AI and data-driven supply chain integration: The role of network capabilities in sustainability reporting readiness

The world supply chains are rapidly going digital and at the same time, there are growing demands of sustainability transparency and responsibility. The existing literature has mostly focused on the performance advantages of digital technologies, although it has paid relatively little attention to the fact that the latter help prepare sustainability reporting and to organizational mechanisms that support this process. Based on the Organizational Information Processing Theory and the dynamic capabilities perspective, the current study constructs a first-stage moderated mediation hypotheses and tests the hypothesis based on the role of AI-driven supply chain intelligence and supply chain digital integration in enhancing sustainability reporting preparedness through Organizational Information Processing Capability (OIPC) and the moderating role of Top Management Digital Orientation (TMDO). Based on the survey data obtained after surveying 268 manufacturing companies, applying the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), the findings show that OIPC is an intermediate mediating process whereby the digital technologies are transformed into the reporting readiness. Digital integration of supply chains has a high positive correlation with OIPC and reporting ready. On the other hand, AI-based intelligence also portrays a high level of negative direct and indirect impacts hence demonstrating a complex effect where higher levels of analytics can be limiting to information processing in situations where there is inadequate organizational alignment. TMDO reduces such negative AI effects and at the same time, reduces the marginal contribution of integration mechanisms. These results emphasize the fact that the process of digital transformation towards sustainability is not absolutely related to technology itself but rather depends on the capacity of the organization and digital leadership.