Does digitalisation enable small and medium-sized enterprises to become more sustainable?

Abstract

Environmental sustainability is currently of paramount importance worldwide. In thiscontext, digitalisation has emerged as a transformative force in the business world,and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need to adapt to sustainability anddigitalisation without neglecting performance. The objective of the study is to estab-lish the connection between the positive financial outcomes resulting from digitalcapabilities and the ability of SMEs to become environmentally sustainable. Addition-ally, a theoretical framework has been developed to explain the results from the anal-ysis of a reflexive structural equation model using data collected from 975 SpanishSMEs. The results indicate that investing in digitalisation allows companies tobecome more environmentally responsible and achieve qualitative growth in terms ofreputation. Furthermore, digitalisation promotes quantitative growth throughimproved efficiency, cost savings, enhanced product quality and increased customersatisfaction. Lastly, the study model demonstrates that profitable companies are more likely to be sustainable.