Sustainability and Digital Transformation in the Visegrad Group of Central European Countries

Abstract

The evolution of the digital transformation presents new challenges and many new opportunities, and provides unique solutions to individual issues, both for sectors and regions. The challenges posed by the digital world have a significant impact on social and economic processes, as well as our environment. This paper aims to provide an indicator-based understanding of the main characteristics of digitalization promoting sustainable development in the member countries of the Visegrad Cooperation. The main goal of this research is to study the relationship between digitalization transformation and sustainability together. One of the basic indicators of the article is the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI). We examined interconnections between the dimensions of the DESI index and the indicators of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets together in the V4, presented the change, evaluated the selected countries based on these aspects, and set up their ranking. Competitiveness performance data shed light on the situation in Hungary within the V4 countries, pointing out the strengths and shortcomings. The results show the extent of digital performance in each country and the relationship between their digital performance and sustainability indicators.

Digital Transformation and Convergence toward the 2030 Agenda’s Sustainability Development Goals: Evidence from Italian Listed Firms

“…Second, it assesses the relationship between digital transformation and the SDGs. Finally, the research sample is made up of Italian firms, which have not previously been examined [7,20]. This study's findings underline a positive relationship between a firm's digital transformation and its orientation toward the Sustainable Development Goals; the empirical results show an increasing transition in Italian firms toward meeting the SDGs during 2016-2019.…”

“…This highlights the close relationship between sustainability and digital transformation, which has been widely addressed by scholars [7,[50][51][52].…”

“…The relation between digitalization and sustainability, which has been recently addressed [3][4][5][6][7][8][9], sometimes raises doubts regarding the potential positive contributions of digitalization toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals [4,[10][11][12][13]. Though most scholars agree that digital transformation can be an effective tool in creating sustainability [9,[14][15][16], some studies have shown that the effects of digital transformation on sustainability are unclear [8,17].…”

“…This paper helps to bridge the research gap for three main reasons. First, its methodology (a linear multiple regression model) is different from those used in previous studies [6,7,18,19]; the link between sustainability and digitalization has traditionally been addressed using qualitative analysis. Second, it assesses the relationship between digital transformation and the SDGs.…”

Climate-Smart Agriculture: Sleeping Beauty of the Hungarian Agribusiness

“…The possible pathways of digital transformation have a growing importance in European and the Hungarian agricultural policy as well [18]. To increase agricultural digitalization and competitiveness, Hungary's Digital Agriculture Strategy was born in 2019, which aims at the spread of digital solutions and precision farming in agricultural production.…”