The effect of specialized search on digital transformation maturity for improving sustainability: The impact of identity orientation and enabling controls

The objective of this study is to analyze the effects of openness in specialized search and digital transformation maturity on sustainability. In this context, the moderating role of organizational identity orientation and enabling controls is explored. To collect the data used in this research, a questionnaire was administered to small and medium-sized hotels in Brazil. The data collected from 190 small hotels were analyzed using partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). This research reveals that knowledge seeking from value chain partners (VCPs) affects the level of digital transformation maturity (DTM). In the analyses, we did not find the same effect when the hotel sought research-oriented knowledge from science organization (SCIs). The findings also showed that improving the level of DTM affects economic, social and environmental sustainability. The results showed that a relational organizational identity orientation (RIO) can cause losses by transforming research-oriented external knowledge into internal knowledge. At the same time, individualistic identity (IIO) and collectivistic identity (CIO) can negatively affect the relationship between the VCPs and digital transformation. The conclusions also reveal that enabling controls moderate the relationships between the levels of DTM and sustainability in terms of economic performance. This study improves our understanding of how technology can support the efforts of hotels to achieve their sustainability goals. Specifically, this study investigates how the openness in specialized search affects sustainability through the DTM. This paper contributes to the literature by analyzing the effect of such external knowledge search on DTM and by investigating whether such an effect depends on organizational identity orientation (OIO).