Professor Qian Xianhang’s Team Makes a Series of Important Research Progress in Corporate Supply Chain Management

Recently, two collaborative papers by Professor Qian Xianhang from the School of Economics at Shandong University were published in two consecutive issues of Journal of Corporate Finance, an international authoritative journal. The two papers investigate corporate supply chain relationships from the perspectives of corporate litigation and business associations respectively. The research finds that the supply chain relationship between enterprises and the government will affect their litigation results, and enterprises joining business associations help them obtain more trade credit from suppliers.

The collaborative paper Major Government Customers and Corporate Court Outcomes: Evidence from China by Professor Qian Xianhang, doctoral student Liu Zisen from the School of Economics at Shandong University, Dr. Wu Qian from Anhui University of Finance and Economics and Professor Zeng Cheng from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University uses litigation data of listed companies in China and finds that enterprises with major government customers have a higher winning rate in lawsuits. The greater the contribution of enterprises to the local economy and the easier the litigation is to be intervened, the more obvious this effect is. Media attention, supervision and inspection, and reputation constraints of institutional investors and other stakeholders will limit this advantage. This paper identifies the impact of supply chain association with the government on corporate litigation and provides a new perspective for understanding corporate litigation.

The collaborative paper Business Association Membership and Firms’ Access to Trade Credit: Evidence from Thirty Countries by Professor Qian Xianhang and doctoral student Liu Zisen uses enterprise survey data from 30 countries to investigate the role of business associations, an intermediate organization, in corporate trade credit. The study finds that enterprises joining business associations can obtain more trade credit, and this effect is more obvious for small-scale enterprises, enterprises in competitive industries and enterprises with cross-border procurement. At the same time, when the creditor protection and government stability of the country where the enterprise is located are weak, the role of business associations is more prominent. The influence mechanism of business associations is that they can improve the product quality and innovation ability of enterprises and reduce the negative impact of corruption on enterprises. This increase in trade credit can reduce enterprise financing obstacles and improve enterprise capacity and sales volume. This paper reveals the role of business associations in corporate supply chain relationships and helps to understand corporate trade credit financing from an institutional perspective.