Towards a sustainable world through a SMART digital transformation

Hilali, Wail El; Manouar, Abdellah El

doi:10.1145/3320326.3320364

Cited by 20 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Our findings are in line with the results of a theoretical research (El Hilali and El Manouar, 2019) that tried to explore the relationship between digital transformation and sustainability. The study proposed recommendations to enhance a firm’s sustainability commitment, grouped in three categories: customer experience, operational processes and business model.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Reaching sustainability during a digital transformation: a PLS approach

Hilali

Manouar

Idrissi

2020

IJIS

Self Cite

115

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Purpose In a world where big data have become crucial to guarantee the success of companies, digital transformation came to help companies transition towards a digital business and accept the changes in the organizational structure as well as the market. Nonetheless, even with the ever-growing importance shed on it, few articles and studies have linked it to the sustainability paradigm. Empirical studies that have linked between the factors of digital transformation and a more sustainable business are still scant. Many efforts are still needed to reduce the knowledge gap between these two concepts. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by examining (empirically) the effect of digital transformation on sustainability. Design/methodology/approach The study validates five different hypotheses highlighted by the literature using structural equation model (SEM) analysis from partial least square (PLS) approach. It uses a new conceptual framework using a survey data, answered by 41 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Morocco from different industries. Findings Using PLS-SEM modeling, the results show that customers, data and innovation, which are drivers that companies should work on during a digital transformation, have a significant impact on companies’ quest to reach sustainability. However, and in contrast to the existing literature, authors find that competition did not play a significant role in enhancing the companies’ commitment to sustainability. Practical implications Authors’ findings encourage firms to seize the opportunity of digital transformation to embrace sustainability, because the implementation of these two concepts requires radical changes at the business model level. Authors suggest that the road to achieve sustainability in a digital era should focus on three main axes, enhancing the customer experience and adopting customer centricity, building data analytics capabilities and shifting innovation to the business model level. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first research papers that explain how to reach sustainability during a digital transformation. The originality of this paper lies in the fact that it focuses on SMEs as they remain the backbone of the Moroccan economy. This study is also novel for showing with empirical evidences that working on the axes of customers, data and innovation, during a digital transformation journey, will improve sustainable practices within businesses.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Reaching sustainability during a digital transformation: a PLS approach

Hilali

Manouar

Idrissi

2020

IJIS

Self Cite

115

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“…The identification of these dimensions supports related works arguing that digital transformation is much more than using cutting-edge digital technologies (Kane, Palmer, Phillips, Kiron, & Buckley, 2015;Kohnke, 2017). The main output of a digital transformation is a suitable business model that helps companies to capture a new value adapted to the digital era (El Hilali & El Manouar, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 54%

Digital Transformation for Sustainability: A Qualitative Analysis

Hilali¹,

Manouar²,

Idrissi³

2020

CIS

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In the digital era, finding a new way to conduct business becomes mandatory. The risk of disruption, the bloody competition, the change in customer behaviours and the scarcity of resources, these are few of many drivers that force companies to change their business models and adapt to the new market reality. Digital transformation emerged as a recent concept that help companies to best leverage digital capabilities such as Big data, Internet of things, Cloud Computing and Artificial Intelligence. The purpose of this paper was to conduct a qualitative analysis on three big size companies in order to enrich the literature on this concept and to discuss whether or not companies could reach sustainability during their transformation journeys. The three in-depth case studies showed that customers, data, competition and innovation are four dimensions of digital transformation that have an impact on the companies’ sustainability actions. We proposed at the end of the article a future research model, composed of 5 hypotheses, to be validated by a future empirical study.

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“…Table 4 indicates that studies at the Intermediate of Life Cycle Stage focuses on 'Consumption' and 'Use' phase, followed by the 'Transportation' and 'Packaging' phase and 'Repair' and 'Maintenance' phase. The main application areas are the consumption and use of digital sharing platforms [23,52,68,74,76], the transportation and packaging of food [100] and building prefabricated materials [79], and the repair and maintenance of the telecommunications industry [112]. [51,58,72], reuse/remanufacture of consumer goods [113], automotive charging and energy storage systems [114], parts [83,115] and digital recorder [116], disposal of production and domestic wastes [117], disassembly/recycling and disposal of mixed energy and factory gases [118], metal parts [119], e-waste [120], and disassembly/recycling and reuse/remanufacturing of waste polymers [54,57,98], industrial wastes [121], and textile materials [94].…”

Section: Life Cycle Stages and Application Areas In Ce And Dementioning

confidence: 99%

Integration of Digital Economy and Circular Economy: Current Status and Future Directions

Liu

Osmani

2021

Sustainability

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Circular economy (CE) is a concept actively advocated by the European Union (EU), China, Japan, and the United Kingdom. At present, CE is considered to grant the most traction for companies to achieve sustainable development. However, CE is still rarely adopted by enterprises. As the backbone of the fourth industrial revolution, the digital economy (DE) is considered to have a disruptive effect. Studies have shown that digital technology has great potential in promoting the development of CE. Especially during the COVID-19 epidemic that has severely negatively affected the global economy, environment, and society, CE and DE are receiving high attention from policy makers, practitioners, and scholars around the world. However, the integration of CE and digital technology is a small and rapidly developing research field that is still in its infancy. Although there is a large amount of research in the fields of CE and DE, respectively, there are few studies that look into integrating these two fields. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the research progress and trends of the integration of CE and DE, and provide an overview for future research. This paper adopts a bibliometric research method, employs the Web of Science database as its literature source, and uses VOSviewer visual software to carry out keyword co-occurrence analysis, which focuses on publication trends, journal sources, keyword visualization, multidisciplinary areas, life cycle stages, and application fields.

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Towards a sustainable world through a SMART digital transformation

Cited by 20 publications

References 15 publications

Reaching sustainability during a digital transformation: a PLS approach

Reaching sustainability during a digital transformation: a PLS approach

Digital Transformation for Sustainability: A Qualitative Analysis

Integration of Digital Economy and Circular Economy: Current Status and Future Directions

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