Signaling in the digital era: how digitalization influences financial and social reputation across contexts

Tang, Yuying, Liao, Zikang and Wong, Wai-Yan 2026. Signaling in the digital era: how digitalization influences financial and social reputation across contexts. Cogent Business & Management 13 (1) , 2725484. 10.1080/23311975.2026.2725484

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Abstract

Although corporate digitalization is increasingly recognized as an important signal, existing studies primarily focus on what signals digitalization conveys rather than how stakeholders interpret them. Drawing on signaling theory, this study addresses this gap by distinguishing between financial and social reputation to capture different stakeholder interpretations of digitalization signals and by examining how stakeholder expectations shape these interpretations. Using a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2013 to 2024, this study investigates the effects of digitalization on financial and social reputation. It further examines the moderating role of stakeholder expectations by analyzing three organizational contexts associated with distinct stakeholder expectations, namely state ownership, high-polluting industries, and high-tech industries. The results show that digitalization enhances both dimensions of reputation. However, its effects vary according to stakeholder expectations. Digitalization exerts a stronger positive effect on social reputation but a weaker positive effect on financial reputation in state-owned enterprises. It also exerts a stronger positive effect on social reputation in high-polluting industries and a stronger positive effect on financial reputation in high-tech industries. This study shifts attention from what digitalization signals to how stakeholders interpret those signals. By integrating digitalization, multidimensional reputation, and stakeholder expectations, it explains why the same digitalization signal can generate different reputational outcomes when stakeholder expectations differ.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Business (Including Economics)
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis Group
ISSN:	2331-1975
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	13 October 2026
Date of Acceptance:	24 August 2026
Last Modified:	13 Oct 2026 11:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/190206

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