Artificial Intelligence Capability and Firm Performance: A Sustainable Development Perspective by the Mediating Role of Data-Driven Culture

Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, applications, and capabilities have received tremendous attention from industry practitioners, scholars, and policymakers. Despite the substantial progress of the literature on AI, there is a considerable scarcity of research investigating the effects of AI capability, considering the importance of a data-driven culture and whether a data-driven culture truly mediates the relationship between AI capability and firm performance from a sustainable development perspective. Anchored by the resource-based theory (RBT), we developed a high-order model of AI capability and its resources (tangible, intangible, and human). We used a two-stage approach, with PLS-SEM in the first and fsQCA in the second. The findings from the first step suggest that AI capability directly impacts firm performance and that data-driven culture mediates the relationship between AI capability and firm performance. The results from the second step indicated that different configurations of AI resources could be considered for firms to achieve high performance but that AI infrastructure is a crucial resource. Our study advances the literature on AI capability and sustainable development goals. Similarly, it contributes to moving the RBT theory forward by suggesting that AI capability is a paramount variable that substantially influences firm performance. Simultaneously, it is harmoniously connected with SDG 9 (industry, innovation, and infrastructure) and SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production).