Human–AI–Sustainability Nexus: The Moderating Role of Employee Digital Mindset

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly embedded in organizational decision making, innovation, knowledge work, and operational processes. Yet recent evidence shows that the value of AI does not arise automatically from technology adoption: it depends on how human expertise, organizational routines, and digital capabilities are combined with AI. This integrative literature review synthesizes open-access journal research published from 2021 through 2025 to develop the Human–AI–Sustainability Nexus, a framework in which Human–AI Integration is treated as an antecedent of Organizational Agility and Green Digital Innovation, which subsequently contribute to Sustainable Performance. Employee Digital Mindset is introduced as a boundary condition that strengthens the translation of Human–AI Integration into these organizational capabilities. The review draws primarily on socio-technical systems reasoning and the dynamic capabilities perspective. Recent studies indicate that human–AI collaboration can augment human performance, but synergy is heterogeneous and depends on task design, division of labor, trust, employee readiness, and organizational arrangements. Evidence also shows that AI and broader digital transformation support sensing, rapid decision making, resource reconfiguration, and innovation, while AI applications increasingly contribute to green innovation through improved analytics, R&D allocation, knowledge processing, and environmental problem solving. In parallel, green innovation and digital transformation are associated with environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sustainable performance. The literature on digital mindset identifies it as a cognitive and behavioral orientation toward digital technologies and shows its relevance for innovation, learning, self-efficacy, and technology use. However, direct empirical tests of Employee Digital Mindset as a moderator of Human–AI Integration remain scarce. This gap provides the principal novelty of the proposed framework. The review concludes with propositions, theoretical contributions, methodological recommendations, managerial implications, and a research agenda for empirical validation in digitally transforming organizations.

Keywords: Human–AI integration; employee digital mindset; organizational agility; green digital innovation; sustainable performance; socio-technical systems; dynamic capabilities; artificial intelligence.