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Navigating the digital paradox: AI-enabled collaboration and organizational resilience

Purpose Drawing on a unified resource-orchestration model, this study examines how artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled inter-firm cooperation influences organizational resilience in manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), through a mediated-moderated pathway involving digital service innovation strategy and leadership cognition. Design/methodology/approach A sequential mixed-methods design was employed: exploratory qualitative construct refinement followed by a time-lagged quantitative survey o…

By the Truvace desk2 min read1 sourcePeer-reviewedTRV-2026-2139· cite & verify
Navigating the digital paradox: AI-enabled collaboration and organizational resilience
THE ROLE OF TRADE AND TECHNOLOGY IN 21ST-CENTURY MANUFACTURING by Committee on Finance. Public domain

In brief

A peer-reviewed study surveyed 269 managers of manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises in Viet Nam, after first refining its constructs through qualitative work. It found that firms cooperating with other firms through AI tools tended to show higher organizational resilience, and that an AI-driven digital service innovation strategy helped carry that effect.

The findings suggest that smaller manufacturers may build resilience through shared AI platforms rather than only through internal resources. Leaders with a strong digital paradox mindset gained less from external AI networks, implying the two can substitute for each other. The results are associations from one country's survey, so causal and wider claims remain untested.

Main points

  1. The sample was 269 SME managers in Viet Nam, surveyed in a time-lagged design.
  2. Analysis used partial least squares structural equation modeling and the Johnson-Neyman technique.
  3. An AI-driven digital service innovation strategy positively mediated the cooperation-resilience link.
  4. An executive's digital paradox mindset negatively moderated the link, described as a cognitive substitution effect.
  5. The authors advise investing in interoperable AI platforms for automated boundary-spanning data sharing.

The gain

Among surveyed Vietnamese manufacturing SMEs, firms with more AI-enabled cooperation with partner firms reported greater organizational resilience, partly through an AI-driven digital service innovation strategy.

The rundown

The research used a unified resource-orchestration model to examine how AI-enabled cooperation between firms influences resilience in manufacturing SMEs. It tested a mediated-moderated pathway involving digital service innovation strategy and leadership cognition.

The design was sequential mixed-methods: exploratory qualitative construct refinement followed by a time-lagged quantitative survey. This structure aims to separate the timing of measured variables, though the abstract reports associations rather than experimental effects.

For practice, the authors recommend that managers adopt interoperable AI platforms enabling automated data sharing across firm boundaries. They also say internal paradoxical cognition and external AI networks can functionally substitute for one another in building resilience.

Sources

  1. Peer-reviewedJournal of Enterprise Information Management2026-10-20

The debate