Organizational resilience is a company’s ability to quickly recover and adapt when it encounters sudden and unexpected challenges. Our study looks at how a company’s level of international involvement before such challenges can influence its resilience, particularly when faced with the global disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We also examine whether a company’s prior investment in digital technologies can help soften any negative impacts. From January 20 to June 10, 2020, we analyzed data from 2,363 Chinese companies that are traded on stock exchanges. We assessed their organizational resilience based on how their stock prices fluctuated and how quickly they returned to their pre-shock performance levels. Our findings indicate that companies with more international activities before the pandemic were generally slower to recover. However, companies with advanced digital capabilities before the pandemic demonstrated greater resilience, overcoming the negative repercussions more effectively. This research contributes new insights to the understanding of how international business activities affect a company’s ability to withstand and bounce back from global crises. Additionally, it underscores the importance of digitalization in enhancing organizational resilience.

Extant studies have found that the inscription of World Heritage sites (WHS) has no or negative effect on tourism in China, which does not explain why Chinese local governments are eager to apply for WHS. This study employs the difference-in-difference approach and city-level data from China to assess the effect of WHS over a more extended period, starting from initiation instead of inscription. The results indicate that WHS initiation can promote tourism, while WHS inscription reduces tourism revenue. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis reveals that WHS initiation has a more positive effect on domestic tourism revenue in the eastern region of China. In contrast, WHS inscription has a more negative effect on tourism revenue in the western region.

Since the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Chinese firms have actively responded to the government’s call to accelerate outward foreign direct investment (OFDI). Based on resource dependence theory and institutional theory, this study investigates the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the speed of OFDI under BRI and its boundary conditions. The results show that CSR can promote the speed of OFDI under BRI because CSR can help a firm accumulate strategic resources, including external benefits such as a good corporate image, and internal resources such as human capital and dynamic capabilities, and thus enhance legitimacy in host countries and its ability to resist potential risks. We also find that both state ownership and CEO political connections weaken the positive effect of CSR, and if the firm is in the key provinces or key industries of BRI, the positive relationship between CSR and the speed of OFDI under BRI will decrease. Our study contributes to the literature on international business and provides suggestions for firms participating in BRI.

Since the Chinese government proposed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, Chinese firms have been actively investing in countries participating in BRI. What kinds of firms are willing to respond to this geopolitical policy? According to resource dependence theory and resource-based view, this study examines the impact of CEO political connections on outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) in the context of BRI and its boundary conditions. The results show that CEO political connections can promote firm OFDI under BRI. However, a good institutional environment in the home region and host country weakens the positive impact of CEO political connections. Furthermore, central state ownership has a substitute role for CEO political connections.