With the vigorous development of the new round of scientific and technological revolution, digital technology has become an important driving force to reshape the global economic competition pattern and promote the high-quality development of China’s economy. Audit institutions are an important part of the supervision system of the Communist Party of China. The development of digital technology has completely changed the traditional audit supervision method system and triggered a subversive reform of the audit industry. As a regular system arrangement in the supervision system of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), national audit plays an important role in promoting the high-quality development of SOEs. China’s Golden Auditing Project is the key for audit institutions to achieve the strategic goal of “strengthening auditing through science and technology” and improve the micro-governance efficiency of national audit.
Based on the quasi-natural experiment of the second phase of the China’s Golden Auditing Project, this paper selects China’s A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2020 as samples, and constructs a DID model to explore the influence effect and mechanism of national audit informatization construction on the high-quality development of SOEs. The research finds that national audit informatization construction has significantly promoted the high-quality development of SOEs. The heterogeneity test shows that the promotion effect of national audit informatization construction on the high-quality development of SOEs is mainly reflected in central enterprises and eastern SOEs. The influence mechanism test shows that national audit informatization construction can play the role of quality improvement mechanism, and promote the high-quality development of SOEs by improving the quality of national audit disclosure, suggestion and rectification; it can play the role of collaborative supervision mechanism, and promote the high-quality development of SOEs by strengthening the collaborative supervision between audit institutions and judicial organs, discipline inspection and supervision departments and relevant departments; it can also play the role of corporate governance mechanism, and promote the high-quality development of SOEs by reducing the frequency of violations and the short-sighted behavior of the management.
The contributions of this paper are as follows: First, it explores the impact of national audit informatization construction on the high-quality development of SOEs, which enriches the research on the economic consequences of national audit informatization construction and the influencing factors of the high-quality development of SOEs. Second, from the aspects of national audit quality improvement, collaborative supervision and corporate governance, it enriches the research on the influence mechanism of national audit informatization construction on the high-quality development of SOEs. The conclusions have enlightenment significance for audit institutions to accelerate informatization construction, promote the continuous optimization of China’s Golden Auditing Project, realize digital and intelligent empowerment, improve national audit governance efficiency, build a collaborative and efficient state-owned assets supervision system, and promote the high-quality development of SOEs.