A influência da colaboração interorganizacional para a estratégia e crescimento digital de pequenas e médias empresas

Abstract

The present research aims to understand the influence of the sources of relational gains for the digital maturity level (DM) of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The research method chosen was the quantitative one, through data collection via survey questionnaire, obtaining a sample of 200 SMEs in the State of Rio Grande do Sul. The hypotheses were tested through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), hierarchical regression and t-test. The results suggest that the specific assets of the interorganizational relationship, knowledge sharing routines and complementary resources/capabilities are sources of relational gains that contribute for SMEs to reach higher levels of digital maturity. It was alsofound that the effective governance of the interorganizational relationship restricts higher levels of digital maturity of SMEs. The technological turbulence, as a moderator of the relationship between the sources of relational gains and the level of DM of SMEs proved to have a positive effect only in the relationship between the routines of knowledge sharing and the level of DM of SMEs. Finally, SMEs with high DM levels had superior performance than those with low DM in the comparison between 2021 and 2020 and in the variation between 2020 and 2019. This dissertation contributes to reduce the theoretical gap signalized in previous studies, that there were no studies that addressed the influence of interorganizational collaboration for the level of digital maturity of SMEs, since it is an under-explored theme in the literature and an opportunity to investigate the digital transformation in SMEs, mainly under the collaboration perspective. As a practical contribution, the results of this research are considerable, given the turbulent moment caused by COVID-19. This study shows that SMEs can make use of interorganizational relationships to progress in their digital transformation, as SMEs with higher digital maturity levels achieved superior performance to those with low digital maturity.