for balancing major-customer relationships with long-term R&D.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Ruiqi Shi
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/11/10
TI  - Technology Empowerment and Internal Governance Substitution: How Generative Artificial Intelligence Reshapes Corporate Investment Efficiency
BT  - Proceedings of the 2026 5th International Conference on Public Service, Economic Management and Sustainable Development (PESD 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 517
EP  - 523
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-825-2_51
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-825-2_51
ID  - Shi2026
ER  -