Digital Financial Inclusion, Operational Efficiency, and Sustainable Growth: A Systematic Review from an Enterprise Service and Operations Perspective

Digital Financial Inclusion (DFI) has emerged as a critical enabler of enterprise development in the digital economy, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).While existing studies widely acknowledge the positive association between DFI and Sustainable Growth (SG), the operational mechanisms through which digital financial access is transformed into sustained enterprise-level outcomes remain insufficiently clarified.Drawing on service science, informatics, and operations management perspectives, this study conducts a systematic literature review of 89 peer-reviewed articles following the PRISMA protocol to examine the role of Operational Efficiency (OE) as the core mediating mechanism linking DFI and SG.The review reveals substantial conceptual fragmentation and measurement inconsistency across studies, as well as pronounced regional and contextual imbalances, particularly in SME-focused research from developing economies.Synthesizing evidence from the DFI-OE, OE-SG, and DFI-SG research streams, this study advances an integrated enterprise-level framework grounded in the Resource-Based View and Dynamic Capabilities Theory.We argue that OE represents the central transformation hub through which digital financial resources and information infrastructures are converted into sustainable growth outcomes via process optimization, enhanced information flows, and improved operational decision-making.By explicitly positioning DFI as a digital service and information infrastructure that reshapes enterprise operations, this review contributes to the logistics, informatics, and service science literature by clarifying the micro-level mechanisms of digital transformation and identifying priority directions for future empirical research on SMEs and service-oriented enterprises.