Sustainable Digital Transformation: An Innovative Model for SMEs

ABSTRACT

SMEs pursuing sustainable digital transformation need to identify where limited resources will generate system‐wide effects. However, managers observe direct results but lack visibility into how changes spread through interconnected functions. This study introduces a model that keeps the functional resonance analysis method (FRAM) and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) separable. Managers express their priorities, FRAM maps how the functions couple, and the distance between the two is measured function by function. An illustrative case across two SMEs shows that managers underweight the technical backbone that the coupling makes central, with the operations manager standing farthest from the functional structure. In both, sustainability function sits at the coupling's edge, valued in intention. The study proposes a separable measure of the cognitive asymmetry between managerial priority and functional structure. Made visible, this distance shows a resource‐constrained SME where its priorities and the coupling diverge, the functions where a change would travel furthest.