Harnessing digital technologies for sustainable transformation in the wine industry

In the context of accelerating digital transformation and mounting sustainability pressures, digital technologies (DTs) are frequently portrayed as neutral efficiency-enhancing tools capable of delivering environmental, economic, and social improvements across agri-food supply chains. However, the sustainability outcomes of digitalisation remain uneven and theoretically underexplained. Focusing on the wine industry as a structurally complex and stakeholder-intensive setting, this study reconceptualises digital transformation as a stakeholder-embedded phenomenon that redistributes power and legitimacy across supply-chain actors. Drawing on stakeholder theory and following a systematic literature review (PRISMA) of 35 peer-reviewed articles, we analyse how DTs reshape stakeholder relationships across grape production, harvesting, wine production, purchasing, and logistics. The findings reveal that digitalisation systematically reinforces the influence of actors who control data infrastructures and compliance mechanisms, leading to asymmetric sustainability outcomes. Environmental and economic sustainability are predominantly strengthened where digital monitoring enhances regulatory alignment and operational efficiency, while social sustainability remains comparatively mediated through transparency and reputational logics rather than structural labour improvements. By integrating digital transformation and stakeholder theory within a phenomenon-focused review, this study advances a relational explanation for the uneven sustainability effects of digitalisation and develops a theory-driven research agenda for digitally enabled sustainability governance in agri-food supply chains.