The configurational impact of digital transformation on sustainability : a country-level perspective

This study focuses on the important national issue of sustainable development, and by incorporating the conditions for digital transformation reveals the necessary and sufficient relationships that lead to a high or low level of national sustainability. In order to deepen our knowledge of the prerequisites for the desirable outcome (i.e. higher levels of sustainability), we proposed a configurational model combining the available national data on digitalization dimensions. To empirically analyse related data for 134 countries, we used Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis and Necessary Condition Analysis. Our findings suggest multiple asymmetric configurations that justify the high and low levels of the Sustainability Global Index Score as well as the significance of digitalization for achieving sustainable development goals. The NCA and fsQCA solutions provide novel insights into varying sustainability levels across countries, and how 10 dimensions of digital transformation readiness contribute to this. The results also highlight the role of skills and business usage as core conditions for sustainability solutions. This research theoretically enhances our perception of asymmetric interactions between national digital transformation and sustainability and can serve a pragmatic role in steering sustainability strategies and national digital transformation.