IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v16y2024i4p1533-d1337407.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Digital and Sustainable (Twin) Transformations: A Case of SMEs in the European Union

Author

Listed:
  • Aurelija Burinskienė

    (Faculty of Business Management, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Saulėtekio Av. 11, LT-10223 Vilnius, Lithuania)

  • Jolanta Nalivaikė

    (Faculty of Business Management, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Saulėtekio Av. 11, LT-10223 Vilnius, Lithuania)

Abstract

In the European Digital Decade 2030 Policy Program, the following guidelines for European digital transformation are named, which means that more than 90% of small- and medium-sized companies reach at least a basic level of digital intensity. In addition to that, the European Commission pays a lot of attention to implementing the “Green Deal” in order to achieve less environmental impact. ICT SMEs already play a key role in Europe’s green and digital transformation, creating technologies that promote sustainability and strengthen Europe’s position. The limited and fragmented application of today’s digital and sustainable technologies in SMEs is observed at the EU level. The bibliometric literature analytical results show that the number of papers on the digital direction is five times higher than on the sustainable direction topic. The paper seeks to identify directions that could help SMEs to speed up this twin transformation in each EU country. The authors proposed a two-stage methodology, which is used for researching twin transformations in SMEs. According to the methodology, first, the authors analysed the indicators of EU-27 SMEs, representing their activity towards the twin transformation, comparing them among other size classes. The results show that the SME’s numbers in the 16 indicators area are worse than the numbers characterizing EU-27 enterprises, having more than ten employees. In addition, a multi-criteria decision making-based assessment framework was constructed to show the progress towards the twin transition. The provided research shows which areas require more attention from SMEs and policy makers responding to the twin transformation objectives.

Suggested Citation

  • Aurelija Burinskienė & Jolanta Nalivaikė, 2024. "Digital and Sustainable (Twin) Transformations: A Case of SMEs in the European Union," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(4), pages 1-25, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:4:p:1533-:d:1337407
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/4/1533/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/4/1533/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rehman, Shafique Ur & Giordino, Daniele & Zhang, Qingyu & Alam, Gazi Mahabubul, 2023. "Twin transitions & industry 4.0: Unpacking the relationship between digital and green factors to determine green competitive advantage," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    2. Ludo Waltman & Nees Eck, 2013. "A smart local moving algorithm for large-scale modularity-based community detection," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 86(11), pages 1-14, November.
    3. Chatzistamoulou, Nikos, 2023. "Is digital transformation the Deus ex Machina towards sustainability transition of the European SMEs?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    4. Lee, Chien-Chiang & He, Zhi-Wen & Yuan, Zihao, 2023. "A pathway to sustainable development: Digitization and green productivity," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    5. Harry Bouwman & Mark Reuver & Marikka Heikkilä & Erwin Fielt, 2020. "Business model tooling: where research and practice meet," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 30(3), pages 413-419, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lutz Bornmann & Robin Haunschild & Sven E. Hug, 2018. "Visualizing the context of citations referencing papers published by Eugene Garfield: a new type of keyword co-occurrence analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(2), pages 427-437, February.
    2. Thorsten Schoormann & Julia Schweihoff & Ilka Jussen & Frederik Möller, 2023. "Classification tools for business models: Status quo, comparison, and agenda," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 33(1), pages 1-36, December.
    3. Natalya Ivanova & Ekaterina Zolotova, 2023. "Landolt Indicator Values in Modern Research: A Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-22, June.
    4. Nina Sakinah Ahmad Rofaie & Seuk Wai Phoong & Muzalwana Abdul Talib & Ainin Sulaiman, 2023. "Light-emitting diode (LED) research: A bibliometric analysis during 2003–2018," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 173-191, February.
    5. Rafael Martínez-Peláez & Alberto Ochoa-Brust & Solange Rivera & Vanessa G. Félix & Rodolfo Ostos & Héctor Brito & Ramón A. Félix & Luis J. Mena, 2023. "Role of Digital Transformation for Achieving Sustainability: Mediated Role of Stakeholders, Key Capabilities, and Technology," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(14), pages 1-27, July.
    6. Giovanni Matteo & Pierfrancesco Nardi & Stefano Grego & Caterina Guidi, 2018. "Bibliometric analysis of Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment research," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 38(4), pages 508-516, December.
    7. Yi-Ming Wei & Jin-Wei Wang & Tianqi Chen & Bi-Ying Yu & Hua Liao, 2018. "Frontiers of Low-Carbon Technologies: Results from Bibliographic Coupling with Sliding Window," CEEP-BIT Working Papers 116, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEP), Beijing Institute of Technology.
    8. Loredana Canfora & Corrado Costa & Federico Pallottino & Stefano Mocali, 2021. "Trends in Soil Microbial Inoculants Research: A Science Mapping Approach to Unravel Strengths and Weaknesses of Their Application," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-21, February.
    9. Evi Sachini & Nikolaos Karampekios & Pierpaolo Brutti & Konstantinos Sioumalas-Christodoulou, 2020. "Should I stay or should I go? Using bibliometrics to identify the international mobility of highly educated Greek manpower," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(1), pages 641-663, October.
    10. Yahya, Farzan & Lee, Chien-Chiang, 2023. "Disentangling the asymmetric effect of financialization on the green output gap," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    11. Vanessa Ioannoni & Tommaso Vitale & Corrado Costa & Iris Elliott, 2020. "Depicting communities of Romani studies: on the who, when and where of Roma related scientific publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(3), pages 1473-1490, March.
    12. Tzuhua D. Lin & Nimrod D. Rubinstein & Nicole L. Fong & Megan Smith & Wendy Craft & Baby Martin-McNulty & Rebecca Perry & Martha A. Delaney & Margaret A. Roy & Rochelle Buffenstein, 2024. "Evolution of T cells in the cancer-resistant naked mole-rat," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-20, December.
    13. Jensen, Scott & Liu, Xiaozhong & Yu, Yingying & Milojevic, Staša, 2016. "Generation of topic evolution trees from heterogeneous bibliographic networks," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 606-621.
    14. Collins C. Okolie & Gideon Danso-Abbeam & Okechukwu Groupson-Paul & Abiodun A. Ogundeji, 2022. "Climate-Smart Agriculture Amidst Climate Change to Enhance Agricultural Production: A Bibliometric Analysis," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-23, December.
    15. Oleg E. Karpov & Elena N. Pitsik & Semen A. Kurkin & Vladimir A. Maksimenko & Alexander V. Gusev & Natali N. Shusharina & Alexander E. Hramov, 2023. "Analysis of Publication Activity and Research Trends in the Field of AI Medical Applications: Network Approach," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(7), pages 1-17, March.
    16. Gurzki, Hannes & Woisetschläger, David M., 2017. "Mapping the luxury research landscape: A bibliometric citation analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 147-166.
    17. Zhong, Sheng & Verspagen, Bart, 2016. "The role of technological trajectories in catching-up-based development: An application to energy efficiency technologies," MERIT Working Papers 2016-013, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    18. Zamboni, Nadia Selene & Noleto Filho, Eurico Mesquita & Carvalho, Adriana Rosa, 2021. "Unfolding differences in the distribution of coastal marine ecosystem services values among developed and developing countries," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    19. Lovro Šubelj & Nees Jan van Eck & Ludo Waltman, 2016. "Clustering Scientific Publications Based on Citation Relations: A Systematic Comparison of Different Methods," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(4), pages 1-23, April.
    20. Daniel Trabucchi & Laurent Muzellec & Sébastien Ronteau, 2019. "Sharing economy: seeing through the fog," Post-Print hal-03718526, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:4:p:1533-:d:1337407. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.