Global exchanges boost the adoption of digital technologies among partner firms, highlighting the importance of international strategic collaboration and coordination emphasizing the urgency of balancing economic performance with social responsibility and environmental protection to guarantee the sustainable performance of global markets.
Companies are progressively employing digital tools for sustainable purposes, such as developing greener production processes, reducing their environmental impact, mapping their environmental footprint, or improving social welfare.
This study adopts an interorganizational focus, looking into whether the networked connections enabled by digitalization, can potentially trigger positive changes in the social and economic environments.
Using three different country-level databases, this study investigates how different combinations of cultural factors supporting collaboration and digital infrastructure lead to sustainability performance. Longitudinal data collected for three years on 16 European countries are analyzed using qualitative comparative analysis.
The findings suggest that in the presence of high levels of digital and cultural factors that enable collaborative networks, countries also are characterized by high sustainability performance. Furthermore, even in the absence of high levels of cultural factors supporting collaboration, digital infrastructures are sufficient for enhancing sustainability performance. Whereas when digital infrastructure is absent, even if cultural factors are present, it is not possible to generate high levels of sustainability.
This study encourages policymakers and institutions to invest in the development of digital infrastructures and create the condition to favor companies’ cooperation at the country level.
