External Uncertainty, Digital Empowerment and Enterprise GVC Embeddedness: Evidences from Enterprises in Countries along the “Belt and Road”

Abstract

Abstract: The external uncertainty intensifies the contraction of the global value chain, which has become an important issue for the construction of the regional value chain of the “Belt and Road”. Deepening the digital empowerment will help enterprises cope with the impact of uncertainty shock and stabilize their integration into the global value chain. Using the World Bank enterprise survey data and global uncertainty index from 2008 to 2019, this paper studies the impact of external uncertainty on the global value chain embeddedness of enterprises in countries along the “Belt and Road” and the moderating effect of digital empowerment. The findings show that the external uncertainty significantly inhibits the embedding decision and embedding level of enterprises in the global value chain of countries along the “Belt and Road”, and that the external uncertainty mainly suppresses the global value chain embedding of enterprises by increasing supply chain risks, reducing production efficiency, and hindering technological innovation. The heterogeneity analysis shows that external uncertainty has a greater impact on the embedding of global value chains in small-scale enterprises, higher contract-intensive industries, and countries with lower levels of institutional environment. Digital empowerment at the enterprise and national levels will effectively alleviate the inhibition of external uncertainty on the embedding of enterprises in the global value chain of countries along the “Belt and Road”. Based on the above research conclusions, the government urgently needs to stabilize the external risk expectations of enterprises, improve the supply chain risk response mechanism, enhance the ability of enterprises to participate in the global value chain division of labor, promote the resilience of enterprises in the global value chain through digital empowerment, and accelerate the construction of digital infrastructure and innovation of digital trade systems.

Key words: external uncertainty, enterprise Global Value Chain, The Belt and Road Initiative, digital empowerment

CLC Number:

F746

GUO Ping, HU Jun, QIN Kai-qiang. External Uncertainty, Digital Empowerment and Enterprise GVC Embeddedness: Evidences from Enterprises in Countries along the “Belt and Road”[J]. Contemporary Finance & Economics, 2024, 0(4): 127-140.

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