Table 1.

Original set of independent variables

Factors	Variables	Definition	Measurement	References
Status of agriculture development in the country	Level of foreign direct investment in agricultural sector	Value of cross-border transactions related to direct investment in agricultural sector during one year	Code high level as 1 and low level as 0	Qiao et al. (2019)
	Development stage of agriculture	Whether the agricultural sector is belonging to the emerging or developed stage	Code developed stage as 1 and emerging stage as 0	Qiao et al. (2019)
	Legal policy environment	Whether there are relevant laws and regulations and preferential policies	Code strong law and policy environment as 1 and 0 otherwise	Fayyaz et al. (2020)
Quality and credit conditions of Agricultural SMEs	Current ratio of agricultural SME	Ability of agricultural SME to pay short-term obligations	Floating assets divided by floating liabilities	Zhu et al. (2019); Lam et al. (2019)
	Quick ratio of agricultural SME	Ability of agricultural SME to pay short-term obligations using quick asset	Floating assets minus Inventory, then divided by floating liabilities	Zhu et al. (2019), Lam et al. (2019)
	Cash ratio of agricultural SME	Cash held by the agricultural SME prior to the SCF of agriculture 4.0 investment	Total cash/ Total asset	Wetzel and Hofmann (2019)
	Working capital turnover of agricultural SME	Business effectiveness of agricultural SME in running its operations	Net sales/ working capital	Lam et al. (2019), Zhu et al. (2019)
	Return on equity of agricultural SME	Business efficiency of agricultural SME (or more specifically, its management team) in handling the business money	Net income/ Shareholders’ equity	Xu et al. (2018), Zhu et al. (2019)
	Financial leverage of the agricultural SME	Leverage of the agricultural SME before the SCF of agriculture 4.0 investment	Total long-term debt/ Total asset	Xu et al. (2018), Chen et al., (2010)
	Profitability of agricultural SME	The profitability of the agricultural SME before the SCF of agriculture 4.0 investment	Profit margin on sales	Fayyaz et al. (2020), Lam et al. (2019)
	Growth of agricultural SME	Growth of the agricultural SME before the SCF of agriculture 4.0 investment	Total Assets Growth Rate	Zhu et al. (2019)
Credit conditions of Leading Enterprise	Credit rating of LE	The creditworthiness of the LE in general terms or concerning a particular debt or financial obligation	Combination of Payment history (35%), Amount owed (30%), Length of credit history (15%), New credit (10%) and Type of credit used (10%)	Zhu et al. (2019), Lam et al. (2019)
	Cash ratio of LE	Cash held by the LE before the SCF of agriculture 4.0 investment	Total cash/ Total asset	Zhu et al. (2019)
	Financial leverage of the LE	Leverage of the LE before the SCF of agriculture 4.0 investment	Total long-term debt/ Total asset	Xu et al. (2018), Chen et al., (2010)
	LE’s Profitability	Profitability of the LE before the SCF of agriculture 4.0 investment	Profit margin on sales	Zhu et al. (2019)
Status of the cooperative relationship	Intensity of contract	Whether the two sides have long-term contracts (> 5 years)	Code long-term as 1 and 0 otherwise	Zhu et al. (2019), Lam et al. (2019)
	Collaborative Mechanism	Whether more than one firm works together to provide the SCF of agriculture 4.0 investment	Code collaborations as 1 and 0 otherwise	Wuttke et al. (2019), Xu et al. (2018)
	The place of the agricultural SME in the SC	Whether the agricultural SME provides an advantageous price and non-easily substitutable products	Code strong place as 1 and 0 otherwise	Wuttke et al. (2019)
Profitability of agriculture 4.0 Investment	Return on investment of agriculture 4.0 investment	Efficiency of the agriculture 4.0 investment compared to the cost of the required investment	Net expected profit/ cost of investment	Wuttke et al. (2019)
	Abnormal Return of agriculture 4.0 investment	Difference between the actual return without agriculture 4.0 and the expected return with agriculture 4.0	Actual Return minus Expected Return	Lam et al. (2019)
	Residual income of agriculture 4.0 investment	Net income that the entire SC continues to receive after the completion of the income-producing work of the agriculture 4.0 investment	profit before interest expense minus a capital charge levied on investment	Lam et al. (2019)
	Profitability index of agriculture 4.0 investment	Measure of the attractiveness of the agriculture 4.0 investment	Present value of future expected cash flows divided by the initial investment	Xu et al. (2018)