Trade credit and corporate digital transformation: The role of managerial ability

We examine whether managerial ability affects the relationship between corporate digital transformation and trade credit. To measure digital transformation, we perform a textual analysis of companies' annual reports using a customized Chinese dictionary containing digital transformation keywords based on national policy documents and academic literature. Using 10,554 observations from 2509 A-shares listed companies in China, we show that corporate digital transformation has significantly impacted trade credit. Managerial ability enhances the relationship between digital transformation and received trade credit but does not change the impact between digital transformation and provided trade credit. A battery of robustness tests confirms the findings.