Investigating the mediating role of environmental efficiency in the impact of data privacy practices on enhancing reverse logistics: Evidence from the automotive engineering sector

This research investigated how data privacy practices may impact reverse logistics in the automotive engineering sector, particularly by examining whether environmental efficiency plays a mediating role. This research uses the Resource-Based View (RBV) and Dynamic Capabilities Theory (DCT) to understand how data privacy-driven processes support environmental practices and reverse logistics optimization. Primary research is done through structured questionnaires of automotive engineering professionals. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach tested the relationships amongst data privacy, environmental efficiency, and reverse logistics. However, the results further clarify how key intermediate outcomes, after all, improved environmental efficiency, affected by robust data privacy practices, may enhance reverse logistics processes. The nexus of data privacy and environmental efficiency highlights the critical need to embed respect for private sector information into logistics strategies that achieve superior business performance and also protect corporate sustainability. The findings suggested that environmental consequences must be considered in the flexibility of data-privacy measures with important strategic implications for firms operating in a complex and more environmentally conscious market. This study makes a novel contribution to the extant literature by empirically detecting how environmental efficiency mediates data privacy practices and reverse logistics. These findings will be useful for industry practitioners to use data privacy to enable sustainable logistics management of business operations within automotive engineering.