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Under the digital wave and the new industrial competition pattern, the automobile industry is facing multiple challenges such as the redefinition of new technologies and supply chain changes. The purpose of this study is to link big data analytics and artificial intelligence (BDA-AI) with digital supply chain transformation (DSCT) by taking Chinese automobile industry firms as a sample and to consider the role of supply chain internal integration (SCII), supply chain external integration (SCEI) and supply chain agility (SCA) between them.

Data were collected from 192 Chinese firms in the automotive industry and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Importance-performance map analysis is used to extend the standard results reporting of path coefficient estimates in PLS-SEM.

The results indicate that BDA-AI, SCII, SCEI and SCA positively influence DSCT. In addition, this study found that SCII, SCEI and SCA play an intermediary role in BDA-AI and DSCT.

The paper enriches the research on the mechanism of digital resources affecting DSCT and expands the research of organizational information processing theory in the context of digital transformation. The paper explores how the resources deployed by firms change the strategic measures of firms from the perspective of responsiveness. By exploring the positive impact of SCA as a response capability on the DSCT strategy and its intermediary role between digital resources and DSCT, which is helpful to the further theoretical development of logistics and supply chain disciplines.

This study aims to examine the effect of independent directors on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) gap – a misalignment between internal and external CSR. More specifically, the authors investigate how two types of independent directors (i.e. politically connected and foreign) affect a firm’s CSR gap in China.

The authors use the fixed-effects regression model to analyze the panel dataset, which is conducted by a sample of Chinese publicly listed firms from 2008 to 2015.

The findings indicate that, on average, firms undertake more external than internal CSR actions. Importantly, the authors find that firms having politically connected independent directors on boards have a wider gap between their internal and external CSR. In contrast, firms having foreign independent directors on boards have a narrower gap between their internal and external CSR.

This study provides insights into the role of independent directors in increasing or decreasing the gap between a firm’s internal and external CSR actions, which offers important implications for policymakers and investors.

This study extends the literature on the causes of the CSR gap and deepens the theoretical understanding of the governance role of independent directors in China.