Sharing weal and woe: Do geopolitical risks affect corporate innovation? A global supply chain perspective

Two theories offer conflicting predictions on the relationship between uncertainty from geopolitical risks (GPR) and firm innovative investment and have not yet reached a consensus. To reconcile the two strands of literature and provide a fuller picture of GPR's effect, we explore the influence of GPR on companies' R&D investment in the global supply chain setting. By applying the customer-induced GPR we find that GPR has a positive impact on R&D investment. The results are robust after using different measures of GPR and instrumental variable approach. Moreover, we investigate the mechanism through which GPR affects firm R&D investment and find that growth option and firm liquidity are the main mechanisms. Further empirical analysis indicates that this positive impact is strengthened for firms that operate in high-tech industries, or have weaker political connections. Moreover, the positive impact of customer-induced GPR only generates when the largest company has a high sales proportion of the focal company.