Strong social pressure coupled with a tightening of environmental policies is forcing manufacturing firms to implement improvements in their production processes to reduce industrial waste and their negative impacts on the environment. To achieve this goal, manufacturing firms are increasingly adopting and applying Industry 4.0 (I4.0) and circular economy (CE) practices. However, the literature indicates that the implementation of I4.0 and CE does not always lead to a substantial improvement in the sustainable performance (SP) of manufacturing firms. Hence, this research analyzes how the concurrent adoption of I4.0 and CE impacts the SP of manufacturing firms within the context of Mexico. A research model was developed and validated with a sample of 338 manufacturing companies and by using PLS‐SEM for its analysis and measured I4.0 with 8 items (e.g., systems that integrate the physical world with virtual computational space and interconnecting of small computing devices embedded in products and objects to the internet, enabling the ability to receive and send data), CE with eight items (e.g., there is an environmental commitment by senior management, and there is support for environmental management by midlevel managers) and SP with seven items (e.g., the company's activities enable the transition to a low‐carbon economy, and the company's activities protect and/or restore the environment by focusing on environmental quality aspects and improving resource efficiency) in a research model that proposes four hypotheses that relate the analyzed constructs. The findings reveal that the SP of manufacturing firms increases substantially with the implementation of both Industry 4.0 and CE. Additionally, the results show that the CE plays a mediating role in the relationship between Industry 4.0 and SP. This study theoretically contributes by providing further empirical evidence that demonstrates the connection between I4.0 and CE as well as the mediating effect that CE exerts on the relationship between I4.0 and SP in manufacturing firms. From a practical standpoint, this study contributes by providing manufacturing companies with a better understanding of these relationships, which will help them formulate more effective policies and strategies to support the improvement of their environmental sustainability performance.

中文翻译：

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循环经济在工业 4.0 与制造业可持续绩效之间关系中的中介作用


强大的社会压力加上环境政策的收紧，迫使制造公司改进其生产流程，以减少工业废物及其对环境的负面影响。为了实现这一目标，制造公司越来越多地采用和应用工业 4.0 （I4.0） 和循环经济 （CE） 实践。然而，文献表明，I4.0 和 CE 的实施并不总是导致制造企业可持续绩效 （SP） 的实质性改善。因此，本研究分析了 I4.0 和 CE 的同步采用如何影响墨西哥制造公司的 SP。使用 338 家制造公司的样本开发和验证了一个研究模型，并使用 PLS-SEM 进行分析，并通过 8 个项目测量了 I4.0（例如，将物理世界与虚拟计算空间集成的系统以及将嵌入在产品和对象中的小型计算设备互连到互联网，从而能够接收和发送数据）， CE 有 8 个项目（例如，高级管理层有环境承诺，中层管理人员支持环境管理）和 SP 有 7 个项目（例如，公司的活动有助于向低碳经济过渡，公司的活动通过关注环境质量方面和提高资源效率来保护和/或恢复环境）在一个研究模型中，提出了四个假设，这些假设与所分析的结构相关。研究结果表明，随着工业 4.0 和 CE 的实施，制造企业的 SP 大幅增加。 此外，结果表明，CE 在工业 4.0 和 SP 之间的关系中起中介作用。本研究通过提供进一步的实证证据来证明 I4.0 和 CE 之间的联系以及 CE 对制造企业 I4.0 和 SP 之间关系的中介作用，从理论上做出了贡献。从实践的角度来看，这项研究有助于制造公司更好地了解这些关系，这将帮助他们制定更有效的政策和战略来支持其环境可持续性绩效的提高。