The formation of zombie enterprises has seriously hindered healthy economic development, while the emergence of energy big data centers provides new tools and perspectives for zombie enterprises governance. This paper constructs a quasinatural experiment based on the establishment of energy big data centers and empirically examines their governance effects on zombie enterprises using data from Chinese A-share listed companies during 2015-2023.
The study finds that the construction of energy big data centers significantly inhibits the formation of zombie enterprises, and this effect remains robust after a series of robustness tests including parallel trend tests, variable substitution, entropy balancing, stacked difference-in-differences, and placebo tests. The mechanism analysis reveals that energy big data centers exert governance effects through dual pathways of "eliminating the old" and "fostering the new". On the "eliminating the old" pathway, energy big data centers significantly reduce government subsidies and regional non-performing loans, cutting off the non-market-based support mechanisms for zombie enterprises. On the "fostering the new" pathway, energy big data centers significantly improve total factor productivity and total asset turnover ratio, activating the endogenous revival mechanism of zombie enterprises through cost reduction and efficiency enhancement.
Further heterogeneity analysis shows that from the perspective of regulatory entities, the governance effect of energy big data centers is more significant in regions with higher entrepreneurial vitality and in enterprises with higher business complexity, indicating that big data tools play an important role in strengthening regulatory motivation and breaking through regulatory difficulties. From the perspective of market competition, the governance effect of energy big data centers is more pronounced in regions with more sufficient market competition and higher marketization levels, suggesting that enterprises have stronger willingness and capability to transform management advantages into market competitive advantages.
The contributions of this study are threefold. First, it expands the theoretical perspective of zombie enterprises governance by exploring the role of big data and new technologies, providing a dual governance framework encompassing both "eliminating the old" and "fostering the new", which addresses the technical difficulties under information asymmetry that existing research has overlooked. Second, it bridges the technical gap between institutional optimization and efficient implementation under information asymmetry, exploring the "last mile" implementation mechanism of zombie enterprises governance policies. The mechanism tests demonstrate that energy big data not only promotes effective supervision but also helps activate enterprises' endogenous vitality, offering theoretical insights into the revival mechanism of zombie enterprises. Third, it provides empirical evidence on the practical effects of energy big data centers construction as an important "data-energy integration" policy, offering useful policy implications for government improvement of zombie enterprises governance policies, enterprise enhancement of management efficiency, and construction of sustainable data governance mechanisms.
The findings suggest that external entities should fully utilize the "instrumental significance" of energy big data centers to achieve "elimination of the old" for zombie enterprises, enterprises should recognize the empowerment effects of energy big data centers to promote "fostering of the new", and governments should improve data governance and coordination mechanisms to ensure the long-term effective operation of energy big data centers.
