Digital innovation network embedding and supply chain resilience: evidence from Chinese listed firms

Digital innovation network embedding facilitates firms’ access to external digital knowledge and resources, yet its implications for supply chain resilience remain underexplored. Using Chinese A-share listed firms from 2011 to 2024, this study constructs firm-level digital innovation networks from patent co-application data and examines the relationship between network embedding and supply chain resilience. The results show that greater digital innovation network embedding is significantly associated with lower supply chain concentration and thus stronger supply chain resilience. The finding remains robust to alternative measures, network construction methods, sample adjustments, fixed-effect specifications, and additional controls for innovation capacity. Instrumental-variable estimation and a policy-based difference-in-differences analysis using the Broadband China pilot provide further supporting evidence. Mechanism analyses examine data-element utilization capability, knowledge diversification, and supply chain transparency as potential channels, with the strongest and most consistent empirical support found for knowledge diversification. Exploratory heterogeneity analyses indicate that the relationship may vary across different collaboration patterns, supply chain positions, and industry environments. These findings extend research on supply chain resilience by highlighting the role of firms’ external digital innovation networks.