Can digital and intelligent transformation enhance the resilience of Chinese enterprises? — A moderated double-mediator model

Abstract

In an increasingly uncertain market environment, how firms enhance resilience through digital and intelligent transformation (DIT) has become a critical issue. Integrating dynamic capability theory and organizational behavior theory, this study constructs a moderated dual-mediator model to examine DIT’s impact on enterprise resilience from the dual logic of defensive and offensive resilience. Based on panel data of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2014 to 2023, findings reveal that: (1) DIT significantly enhances enterprise resilience; (2) risk management capability and core competitiveness serve as defensive and offensive pathways respectively, partially mediating this relationship; (3) financing constraints exert asymmetric moderating effects, weakening DIT’s promotion of risk management capability while strengthening its cultivation of core competitiveness, revealing the coexistence of survival-oriented and development-oriented behavioral logics under resource constraints. Heterogeneity analysis further indicates that these effects are more pronounced in highly competitive industries and non-state-owned firms. This study opens the mechanism black box of how DIT affects enterprise resilience, providing theoretical foundations for differentiated resource allocation under financial constraints.