A Configurational Study on Enhancing Sustainable Development Capabilities of "Little Giant" Enterprises under the Dual Transformation Challenge

Confronting the challenges and opportunities of dual digital-green transformation, how specialized, refined, unique, and innovative ("Little Giants") enterprises can achieve steady improvements in sustainable development capabilities has become pivotal for driving high-quality economic growth. Grounded in the "Resource-Capability-Environment" framework and leveraging fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), this study examines the configurational effects of antecedent variables—including digital technology application, smart manufacturing, greening practices, digital absorptive capacity, organizational adaptability, government subsidies, and market competition—on sustainable development capabilities across a sample of 332 listed "Little Giants" in China. Key findings reveal: (1) Four distinct pathways to high sustainable development capability: Technology Resources-Policy Symbiosis (Y1), Ambidextrous Technology Resources-Capability Alignment (Y2, Y3), Technology Resource Dominance (Y4), and Ambidextrous Technology Resources-Policy Catalysis (Y5); (2) Low-capability configurations exhibit technology isolation and policy drift, highlighting configuration traps of "prioritizing hardware over software" and "emphasizing external over internal factors"; (3) Digital technology application serves as a foundational condition for most high-capability configurations, while the interaction between policy and market competition demonstrates context dependency. By deconstructing the asymmetric relationships among resources, capabilities, and environmental factors, this study offers practical pathways for enterprises to achieve sustainable leaps under dual transformation pressures.