Sustainability, Vol. 18, Pages 1600: Impact of Emerging Digital Technologies on Firms’ Financial Performance, Inventory Efficiency, and Greenhouse Gas Emissions: An Event Study

Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su18031600

Authors:
Khadija Ajmal
Charles X. Wang
Nallan C. Suresh
Aditya Vedantam

This study investigates the performance consequences of adopting emerging digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data analytics, and cloud computing, with attention to financial, operational, and environmental dimensions. Using an event study of 134 adoption announcements by publicly traded U.S. firms from 2009 to 2019, we compare adopters with matched control firms identified through propensity score matching. The empirical evidence shows that adoption is followed by gains in profitability and market valuation, reflected in improvements in return on assets, return on equity, and Tobin’s Q, alongside higher inventory turnover. At the same time, adopting firms exhibit a measurable decline in greenhouse gas emissions when compared with matched control firms. Taken together, these results suggest that digital transformation can align economic performance with environmental improvement, rather than forcing firms to choose between the two. The findings therefore provide practical guidance for managers and policymakers seeking to evaluate digital investments through the lens of long-term sustainability.

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Khadija Ajmal www.mdpi.com