PurposeSmall- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly adopting technologies and transforming businesses in the digital landscape. Hence, understanding the roles of digital literacy and technology adoption in digital transformation and SME performance is essential for sustainable growth and competitiveness; however, this study explores and presents insights into this matter, particularly for SMEs. Henceforth, grounding resource-based view theory, this study aims to examine the interaction among digital literacy, technologies, transformation and SME performance, including mediating roles of digital technology usage and digital transformation.Design/methodology/approachThis study collects data from managers or owners of SMEs using a structured questionnaire. To examine the complex interaction between digital literacy, digital technologies, digital transformation and SME performance, this study used structural equation modeling approaches using the PLS-SEM software.FindingsThe results reveal that while digital transformation positively impacts SME performance, the mere use of digital technologies does not have a significant direct effect. Furthermore, digital literacy significantly drives both digital technology use and digital transformation, despite having no direct impact on SME performance. Mediation analyses indicate that digital technology use bridges the gap between digital literacy and digital transformation. However, it does not independently mediate the link between digital literacy and firm performance. Instead, digital transformation acts as a crucial mediator, positively linking digital literacy and technology use to SME outcomes. Finally, this study confirms a significant serial mediation pathway in which digital literacy sequentially enhances SME performance, first through the adoption of digital technologies, which subsequently drives comprehensive digital transformation.Practical implicationsThis study has significant implications for SMEs that want to develop competitive capabilities with businesses by performing digital transformation, so that business activities develop in accordance with changes in the existing environment, thus increasing SME performance.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature by expanding our understanding of how digital literacy, technology utilization and digital transformation collectively influence SME performance. In a rapidly evolving business environment, comprehensive digital transformation is imperative for SMEs. However, successful transformation relies on robust digital literacy to effectively leverage these technologies and drive positive outcomes. Consequently, this study advances current knowledge by empirically validating the sequential pathway from foundational digital skills to tangible firm performance.
PurposeThis paper examines how BDA management capabilities influence effective decision-making processes within innovative organizational culture, serving as a mediating factor in Egyptian higher education in hospitality. In particular, it elaborates on how the four BDA dimensions (i.e. planning, decision-making, coordination, and control) cultivate innovation and enhance faculty members' strategic decision-making within higher education institutions.Design/methodology/approachData were collected via a cross-sectional survey of 368 faculty members at 20 hospitality colleges in Egypt and analyzed using SmartPLS v.4.4 to assess measurement reliability and validity, structural relationships, and mediation.FindingsResults showed that each BDA management capability positively affected innovative organizational culture and decision-making effectiveness. Further, innovative organizational culture partially mediated the effect of BDA capabilities on decision-making effectiveness.Originality/valueThis paper integrates the resource-based and knowledge-based views to provide a dual-theoretical contribution and focuses on the strategic and knowledge-based importance of BDA in higher education. It outlines the need to cultivate innovative culture to leverage data-driven capabilities, providing further insight for administrators and policymakers in hospitality colleges.
Small and medium enterprises (SME) are an integral part of any country's economy. Therefore, their existence, operational efficiency and effectiveness must be ensured. Implementation of in-formation system (IS) in business value chain allows organizations to enhance this efficiency thus enables organizations to grow and sustain. This research explores 255 Bangladeshi SMEs to con-ceptualize current trend of IS usage and validates four constructs of unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model to explain IS adoption behavior. The outcome of the study shows that, though a number of Bangladeshi SME's are exposed to computer based IS, their usage, in most cases, are limited to operational level of activities. SMEs are also less concerned about the further development of IS and allocated a minimum budget for IS development. It is also found that the adoption and usage of IS by the Bangladeshi SMEs are strongly influenced by performance efficiency, effort efficiency and facilitating condition and moderately influenced by social influence.
Spatial reasoning is a fundamental aspect of human cognition, yet it remains a major challenge for contemporary vision–language models (VLMs). Prior work largely relied on synthetic or LLM-generated environments with limited task designs and puzzle-like setups, failing to capture the real-world complexity, visual noise, and diverse spatial relationships that VLMs encounter. To address this, we introduce **_SpatiaLab_**, a comprehensive benchmark for evaluating VLMs’ spatial reasoning in realistic, unconstrained contexts. **_SpatiaLab_** comprises 1,400 visual question–answer pairs across six major categories: *Relative Positioning, Depth & Occlusion, Orientation, Size & Scale, Spatial Navigation,* and *3D Geometry*, each with five subcategories, yielding 30 distinct task types. Each subcategory contains at least 25 questions, and each main category includes at least 200 questions, supporting both multiple-choice and open-ended evaluation. Experiments across diverse state-of-the-art VLMs, including open- and closed-source models, reasoning-focused, and specialized spatial reasoning models, reveal a substantial gap in spatial reasoning capabilities compared with humans. In the multiple-choice setup, InternVL3.5-72B achieves 54.93% accuracy versus 87.57% for humans. In the open-ended setting, all models show a performance drop of around 10–25%, with GPT-5-mini scoring highest at 40.93% versus 64.93% for humans. These results highlight key limitations in handling complex spatial relationships, depth perception, navigation, and 3D geometry. By providing a diverse, real-world evaluation framework, **_SpatiaLab_** exposes critical challenges and opportunities for advancing VLMs’ spatial reasoning, offering a benchmark to guide future research toward robust, human-aligned spatial understanding. **_SpatiaLab_** is available at: https://spatialab-reasoning.github.io/.
