Does digital transformation improve supply chain efficiency of agricultural enterprises?

Enhancing supply chain efficiency (SCE) of agricultural enterprises is crucial for building sustainable agriculture and food systems. While digital transformation (DT) presents a potential pathway to this end, it constitutes a high-risk, systemic organizational change whose impact on SCE remains theoretically and empirically ambiguous. Using panel data from Chinese agricultural listed companies and a two-way fixed effects model, the empirical results identify a significant U-shaped relationship between DT and SCE in agricultural enterprises. This finding indicates that DT initially undermines efficiency before generating positive returns as implementation advances. Moreover, contractual and relational governance negatively moderates the DT–SCE relationship, flattening the U-shaped curve. Further analysis reveals significant heterogeneity in these effects across different organizational life cycle stages and regional business cooperation cultures. Specifically, regarding the organizational life cycle, the U-shaped relationship and relational governance’s moderating effect are more pronounced in growth or decline stage firms, whereas contractual governance’s effect is stronger in maturity or decline stage firms. From a regional perspective, the U-shaped relationship and contractual governance’s moderating effect are more salient in areas with weak business cooperation cultures, while relational governance’s effect is more influential where it is strong. This study contributes to the literature on SCE and digitalization paradox by delineating the complex, nonlinear trajectory of DT in agricultural enterprises and specifying the governance-related contingencies that shape its efficacy. These findings offer valuable insights into how agricultural enterprises leverage DT and governance mechanisms to improve SCE and advance agricultural supply chain sustainability.