Chinese listed firms with stronger AI capabilities and externally oriented cultures are materially more likely to adopt blockchain, while market competition, government support and regional digital finance also boost adoption; firms adopting blockchain report reduced earnings‑management, suggesting governance gains.

The effects of AI technology, externally oriented corporate culture and environment on blockchain technology adoption

Chengliu He, Ying Han Fan, Xinru Yue, Grantley Taylor, Yizao Chen · Fetched March 15, 2026 · China Accounting and Finance Review

semantic_scholar correlational medium evidence 7/10 relevance DOI Source

Among Chinese listed firms (2013–2021), greater AI capability, externally oriented corporate cultures, and favorable external conditions raise the likelihood of blockchain adoption, and adopters show lower earnings‑management levels.

Our study investigates the economic importance and statistical significance of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, externally oriented corporate culture and the business environment on the adoption of blockchain technology (BT) based on the technology, organisation and environment (TOE) model. In line with the TOE framework, we collect secondary data for a sample of 27,400 firm-year observations of Chinese A-share listed firms for the period 2013–2021. Blockchain data are obtained through a manual search of annual reports for the keyword blockchain technology; relevant content is assessed to confirm companies' BT adoption status. We use the Python-based Web Crawler to collect AI patent and corporate culture data from the management discussion and analysis section of the annual reports and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure. We find that AI technology and externally oriented corporate cultures, such as those focused on competition and creation, positively affect BT adoption. Environmental factors such as market competition, government support and the level of digital financial development across provinces also positively affect BT adoption. Further testing showed that BT adoption reduces the level of earnings management practice. Our study extends the TOE theory by providing comprehensive evidence of the internal and external factors affecting BT adoption. We also provide the first empirical evidence that creation- and competition-oriented corporate cultures positively influence BT adoption. Our additional testing of economic significance clarifies the economic importance of factors influencing BT adoption.

Summary

Main Finding

AI capability (measured via AI-related patents), externally oriented corporate cultures (creation- and competition-oriented), and favorable external conditions (strong market competition, government support, and higher provincial digital financial development) each significantly increase firms' likelihood of adopting blockchain technology (BT). BT adoption is also associated with a reduction in earnings‑management practices.

Key Points

Sample: 27,400 firm‑year observations of Chinese A‑share listed firms, 2013–2021.
Framework: Technology–Organization–Environment (TOE) model to organize determinants of BT adoption.
Internal drivers:
- AI technology (AI patents) positively and significantly predicts BT adoption.
- Externally oriented corporate cultures—specifically competition‑oriented and creation‑oriented cultures—positively and significantly predict BT adoption (first empirical evidence reported for these culture types).
External drivers:
- Market competition, government support, and the level of digital financial development at the province level each positively and significantly predict BT adoption.
Outcomes:
- Firms that adopt BT exhibit lower levels of earnings management, suggesting governance or transparency benefits.
Economic significance:
- The paper reports tests of economic significance (in addition to statistical significance) to clarify the magnitude and practical importance of the identified effects.

Data & Methods

Data sources:
- Manual text search of annual reports to identify BT adoption through the presence and contextual confirmation of the keyword “blockchain technology.”
- Python web crawler to extract AI‑patent information and corporate culture indicators from the Management Discussion & Analysis (MD&A) sections of annual reports and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI).
- Provincial indicators (e.g., digital financial development) and measures of market competition and government support assembled as environmental variables.
Empirical approach:
- Binary outcome (BT adoption) modeled conditional on technology (AI patents), organizational (corporate culture), and environment (market competition, government support, digital finance) variables.
- Standard controls and robustness checks reported; economic‑significance tests performed to complement statistical inference.
Sample coverage: Broad panel of listed firms over nine years enabling both cross‑sectional and time‑series variation.

Implications for AI Economics

Complementarity of AI and blockchain: AI capability increases the probability of adopting complementary frontier technologies (blockchain), indicating spillovers across digital technologies and supporting models of technology co‑adoption and complementarities in firm productivity research.
Role of organizational culture: Culture matters materially for adoption of AI‑adjacent technologies; externally oriented cultures (competition and creation) amplify diffusion—important when modeling endogenous adoption decisions and heterogeneous firm responses to digital opportunities.
Policy levers: Government support and regional digital finance infrastructure materially affect technology diffusion; policy interventions that bolster digital financial ecosystems and targeted support can accelerate adoption.
Governance effects: BT adoption’s association with reduced earnings management suggests adoption of digital technologies can affect firm transparency and agency problems—relevant for welfare analyses and for models linking technology adoption to firm finance and information asymmetries.
Measurement advances: Using AI patents and text‑based culture measures provides replicable, firm‑level indicators for future empirical work on AI’s economic impacts and complements purely survey‑based measures.

If you’d like, I can: (a) extract the likely regression specification and suggest tests for endogeneity, (b) outline how to translate the reported effects into marginal probabilities for interpretation, or (c) prepare slide‑ready bullet points for a presentation. Which would be most helpful?

Assessment

Paper Typecorrelational Evidence Strengthmedium — Large panel (27,400 firm‑year observations), manual validation of BT mentions, and multiple robustness checks lend credibility to the associations; however, the study is observational without a clear source of exogenous variation, leaving open reverse causality and omitted‑variable bias concerns (e.g., unobserved managerial quality or concurrent strategic initiatives that drive both AI capability and BT adoption). Methods Rigormedium — The paper uses a well‑structured TOE framework, hand‑validated text coding for BT adoption, text mining for culture and patent extraction, and reports robustness/economic‑significance checks—strengths for empirical rigor; but causal identification is limited (no IVs/natural experiments reported), measurement error in text/patent proxies and potential endogeneity of culture variables reduce methodological rigor. Sample27,400 firm‑year observations of Chinese A‑share listed firms from 2013–2021; BT adoption hand‑coded from annual reports (keyword plus contextual confirmation); AI capability measured via AI‑related patents extracted by web crawler; corporate culture indicators derived from MD&A text mining; environmental variables measured at the province level (market competition, government support, digital financial development). Themesadoption innovation org_design governance productivity IdentificationObservational panel analysis: binary (BT adoption) regressions conditioned on firm-level AI capability (AI-related patents), text-derived corporate culture indicators, and province-level environmental variables (market competition, government support, digital financial development), with standard controls and robustness checks (including tests of economic significance); identification relies on covariate adjustment and panel variation rather than exogenous shocks, instruments, or randomized variation. GeneralizabilitySample limited to Chinese A‑share listed firms — may not generalize to private firms, small and medium enterprises, or non‑Chinese institutional settings, Time period 2013–2021; technology diffusion dynamics may change after 2021, BT adoption proxied by mention in annual reports may conflate intent/announcements with actual implementation, AI capability measured by patents — misses non‑patented AI use and may mismeasure true in‑house AI capacity, Corporate culture inferred from MD&A text may reflect signaling or disclosure choices rather than enacted practices, Province-level environmental measures may obscure within‑province heterogeneity and firm‑level exposure

Claims (7)

Claim	Direction	Confidence	Outcome	Details
AI technology positively affects blockchain technology (BT) adoption. Adoption Rate	positive	medium	Blockchain technology (BT) adoption (firm BT adoption status)	n=27400 AI technology positively affects BT adoption 0.18
Externally oriented corporate cultures, specifically competition-oriented and creation-oriented cultures, positively affect BT adoption. Adoption Rate	positive	medium	Blockchain technology (BT) adoption (firm BT adoption status)	n=27400 Competition- and creation-oriented corporate cultures positively affect BT adoption 0.18
Environmental factors—market competition, government support, and the level of digital financial development across provinces—positively affect BT adoption. Adoption Rate	positive	medium	Blockchain technology (BT) adoption (firm BT adoption status)	n=27400 Market competition, government support, and digital financial development positively affect BT adoption 0.18
BT adoption reduces the level of earnings management practice. Regulatory Compliance	negative	medium	Level of earnings management practice (e.g., discretionary accruals)	n=27400 BT adoption reduces earnings management practice 0.18
This study extends the technology–organisation–environment (TOE) theory by providing comprehensive empirical evidence of internal and external factors affecting BT adoption. Adoption Rate	positive	medium	Blockchain technology (BT) adoption as explained by TOE framework variables	n=27400 TOE framework explains BT adoption using technology, organisation, environment variables 0.18
This is the first empirical evidence that creation- and competition-oriented corporate cultures positively influence BT adoption. Adoption Rate	positive	low	Blockchain technology (BT) adoption (firm BT adoption status)	n=27400 Authors claim first empirical evidence that creation- and competition-oriented cultures positively influence BT adoption 0.09
Additional testing of economic significance clarifies the economic importance of factors influencing BT adoption. Adoption Rate	mixed	low	Economic magnitude/importance of determinants of BT adoption (e.g., effect sizes, marginal effects)	n=27400 Economic significance / marginal effects reported to quantify determinants 0.09