Small and medium-sized enterprises as technology innovation intermediaries in sustainable business ecosystem: interplay between AI adoption, low carbon management and resilience

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a critical role as innovation intermediaries (IIs) in supply chains (SCs) by adopting emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), which drives smart data-driven decision making. However, there is a paucity of empirical evidence on the role of intangible organisational capabilities to drive AI adoption within SMEs that will lead to SC productivity, low carbon management, and resilience. To bridge this gap in the literature, our research employs perceived organisational support (POS) as the theoretical lens to develop a theoretical model that is tested by surveying 375 Vietnamese managers of manufacturing SMEs. Our findings from structural equation modelling analysis demonstrate that organisational change capacity will facilitate AI adoption, which will lead to SC productivity, resilience, and low carbon management because of SMEs’ ability to leverage AI for data-driven decision making. Based on POS theory, our research highlights the role of intangible SME resources in implementing sustainable digital SCs’ transformation, an essential strategy for acting as IIs in business ecosystems. Our findings will help SMEs to develop strategies that will enhance skills, competencies, expertise, and organisational creativity conducive to the needs of the human workforce. This will enhance the capacity and capability of SMEs to innovate, manage, and efficiently adapt to change in a technologically turbulent, dynamic, uncertain, and volatile business environment.