“Regional digital finance and food supply-chain management resilience: evidence on the regional-to-firm conversion gap in China’s emerging listed food enterprises” (2026), by Jieyu Zhao. Business and Management research paper. Original abstract below, unchanged. A free PDF is available.

Regional digital finance and food supply-chain management resilience: evidence on the regional-to-firm conversion gap in China’s emerging listed food enterprises

Jieyu Zhao · October 21, 2026 · Business and Management

Abstract

Food supply chains face climate shocks, logistics disruption, food-safety incidents and volatile demand, yet the relevance of regional digital finance for firm-level resilience remains uncertain. This study examines the association between a province-level digital-finance environment and an accounting-based food supply-chain resilience proxy among emerging listed food enterprises in China. Using public data for 122 eligible firms, we construct annual resistance, recovery and stability measures from revenue, operating cash flow and net margin; the common two-way fixed-effects sample contains 732 firm-year observations from 119 firms during 2017–2023. Regional digital finance is measured as a province-level external financial environment rather than firm-level digital transformation or adoption. Operational capability and regional consumption capacity are accounting- and province-level proxies and do not directly observe supplier coordination, traceability, cold-chain performance, or product-level demand. The preferred estimate is close to zero [beta = −0.005, SE = 0.063, 95% CI (−0.128, 0.117)]. Alternative covariance estimators, outcome definitions and timing specifications do not establish a stable positive within-firm association. The proxy-based operational-capability pathway and the conditional consumption-capacity association are likewise not established. Equivalence tests at 0.05 and 0.10 SCR-standard-deviation bounds are not significant, and the approximate 80% minimum detectable effect is 1.575 SCR standard deviations. The evidence therefore cannot distinguish a small contextual association from limited within-firm statistical precision. The findings support a bounded regional-to-firm conversion interpretation: regional finance may widen resource availability, but whether it is associated with resilience depends on unobserved operational conversion routines and food-sector coordination conditions.

Free PDF DOI: 10.3389/fsufs.2026.1948192