Technology Integration and System Synergy: Key Elements, Implementation Pathways, and Necessary Conditions for Value Creation in Organic Agriculture

When digital technologies are disconnected from organizational routines, they fail to create and capture real value in organic agriculture. Anchored in socio-technical systems theory, a five-dimensional analytical framework covering technology, structure, people, tasks, and rules is proposed in this study. Using survey data from 753 organic farms in China, this study combines PLS-SEM, fsQCA, NCA, and NConfA to uncover the core factors and the configurational and necessary mechanisms that drive value creation in organic agriculture through digitalization. The findings reveal that task and structure are the most central drivers of value creation. High value creation results from three equifinal configurations, namely a dual-core people–task path, a deep socio-technical coupling path, and an institution–structure–task support path, whereas low value creation is directly associated with the absence of task or structure. Task, people, and structure are also identified as necessary conditions for high value creation. In contrast, the value creation process exhibits stage-dependent threshold effects, with the dominant logic shifting from individual capability-driven mechanisms to system collaborative mechanisms across development stages and organizational contexts. These results indicate that value creation in organic agriculture driven by digitalization is not a simple linear extension of technology into production, but a process of socio-technical reconfiguration embedded in specific task settings.