Digital Transformation & Corporate Sustainability
Combining Digital Transformation with Corporate Sustainability: A Perspective on Business Performance
The Context
Organizations are increasingly integrating digital technologies into their operations, driving significant changes in business models. At the same time, they face growing expectations to embed sustainability considerations into their business models. Their interplay is not straightforward. The material existence and use of digital technologies have adverse effects on the environment and society, while also enabling organizations to address sustainability challenges faced by humanity. Although digital transformation and sustainability initiatives are frequently studied in parallel, the management literature has only marginally addressed their interplay. The recent concept of “twin transformation” focuses on the synergies between the two research trends, examining at the organizational level how digital transformation enables sustainability transformation and, simultaneously, how sustainability transformation guides digital transformation (Christmann et al., 2024).
Christmann, A.-S., Crome, C., Graf-Drasch, V., Oberländer, A. M., & Schmidt, L. (2024). The Twin Transformation Butterfly: Capabilities for an Integrated Digital and Sustainability Transformation. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 66(4), 489–505. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-023-00847-2
The Challenge
Significant knowledge gaps remain regarding how organizations actually combine the twin transformation in practice, the rationale underlying the selection of specific practices, the managerial challenges that emerge, and the influence of such practices on business performance. Moreover, the impact of the twin transformation on business performance is still insufficiently documented. We aim to build empirical insights into how the twin transformation is implemented and on its influence on business models, by investigating how digital technologies enable more sustainable value propositions and, simultaneously, how sustainability objectives shape the design and deployment of digital solutions. The doctoral research aims to contribute to academic knowledge whilst providing useful insights for managerial decision-making. Ultimately, the aim is to encourage organizations to pursue the twin transformation, fostering a coherent alignment between digital transformation and corporate sustainability objectives.
Goals
The doctoral research is expected to generate both theoretical and empirical insights on the implementation of the twin transformation and on its influence on business performance. A multi-method research strategy is intended to investigate the relationship between the twin transformation and firm performance, with a strong emphasis on business model transformation.
Personnes impliquées
- Sophie PIROTTON
Researcher - Nicolas NEYSEN
Supervisor - Bruno GEMENNE
Supervisor
