Digital Transformation, Patient Capital, and Corporate Innovation Resilience: Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies

초록

Corporate innovation resilience is the capacity of a firm to maintain innovation continuity, withstand external shocks, and achieve rapid recovery. It is critical for survival in the volatile digital economy. While digital transformation is recognized as a driver of innovation, existing research often focuses on the direct causal relationship between the two. This study resolves the theoretical inconsistency regarding why digital transformation strengthens resilience in some firms but weakens it in others. Most studies fail to account for how funding fragility can undermine the potential of digital transformation to foster lasting resilience, especially under sustained financial pressure. This creates a research gap in understanding how firms maintain innovation stability. As a form of long-term investment with high risk tolerance and strategic governance, patient capital provides essential support for the long and uncertain cycles of innovation. Using data from Chinese A-share listed companies (2012–2024), this study examines the impact of digital transformation on innovation resilience. The results show that a one-standard-deviation increase in digital transformation is associated with an economically meaningful 3.08% increase in the standard deviation of innovation resilience. This highlights a critical structural contribution: the success of digital strategies depends on nonlinear governance alignment with patient capital, which amplifies this resilience-enhancing effect to 9.24% within the optimal threshold range. This effect is driven by reducing environmental uncertainty and strengthening corporate absorptive capacity and responsiveness. Furthermore, we extend the analysis beyond the firm boundary to identify a supply-chain spillover effect from customers' digital transformation. These findings enrich the theoretical understanding of innovation resilience by bridging long-term capital theory with digital innovation, providing fresh insights into the synergistic "technology-capital" dual-driven effect for sustainable development.

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