Peer Review Report For: Sustainable digital transformation and business competitiveness in emerging-economy organizations: the moderating role of economic sector and organizational age in Piura, Peru [version 1; peer review: 1 approved with reservations]
Year: 2026
Type: peer-review
Abstract: Background Sustainable digital transformation is increasingly treated as a strategic lever for competitiveness, but evidence on the organizational conditions under which it pays off in emerging economies is limited. We estimated its direct effect on business competitiveness and tested whether economic sector and organizational age moderate that effect, separately and jointly. Methods In a quantitative, cross-sectional design, we surveyed 361 formally registered organizations in Piura, Peru, across the commerce, services, manufacturing, agro-industry, and construction sectors. A 30-item questionnaire measured sustainable digital transformation (economic, social, and environmental dimensions) and business competitiveness (operational efficiency, innovation capacity, and market positioning). Content validity was confirmed by expert judgment (Aiken's V 0.81–0.97). The measurement model was evaluated with exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (maximum likelihood), and hypotheses were tested with hierarchical regression (Hayes' Model 3, HC3 robust standard errors, 10,000 bootstrap resamples). Results Sustainable digital transformation had a positive, significant direct effect on business competitiveness (β = 0.657; p < 0.001; R 2 = 0.432; b = 0.660 in the full model). The six-dimension measurement model showed adequate fit (CFI = 0.950; RMSEA = 0.047) and discriminant validity (all HTMT ≤ 0.754). Neither economic sector (p = 0.816) nor organizational age (p = 0.691) moderated the effect alone, but their joint moderation was significant (robust Wald F(4,341) = 3.12; p = 0.015), concentrated in manufacturing, where the competitive return on digitalization weakened with firm age and lost significance after roughly eleven years. Conclusions Sustainable digital transformation strongly predicts business competitiveness in this emerging-economy setting, but its returns depend on the combination of economic sector and organizational maturity; digitalization strategies should be differentiated by context rather than applied uniformly.
Source: Universidad César Vallejo
Institution: Universidad César Vallejo
Subfield: Strategy and Management
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7221007461
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