The Impact of Focal Firm Digitalization on Supply Chain Resilience: A Supply Chain Collaboration Perspective

Jia-Xing Duan, Wen-Xiu Hu () and Zhi-Gang Zhang
Additional contact information
Jia-Xing Duan: School of Economics and Management, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710054, China
Wen-Xiu Hu: School of Economics and Management, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710054, China
Zhi-Gang Zhang: School of Economics and Management, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710054, China

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 21, 1-38

Abstract: In the context of a complex and volatile domestic and global environment, Chinese enterprises face frequent risks of supply chain disruption that seriously hinder their operations. The rise of the digital economy offers new opportunities to strengthen supply chain resilience. Building on supply chain collaboration and value co-creation theories, this study conceptualizes supply chain collaboration through three dimensions, namely information collaboration, governance collaboration, and innovation collaboration, and explores their role in enhancing resilience. Using panel data of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2011 to 2023, this study investigates the impact of focal firm digitalization on supply chain resilience and its underlying mechanisms. The results indicate that focal firm digitalization generates significant backward spillover effects, enhancing the resilience of its upstream suppliers. Although its positive influence on supply chain stability (measured by supply chain demand and supply fluctuations) is not statistically significant, it substantially enhances recovery (measured by supply chain efficiency) and adaptability (measured by supplier innovation). Mechanism analysis further reveals that digitalization strengthens supply chain collaboration through information, governance, and innovation channels, thereby reinforcing resilience. Moreover, the positive effects are heterogeneous, varying with industry competition intensity, the closeness of upstream–downstream relationships, and suppliers’ regional resource endowments. These findings highlight the need to design digitalization strategies centered on focal firm leadership and upstream–downstream collaboration, thereby advancing both resilience improvement and collaborative mechanism development through differentiated and targeted approaches.

Keywords: focal firm digitalization; supply chain resilience; supply chain collaboration; backward spillover effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/21/9505/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/21/9505/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:21:p:9505-:d:1779659

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().