An Integrated RBV-KBV Conceptual Framework for Generative AI Adoption in Small Manufacturing Enterprises

Abstrak

Small manufacturing enterprises remain economically important but continue to face recurring operational constraints in planning, scheduling, quality control, maintenance, and process-data use. Generative artificial intelligence offers increasingly accessible support for these bounded operational tasks, yet adoption remains uneven because many firms lack a coherent basis for linking digital opportunity to internal resources, organizational knowledge, and measurable operational improvement. This study develops a conceptual framework that integrates the resource-based view and the knowledge-based view to explain generative artificial intelligence adoption in small manufacturing enterprises. Using an evidence-grounded theory-development approach, the study builds a staged framework that separates foundational conditions, perceived operational AI opportunity, organizational translation mechanisms, and performance outcomes. The framework theorizes internal resources and knowledge assets as foundational antecedents, perceived generative artificial intelligence potential in operational functions as the adoption bridge, knowledge integration and dynamic capability as organizing mechanisms, and performance improvement as the downstream consequence. It further explains how conceptual clarity can support later empirical reduction without losing the richer logic needed for practical implementation. The study also clarifies how the framework can guide applied information-system design through data-readiness assessment, bounded decision-support use cases, human-in-the-loop verification, and operational KPI monitoring. The resulting architecture strengthens theoretical explanation and operational design logic for generative artificial intelligence adoption in constrained manufacturing environments, while preserving clear boundaries for subsequent validation and applied deployment.