Digital platforms play a positive role in integrating resource elements, optimizing industrial structure, and improving production efficiency. However, most digital platforms in China have achieved “savage expansion” of capital with the help of well-established public infrastructure in a relaxed credit environment, and have overly focused on stock markets and flow realization. This expansion only realizes economies of scale in low value-added industries and has a limited effect on optimizing and adjusting the economic structure. The resulting resource mismatch may hinder platform technological innovation. Therefore, exploring the causes of resource allocation distortion and its impact on the competitiveness of digital platform enterprises has strong theoretical and practical significance.

Based on the data of A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2011 to 2021, this paper examines the impact of resource allocation distortion on the competitiveness of digital platform enterprises on the basis of measuring the resource allocation distortion and competitiveness of Chinese digital platforms. The results show that: First, resource allocation distortion has an inhibitory effect on the competitiveness of digital platform enterprises, and the insufficient innovation quality caused by resource allocation distortion is an important factor restricting the improvement of platform competitiveness. Second, this inhibitory effect is particularly prominent in enterprises in the central and western regions, large enterprises, and non-private enterprises. Third, promoting innovative entrepreneurship helps alleviate resource allocation distortion and its negative impact on the competitiveness of digital platform enterprises.

The marginal contributions of this paper are that: First, it constructs a quantitative evaluation system for the competitiveness of digital platform enterprises, comprehensively and clearly reflecting the current status of the competitiveness of Chinese digital platform enterprises. Second, taking micro platform enterprises as the research object, it analyzes the causes of resource allocation distortion and the impact on the competitiveness of digital platform enterprises, expanding the research on the impact of resource allocation distortion at the micro level. Third, focusing on the comparison of the core indicators of competitiveness between the top 5 digital platform enterprises in China and the United States, it explores the differences and causes between the two, providing a new theoretical basis and practical guidance for enhancing the competitiveness of Chinese digital platform enterprises.