Recently, Dr. Zhou Yankun from the Intelligent Finance and Accounting Department of the Business School, serving as the corresponding author, along with collaborators Professor Xiao Hongjun from the Industrial Economics Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Professor Shen Hongtao from the School of Management at Jinan University, published a research paper titled "Customer Firms' Digitalization, Supplier Firms' ESG Performance, and Sustainable Supply Chain Development" in the "Economic Research" journal. "Economic Research" is a top-tier economics journal and is recognized as an A1 level scientific achievement by our university, with a comprehensive impact factor of 15.382.

The paper utilizes data from A-share listed companies and their suppliers from 2013 to 2021 to explore the impact of customer firms' digitalization on supplier firms' ESG performance from the perspective of digital empowerment. The study finds that customer firms' digitalization has an enhancing effect on the ESG performance of supplier firms, meaning that digitalization has an enabling effect on the sustainable development of the supply chain, and this effect is asymmetrical, being more pronounced when the customer firm's digitalization level is higher than that of the supplier firm. Mechanism tests reveal that customer firms' digitalization enhances supplier firms' ESG performance mainly through structural empowerment effects (i.e., improving supply chain collaboration levels) and resource empowerment effects (i.e., alleviating supplier factor constraints). Heterogeneity analysis indicates that when the government environmental attention in the city where the customer firm is located is higher than that in the city where the supplier firm is located, and when the relationship between the customer firm and the supplier firm is closer, the promoting effect of customer firm digitalization on supplier firm ESG performance is more significant. Effectiveness tests show that customer firm digitalization promoting supplier firm ESG performance helps to enhance supply chain resilience.

Author Introduction

Zhou Yankun is a postdoctoral faculty member at the Business School of Beijing Technology and Business University. He has published more than 10 papers in domestic and international journals such as "Economic Research," "Nankai Management Review," "Statistical Research," "Journal of Central University of Finance & Economics," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Australian Journal of Management, and Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal. He has participated in four major projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation, the Social Science Fund, and the Ministry of Education. He has been honored with the Highly Commended Paper in the 2020 Emerald Literati Awards, the third prize of the 11th Excellent Financial Scientific Research Achievement (Paper Category) by the Guangdong Financial Society, the third prize of the annual outstanding paper by "Statistical Research," and the third prize of the outstanding paper in the 3rd Rongzhi Corporate Social Responsibility Academic Award.