Can sustainability orientation make firms more resilient? Exploring the role of digital business model innovation, digital orientation, and environmental dynamism

Abstract

Resilience refers to a firm's capacity to foresee, prevent, and adapt to disruptive events and environmental changes. Previous research has explored the antecedents of resilience from perspective of resources and capabilities, but there has been limited attention paid to strategic orientation, particularly sustainability orientation (SO). In light of the growing importance of sustainability in response to various social issues, this study investigates how SO in digital context can enhance firm resilience by driving digital business model innovation (DBMI). The study also examines the moderating effects of digital orientation (DO) and environmental dynamism (ED) on the relationship between SO and DBMI based on contingency theory. We tested our hypothesis using survey data from 155 Chinese SMEs. The results show that: (i) SO can improve firm resilience, (ii) DBMI plays a mediating role between SO and resilience, and (iii) the interplay of SO and DO can create stronger DBMI, but the synergy between them will be weakened in more dynamic environment.