The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Positions of Supply Chain Networks: Insights from Listed Firms in China

Artificial intelligence (AI) has profoundly reshaped industries worldwide, becoming a key driver of supply chain optimization, efficiency gains, cost reductions, and data-driven decision-making. Drawing on a comprehensive panel of A-share listed firms in China from 2012 to 2023, this paper investigates how AI adoption influences a firm’s position within supply chain networks and the mechanisms and heterogeneous effects underlying this relationship. Our empirical findings indicate that AI adoption significantly enhances a firm’s network position. This result remains robust under a series of sensitivity checks, including instrumental variable estimations, alternative measures, and the exclusion of confounding events. Mechanism analyses reveal that AI generates positive outcomes primarily through improvements in ESG performance, stimulation of innovation, mitigation of financing constraints, and gains in productivity. Heterogeneity tests underscore that these effects are particularly significant in non-state-owned firms, organizations with a separation between CEO and board chair roles, and firms facing heightened supply chain pressures.