From Digital Ambition to Organizational Execution: A Socio-Technical Systems Framework for Critical Knowledge Mapping in Industrial Digital Transformation

Industrial digital transformation has become a strategic priority for manufacturing organizations, yet many initiatives still struggle to move from digital ambition to organizational execution. In Industry 4.0-oriented contexts, this gap persists because transformation depends not only on technologies, processes and investments, but also on the critical knowledge required to sustain success factors across socio-technical systems. This study develops and evaluates a socio-technical systems framework for critical knowledge mapping in industrial digital transformation. Grounded in Design Science Research, the study combines structured literature-based construct development, expert validation and application in an industrial organization. The empirical demonstration was conducted in a large Brazilian-born multinational food and beverage ingredients manufacturing organization, whose identity has been anonymized. The framework connects critical success factors, knowledge domains and knowledge vulnerabilities, enabling a more actionable system-level diagnosis of knowledge readiness, defined as the organizational capacity to identify, mobilize and protect the critical knowledge required for transformation. The application showed that strategic and governance-related factors were relatively more consolidated in the analyzed organization, while the main vulnerabilities were concentrated in human and organizational dimensions, especially knowledge sharing, talent management, workforce readiness and industrial-digital literacy. By linking Industry 4.0 readiness to human-aware and resilient transformation concerns associated with Industry 5.0, the study shows how critical knowledge mapping can support the transition from readiness assessment to socio-technical execution.