DAIRY 4.0 MATURITY AND ESG ENABLEMENT IN VISEGRAD GROUP DAIRY PROCESSORS (2019-2024)

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation investigates the character and extent of Dairy 4.0 digital maturity and its ESG enablement across leading dairy processors in the Visegrad Four (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia) over the period 2019–2024. Utilizing an original disclosure-based coding instrument—the Dairy 4.0 ESG Indicator Template—the study analyzes 1,148 publicly available corporate and regulatory documents across 80 companies, yielding 471 company-year panel observations. Among the eight evaluated sub-dimensions, ESG Measurement Enablement is the structurally dominant dimension, achieving a mean score 2.68 times higher than the average of the seven operational technology dimensions. The analysis reveals significant cross-national heterogeneity, with Slovakia scoring significantly lower than both the Czech Republic and Hungary. Although aggregate Dairy 4.0 disclosure intensity increased by 88% over the six-year window, this trend was primarily driven by growing document volume and between-firm compositional changes rather than within-firm content deepening. Two-way fixed-effects panel models confirm no statistically significant linear increase in digital disclosure maturity within individual firms over time. Furthermore, the positive cross-sectional correlation between Dairy 4.0 maturity and firm revenue reflects a firm-size artefact rather than a genuine adoption-performance dynamic. Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) environmental permits function as an unintended regulatory driver of digital monitoring infrastructure, accounting for 27.3% of non-zero ESG evidence records.