The relationship between organizational culture, sustainability, and digitalization in SMEs: A systematic review

Organizational culture, environmental sustainability, and digitalization have an impact on the business development of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME). Dimensions associated with organizational culture (e.g., attitudes, norms, assumptions) give a sense of identity and determine behavior. The latter include general approaches concerning the organizational impact on the natural environment (environmental sustainability) or the adoption of digital technologies (digitalization), which can cause profound transformations of the business model. These three concepts have been investigated separately and scarce attention has been paid to their relationship. To enable SMEs to successfully manage this complex relationship, our study cumulates existing knowledge, offering the first integrative view on organizational culture, level of environmental sustainability, and level of digitalization and their interactions. Through a systematic literature review protocol supplemented where possible by meta-analysis we selected 80 significant papers out of 811 peer-reviewed papers analyzed. We developed a network map to display the relations between the three concepts. Quantitative path analysis was used on three bidirectional main paths. For qualitative analysis we developed a novel extension to the Belief-Action-Outcome (BAO) framework, presented for the first time in the paper. Our findings reveal thirteen key dimensions and identify ten links between the key constructs. Strategic orientation, internal capabilities, management, and attitudes are the most investigated cultural dimensions. Furthermore, we integrated interchangeably used terms (e.g. Green IT and Green IS) introducing the novel concept of green digitalization tools. The meta-analysis revealed trends in applied research methods, geographical locations of research, top journals, and a growing interest in the relationship. Finally, we identify gaps in existing research and challenges for future research.