Digitally-Driven Sustainability: Enhancing Value Creation in Emerging Market Supply Chains

This dissertation analyzes digitally-enabled sustainable value-creation processes in the context of emerging market supply chains (SCs). Applying digital technologies (DTs) in supply chain management (SCM) promises to address global sustainability challenges and contribute to sustainable value creation. However, implementing DTs in globally operating SCs with unequal digital capabilities and competing institutional logics between developed and emerging countries leads to unmet expectations regarding DTs adoption. Considering the divergent institutional logics is crucial to enabling DTs to mediate between different contexts along the SC. Also, it is essential to adopt a comprehensive perspective on sustainable value creation beyond performance to consider various actor’s perspectives. Thus, this dissertation addresses the following two overarching research questions (ORQs): • ORQ 1: How can DTs contribute to sustainable outcomes and value creation in SCs? • ORQ 2: Which role does the institutional context in emerging markets play for sustainable value creation? Four studies applying different research approaches answer these ORQs to provide theoretical and managerial implications for applying DTs for sustainable value creation in emerging market SCs. First, the systematic literature review explains the causal mechanisms of digitally driven (un)sustainable performance while contextualizing and refining practice-based perspectives. Second, a SC business model for value creation is developed to conceptualize the relationships of information and communication technologies (ICTs), value creation processes, and sustainable value creation in a SC business model. Third, the case study further elaborates on these propositions, which helps to structure the theoretical constructs and relations with empirical observations. Fourth, key propositions of the SC business model for value creation are transferred into formal hypotheses and tested with the help of a survey design. Following a theory elaboration approach, the literature review answers ORQ 1 by combining DT-enabled practices and outcomes to understand how DTs contribute to sustainable outcomes. Thereby, three so far isolated academic debates are identified: (1) a mainstream eco-efficiency debate, (2) a big data-driven durable perspective on environmental sustainability, and (3) hard-to-measure substantive sustainability aspects that can be fostered by selective monitoring and certification. However, focal firms frequently apply monitoring and certification practices following Western market logic to ensure sustainability in their multi-tier SCs. Thus, the subsequent studies take a value-creation perspective on sustainability while considering the institutional context in emerging markets where most suppliers are located. The conceptual research follows a theory generation approach. It aids in understanding the process of digitally driven sustainable SC value creation in answer to ORQ 1. The developed concept explains the role of emerging market contexts in addressing ORQ 2 by relating the value-creation process to institutional constraints and ICT adoption factors in emerging market contexts. The developed SC business model for sustainable value creation contextualized the grand theoretical business model and value creation mechanisms in emerging market SCs. The multiple-case study conducted in Subsaharan Africa and South Asia follows a theory elaboration approach. It contributes to ORQ 1 by providing empirical evidence of a digitally driven sustainable SC value creation process and potential unintended consequences for micro- and small-business operators. Furthermore, the effects of mobile financial services (MFSs) on value-creation processes are distinguished at different levels of SC flows. Concerning ORQ 2, it redefines the role of institutional voids. Rather than representing an ex-ante constraint for value creation, they become part of the value creation process. However, the case study does not explicitly distinguish formal and informal institutional voids, which the survey conducted in Pakistan does. By testing theory, the study contributes to ORQ 2 by analyzing the role of ICTs in supporting formal and informal institutions, focusing on Base of the Pyramid (BoP) settings in emerging markets. Findings show that the informal nature of digitally enabled transactions mediates ICTs’ reduction of formal market voids, thereby contributing to economic and social value creation. This dissertation offers implications to SC and sustainability managers, micro- and small shop owners operating in emerging markets, and regulatory bodies. SC and sustainability managers are advised to consider communication, monitoring, and certification practices to promote hard-to-measure (social) sustainability outcomes. Digital platforms such as MFSs, WhatsApp, and digital trade platforms promote the efficiency of informal transactions between micro- and small shop owners and their business partners. Thus, regulatory bodies must weigh the jeopardizing impact of e-levy taxes on value creation. This thesis contains several limitations that provide future research avenues. Future research may take a more nuanced view of formal and informal institutions. Often, institutions cannot be strictly assigned to one of those categories. This is particularly relevant in light of increasing SC due diligence legislation in Western countries.