Artificial intelligence in accounting and sustainability performance: moderated-mediating model with IT capability and circular economy

Prior studies of information technology (IT) capability mostly focused on dimensions and effects of IT capability at intra-organizational level in western context. This paper extends intra-organizational IT capability to inter-organizational IT capability, specifically examining process-oriented inter-organizational IT capability from a process-oriented perspective in an emerging market context. The authors use survey data from Chinese firms to identify dimensions of inter-organizational IT capability and validate its scale, compare the differences of inter-organizational IT capability in firms with three types of ownership structure, and test the relationship between these inter-organizational IT capability dimensions and firm performance. A comparative analysis reveals that seven inter-organizational IT capability measures identified in Chinese context are extended or more important than in the Western context. Empirical results show that inter-organizational IT capability varies between state-owned enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises. It is also found that four dimensions of inter-organizational IT capability have different impacts on firm performance.

This paper aims to explore the relationship between information technology (IT) capabilities and competitive advantage, with organizational agility as a mediator, in the case of micro, small, and medium enterprises engaged in the fashion industry in Indonesia. Data were collected by distributing questionnaires to 180 small to medium-sized enterprises in Indonesia’s fashion industry that have used e-commerce platforms to conduct their business activities. The data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) in SmartPLS 3.0 software. The study suggests that IT capabilities significantly influence organizational agility and competitive advantage. Therefore, the study can serve as a basis for the Indonesian government to promote digitalization and the use of e-commerce among micro, small, and medium enterprise owners in order to face changes in the market and remain competitive. It can also be beneficial for business owners and managers that aim to increase awareness of the importance of technology in their business operations. The work of this paper deepens the understanding of the relationship between IT capabilities, organizational agility, and competitive advantage, which are becoming increasingly important in the current digitalized and ever-changing business environment. It enriches the literature about micro, small and medium enterprise that is related to their IT capabilities level, how they use it to handle changes and factors that contributes in obtaining competitive advantage.

Organization increasingly relies on the supply chain technology to improve the supply chain operational performance. Yet, past evidence suggests that the adoption of supply chain technology does not guarantee enhanced supply chain operational performance. Drawing from the Resource Based View, this study found that information technology (IT) capability enabled supply chain technology adoption in achieving supply chain operational performance. Supply chain technology serves as a system in transforming IT capability into a higher value resources for an organization. The adoption of supply chain technology in managing supply chain deserved attention from researchers and practitioners, because business benefits from supply chain technology adoption improve firm’s supply chain performances which enhance reliability, improve responsiveness, increase agility, and minimize cost in operation functions. This study provides a unique theoretical framework intended to aid researchers and practitioners develop a more thorough understanding of the linkages between information technology capability, supply chain technology adoption, and supply chain operational performance. The total of 201 questionnaires were sent to Malaysia's textile and apparel company that is listed in the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) and Malaysian External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE) directory. The total of 121 usable responses were obtained and analyzed through Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The discussion of this study is followed by presenting the results of the survey on the relationship of IT capability on supply chain technology adoption and supply chain operational performance. The results shown that supply chain technology adoption is mediating the relationship between IT capability and supply chain operation performance. Â

PurposeOpen innovation and information systems have been key topics in the theoretical domain, but little empirical research thoroughly examines how information technology (IT) capability affects open innovation performance. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between IT capability and open innovation performance and to expose the inner mechanism at the firm level.Design/methodology/approachThis paper collected firm-level data in China; 232 usable questionnaires from different firms were collected. Then, the study used a structural equation model by AMOS for hypothesis testing.FindingsThe results indicate that both internal IT capability and external IT capability have positive impacts on open innovation performance; potential absorptive capacity and realized absorptive capacity mediate the relationship between external IT capability and open innovation performance. Additionally, realized absorptive capacity plays a mediating role in the relationship between internal IT capability and open innovation performance.Practical implicationsThese findings indicate that practitioners should pay attention to the important relationship between absorptive capacity and IT capability and open innovation performance in Chinese businesses.Originality/valueExisting research has emphasized the influence of IT on open innovation, but empirical studies have not thoroughly focused on the inner mechanisms of the effect of IT capability on open innovation performance. Drawing on firm capability theory, this paper classifies IT capability as internal and external IT capability and absorptive capacity as potential and realized absorptive capacity. Then, this paper confirms the mediating role of absorptive capacity between IT capability and open innovation performance.

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the determinants of successful implementation of cloud computing and, further, examines how cloud computing success influences firm performance.Design/methodology/approachThe authors developed a conceptual framework based on the integration of several strands of literature in business studies and information systems. To test the proposed model, data were collected from 300 Chinese firms which have adopted cloud computing. To analyze the data, partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used. An importance-performance map analysis (IPMA) was also conducted to identify the critical factors that exhibit high importance but low performance.FindingsThe results of the study revealed that end-user satisfaction, information quality, system quality, managerial information technology (IT) capability and technical IT capability significantly affect cloud computing success. Additionally, cloud computing success has a strong and positive impact on firm performance. IPMA further confirms that managers need to concentrate more on system quality, information quality, user satisfaction and technical IT capability.Originality/valueThis paper is one of the few attempts to integrate several theoretical frameworks (i.e. IT capabilities and resource-based view, expectation-confirmation theory, and information system success theory) to develop a comprehensive model for understanding the key determinants of cloud computing success and its impact on firm performance. This study makes a useful contribution to the conventional information systems (IS) literature and IT management practice.

This study examines the effect of internal dynamic capabilities i.e., digital leadership, environmental awareness, and organizational learning, on sustainable supply chain performance as studied in the logistics sector. It builds on the Dynamic Capabilities Theory by combining notions of green innovation and sustainability and fills the growing gap in the existing literature. Despite the fact that these domains have been extensively studied independently, there has been limited research examining how internal capabilities contribute to green supply chain innovation (GSCI) that in turn results in sustainability outcomes, especially in the case of emerging markets. Seven hypotheses were tested using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) analysis of data collected from 312 logistics and supply chain professionals in Jordan. This study shows that each of the three capabilities has a major effect on GSCI and therefore sustainable performance. Linking the most influential predictor of sustainability outcome to sustainable supply chain performance, as indicated by the strongest effect (β = 0.825, p < 0.001) between GSCI and sustainable supply chain performance, and followed by significant coefficients between the sustainable information processing (β = 0.261, p < 0.01), and information capabilities (β = 0.297, p < 0.001), indicates that the theory is more suited to GSCI. In particular, digital leadership had the largest impact on the green innovation (β = 0.481, p < 0.001), indicating that the role of digitally driven leadership is to facilitate eco-innovation. In addition, this intermediate factor, GSCI, serves as a variable that mediates relationships between the capabilities and the sustainability outcomes. As the results here suggest, leveraging internal capabilities is a very tangible channel for green innovation that has important ramifications for practitioners and policymakers facing resource constraints.

This study examines how digital skills and information technology (IT) capabilities shape small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs’) performance, with entrepreneurial resilience as a mediator. Drawing on the resource-based view and dynamic capabilities view, this research aims to fill gaps in understanding how digital skills and robust IT capabilities require adaptive, resilience-building processes to translate into sustained performance gains. Using structural equation modeling on survey data from 227 Tunisian SMEs, the findings indicate that digital skills and IT capabilities have positive direct effects on performance. However, entrepreneurial resilience emerges as a proactive, value-creating capability that turns digital endowments into financial, market, and digital performance. The results offer theoretical implications for integrating resources and dynamic capabilities, as well as practical guidance for prioritizing skill development, IT investment, and resilience programs in the digital transformation of SMEs.

This study examines how Social Network Relational Characteristics (SNRC) and Social Network Structural Characteristics (SNSC) influence Sustainable Performance (SP) in China’s advanced manufacturing clusters, with the mediating role of Digital Seizing Capability (DSZC). Drawing on Social Network Theory and Dynamic Capabilities Theory, SP is modeled as a second-order construct comprising economic, environmental, and social performance. Survey data from 236 firms in eight national-level clusters were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM).Results show that SNRC directly and indirectly enhance SP through DSZC, while SNSC impacts SP only indirectly via DSZC. This highlights DSZC as a critical mechanism for converting network advantages into sustainability outcomes. The study advances theory by integrating relational and structural network dimensions with dynamic capabilities and offers practical guidance for managers and policymakers to strengthen network relationships and digital capabilities to foster sustainable competitiveness in the Industry 4.0 era.

This study investigates the influence of information technology (IT) capability on technology acceptance and employee performance in public hospitals. Technology acceptance is measured through perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use as mediating variables. The sample comprises 200 government hospital employees in Aceh, selected using purposive sampling. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire and analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling–Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS). The results demonstrate that IT capability positively and significantly affects perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and employee performance. Furthermore, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use both have a significant positive impact on employee performance and act as mediators in the relationship between IT capability and performance. These findings imply that strengthening individual IT skills, ensuring user-friendly systems, and fostering a deeper understanding of technology’s benefits should be accompanied by continuous training programs, strong managerial support, and comprehensive digital transformation strategies. Such initiatives are crucial for improving service speed, administrative accuracy, and decision-making quality, thereby enhancing the sustainable performance of employees in the public healthcare sector amid an increasingly dynamic digital environment.

This study has examined how small and medium enterprises (SMEs) may enhance their performance under different settings of information technology (IT) capabilities and corporate entrepreneurship (CE). Established on the dynamic capability view, the researchers have analyzed the connections between IT capabilities and CE, in addition to the performance results of SMEs. The research has explored these novel relationships by utilizing partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with a data sample of 447 SMEs of the manufacturing sector in Pakistan. The findings present that IT capabilities positively influence the market and financial performance of SMEs through the mediating role of CE dimensions. The study uniquely determines the mediating role of dimensional effects of corporate entrepreneurship between IT capabilities and performance outcomes of firms. Thus, the study would enable the management of SMEs to realize the potential of IT-related CE dimensions and their use to improve firms’ performance.

Most studies on information technology (IT) capability have drawn their conceptualization from the tenets of resource-based view (RBV). Though path dependence is central to the concept of RBV, very few studies have examined the developmental paths of IT capabilities, which are typically treated as first-order constructs with their effects on firm performance investigated as direct causal links.

Complementarity between client and vendor IT capabilities: An empirical investigation in IT outsourcing projects

Purpose Grounded on the natural resource-based view (NRBV) theory, this study aims to analyze the impact of five green strategies – environmental regulations, corporate environmental ethics, green dynamic capability, top management support and green intellectual capital, on green innovation and its impact on sustainability performance of manufacturing firms in Egypt; in addition, the mediating role of circular economy practices on the relationship between green innovations and firms’ sustainability performance was assessed. Design/methodology/approach The data were collected from 394 responses from Egyptian manufacturing firms by using purposive sampling method. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was mainly employed to analyze the data. Findings The study finds that environmental regulations, corporate environmental ethics, green dynamic capabilities and top management support significantly enhance green innovations of Egyptian manufacturing firms, while green intellectual capital is found insignificant. The relationship between green innovations and sustainability is found to be positive. The results reveal that circular economy practices partially mediate the relationship between green innovations and sustainable practices in Egyptian manufacturing firms. Practical implications To ensure sustainable business performance in Egypt, a long-term strategy focusing on green innovations is essential. The government should enforce strict regulations, while firms adopt sustainable practices, support managers and train young employees to drive green supply chain innovations and enhance business performance. Originality/value This study focuses on manufacturing firms, exploring the impact of green business processes on green innovation and sustainability performance. It uniquely examines the mediation role of the circular economy and provides insights applicable to developing countries like Egypt.

In the age of Industry 4.0, the emergence of new technologies is compelling organizations to search for new methods for sustainability. In particular, IT capabilities and organizational learning competencies with digital leadership play crucial roles in managing environmental dynamism, which are profoundly related to sustainable organizational performance in the digital age. This study explored sustainable organizational performance from the perspective of digital leadership (DL) and the role of IT capabilities (IT infrastructure, IT business spanning, IT-proactive stance), as well as organizational learning in sustainable organizational performance. For this research, data from 173 employees from South Korean organizations were collected using an online survey on digital leadership, IT capabilities, organizational learning, and sustainable organizational performance (SOP). Here, an SPSS- and AMOS-based structural equation modeling technique was used to examine the outcomes for analysis. The results confirmed that digital leadership significantly directly affected SOP. Moreover, there was no mediating effect of IT infrastructure and IT business spanning; however, an IT-proactive stance and organizational learning fully mediated the relationship between DL and SOP. This research will aid leadership behavior alongside other knowledge-based studies that empirically tested the role of digital leadership, IT capabilities, organizational learning, and SOP. As digital leadership competencies demand is surging for managing digital challenges alongside the verification of digital leadership behavior and knowledge-based theory, the important role of DL regarding IT capabilities and organizational learning in SOP needs to be prudently considered in the South Korean context.

Purpose Growing concerns about sustainability in food supply chains have prompted food processing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to adopt new technologies to improve their ecological performance. This study explores the integration of big data analytics capabilities powered by artificial intelligence (BDAC-AI) within green supply chain management (GSCM), examining the mediating roles of waste management (WM) and managerial environmental concern (MEC) in enhancing sustainable performance (SP). The research applies the technology acceptance model (TAM) and dynamic capability theory (DCT) as an integrated framework to understand these relationships. Design/methodology/approach The study employs a quantitative approach using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine direct and indirect pathways among the variables. The sample consists of 489 managers and directors from food processing SMEs, a sector vital for food security that faces significant waste management challenges. Data were collected via a structured survey and analyzed with SPSS and SmartPLS. Findings GSCM, BDAC-AI, WM and MEC each have a significant positive effect on SP. BDAC-AI and WM partially mediate the relationship between GSCM and SP, and MEC significantly moderates the impact of BDAC-AI on SP. These results provide a deeper understanding of how TAM and DCT together explain sustainable performance in food SMEs. Practical implications The findings offer guidance for managers and policymakers, showing that integrating big data analytics into GSCM strategies can yield improved sustainability outcomes and suggesting that supportive policies (e.g. incentives for green technology adoption) can amplify these benefits. Originality/value This study is novel in combining TAM and DCT to examine sustainability practices in food supply chains. It aligns GSCM with SP through the mediating roles of BDAC-AI and WM and the moderating role of MEC, thus filling a significant gap in literature. By benchmarking green supply chain best practices and leveraging BDAC-AI, food processing SMEs can enhance their sustainable performance.