{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,12]],"date-time":"2026-02-12T06:16:07Z","timestamp":1770876967433,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":51,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,31]],"date-time":"2026-01-31T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1769817600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Su Yang","award":["23BGL214"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["23BGL214"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Systems"],"abstract":"<jats:p>In the era of the digital economy, enhancing the resilience of industrial chains is a core task in building a modern industrial system. This paper views the cotton industrial chain as a system composed of multiple segments and entities, aiming to explore how the digital economy drives the collaborative evolution of the chain\u2019s constituent elements, organizational structure, and overall functions, ultimately enhancing its resilience to respond to shocks and adapt to changes. The study focuses on the cotton industrial chain, systematically analyzing the mechanisms and spatiotemporal characteristics of the digital economy\u2019s impact on its resilience, aiming to provide theoretical support and practical pathways for constructing a secure, efficient, and sustainable cotton industrial chain. Based on panel data from nine provinces in China\u2019s three major cotton-producing regions from 2013 to 2022, the study uses the entropy method to measure the technological innovation vitality and the resilience of the cotton industrial chain, employing a semi-parametric panel model to empirically test the systemic association between them, and utilizing a mediation effect model to identify the roles of market information utilization and the scale of planting in this relationship. The findings indicate the following: (1) The development of the digital economy significantly enhances the resilience of the cotton industrial chain and exhibits an inverted U-shaped nonlinear relationship. (2) The digital economy enhances the overall resilience and synergy of the cotton industrial chain through two key pathways: improving the technological innovation vitality and increasing the level of planting scale. (3) The influence of the digital economy on the resilience of the cotton industrial chain shows geographical heterogeneity, with the order being \u201cYangtze River Basin cotton areas &gt; Northwest Inland cotton areas &gt; Yellow River Basin cotton areas.\u201d The impact of the digital economy on the resilience of the cotton industrial chain also exhibits temporal heterogeneity, with \u201c2013\u20132017 &gt; 2018\u20132022.\u201d From the perspective of system optimization, future efforts should focus on constructing regionally differentiated collaborative mechanisms, improving the integrated platform for market information services, strengthening incentives for large-scale planting policies, enhancing the digital literacy of practitioners, and conducting skills training, in order to strengthen the overall resilience and sustainable evolution of China\u2019s cotton industrial chain.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/systems14020152","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,2]],"date-time":"2026-02-02T09:48:08Z","timestamp":1770025688000},"page":"152","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["The Mechanism and Spatiotemporal Variations in Digital Economy in Enhancing Resilience of the Cotton Industry Chain"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"14","author":[{"given":"Muhabaiti","family":"Pareti","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Economics and Management, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Urumqi 830052, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Sixue","family":"Qin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Economics and Management, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Urumqi 830052, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yang","family":"Su","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Economics and Management, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Urumqi 830052, China"},{"name":"Xinjiang Agricultural and Rural Development Research Center, Urumqi 830052, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Jiao","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Economics and Management, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Urumqi 830052, China"},{"name":"Xinjiang Agricultural and Rural Development Research Center, Urumqi 830052, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Jiangtao","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Economics and Management, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Urumqi 830052, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,31]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"573","DOI":"10.1080\/08985626.2019.1687758","article-title":"Human Agency, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development: A Behavioural Perspective on Economic Evolution and Innovative Transformation","volume":"32","author":"Huggins","year":"2020","journal-title":"Entrep. 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