Digital Transformation for Sustainable Development of SMEs: A Systematic Review of ‘How We Know,’ ‘What We Know’ and Research Agenda

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are expected to contribute more significantly to the sustainability agenda. Digital transformation (DT) has the potential to enable SMEs to fulfil their sustainable development goals. However, SMEs encounter unique challenges in leveraging DT for sustainability due to their size, limited resources and fragmented knowledge on DT for sustainable development. Although there have been a few systematic literature reviews on the relationship between DT and sustainable development, they lack either a focus on SMEs or the rigorous ‘how we know.’ This study aims to address those limitations by integrating the two frameworks, the theories-contexts-methods (TCM) and the antecedents-decisions-outcomes (ADO), to shed light on the ‘how we know’ and ‘what we know’ of the current literature on DT for the sustainable development of SMEs. The paper also identifies gaps and proposes a research agenda to advance the scholarship in the research field. Practical and policy implications are discussed.