Feeling the gap: cognitive-affective divergence in SME managers' Industry 4.0 and sustainability narratives

Purpose The study investigates how small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) managers perceive and emotionally engage with environmental and social sustainability in the context of Industry 4.0 adoption. Using semi-structured interviews combined with multimodal sentiment analysis (speech prosody and emotional language), we aim to uncover implicit hesitancy, dissonance, and conceptual fragmentation that traditional methods fail to detect, thereby offering new insights for policy design and corporate social responsibility research in structurally disadvantaged regions. Design/methodology/approach The manuscript employs a mixed-methods design integrating semi-structured interviews with multimodal sentiment analysis. Twenty SMEs in Southern Italy, selected through structured sampling, participated in interviews exploring Industry 4.0 investments, environmental practices, and social sustainability. Recorded interviews underwent (1) thematic and content analysis for explicit responses, and (2) Hume AI-based prosody and emotional language analysis to detect implicit emotional engagement. This dual approach captures both declared positions and underlying affective reactions, enabling the identification of dissonance between cognitive awareness and emotional investment across environmental and social sustainability dimensions. Findings Environmental sustainability is widely recognized (90% of firms), yet only 60% link Industry 4.0 investments to environmental goals, and key performance indicator use remains inconsistent. Social sustainability reveals a striking “feeling gap”: while 90% express willingness to invest, conceptual fragmentation prevails, with no standardized metrics. Sentiment analysis exposes declining concentration, rising confusion, and subtle annoyance when discussing social topics, contrasting with calm, determined engagement for technological investments. Emotional prosody thus uncovers hidden dissonance between declared awareness and authentic affective engagement, particularly for social sustainability, which remains intuitively rather than analytically grounded in SME decision-making. Originality/value This study introduces the “feeling gap” concept, distinguishing cognitive awareness from emotional engagement in SME sustainability practices. Methodologically, it pioneers multimodal sentiment analysis (speech prosody and emotional language) in Industry 4.0 and CSR research, moving beyond declared positions to detect hidden hesitancy and dissonance. Empirically, it focuses on a structurally disadvantaged region often overlooked in favor of large enterprises or developed economies. The findings demonstrate that policy design must address not only informational and financial barriers but also affective and motivational dimensions, particularly for social sustainability, which lacks standardized metrics and genuine emotional resonance among SME managers.