Orchestrating the Twin Transition in Multinational Corporations: Technology Roadmapping for Green and Digital Global Business Services

RS-PO-1B: Innovation Policy, Regulation & Standards, ICE 32nd Ed.

Han-Teng Liao & Karen Ang

2026-06-22

Orchestrating the Twin Transition in Multinational Corporations

Technology Roadmapping for Green and Digital Global Business Services

• RS-PO-1B: Innovation Policy, Regulation & Standards, ICE 32nd Ed.

• Monday, 22/June/2026: 3:00pm - 4:20pm; Location: Room Porto

Han-Teng Liao 0000-0003-1081-5599
Independent Researcher

Karen Ang 0009-0008-5923-0106
Independent Researcher / Infineon

Welcome everyone. My name is Han-Teng Liao, an independent researcher in the socio-technical transition of digital and green services. On behalf of my co-author Karen Ang, I will present our Technology Roadmapping study for Green and Digital Global Business Services. Today we examine how GBS hubs orchestrate the Twin Transition across multinational corporations.

🌱 Personal Background and Angle

Huang’s vision under scrutiny

AI & Net-Zero Dual Transformation Forum

🌱 Section I: Introduction

Context: Structural Realignment & Digital Resonance

2026 GBS Landscape: Ecosystem Maturity

Table.I

• Digital Resonance: Realignment toward high-tech automation and cybersecurity, superseding labor arbitrage.
• Twin Transition: GBS hubs as “living laboratories” harmonizing technical execution with sustainability.
• Innovation Ecosystems: Poland, Portugal, and Malaysia operationalizing transitions at scale.

Global service delivery is undergoing a structural realignment toward “digital resonance,” superseding traditional labor arbitrage as the driver of location competitiveness. Hubs in Poland, Portugal, and Malaysia now act as “living laboratories” for the Twin Transition, employing nearly one million professionals and earning the nickname “Silicon Valleys” of Central Europe and the East.

🌱 Section I: Introduction

I.B Motivation & I.C Objectives

• Inflection Point: Obsolescence of “lift and shift” models in favor of “lean orchestration” and process normalization.
• The Leadership Gap: Transition is governed by the “human factor,” where executive ROI expectations often clash with organizational inertia.
• Operational Airlocks: Hubs insulate global value chains from U.S.-China bifurcation while mitigating middle-income traps through high-value talent.
• Systematic Roadmapping: Determining if academic discourse reflects the shift to high-value orchestration or remains tethered to cost-centric paradigms.
• Research Objective: How has the GBS domain evolved globally in academic outputs?

2026 marks a pivot toward “lean orchestration,” where process normalization is mandatory for AI integration. Yet this transition is throttled by a “leadership gap,” where executive ROI expectations clash with organizational inertia. These hubs now function as “operational airlocks,” insulating value chains from geopolitical bifurcation while shifting the GBS value proposition from transactional execution toward strategic insourcing.

📚 Section II: Literature Review

II.A-B Ecosystem Gaps & The Maturity Trap

• Data Integration: Evolving from localized data hubs to distributed networks.
• The Maturity Trap: AI infrastructure retrofitted onto fragmented legacy architectures.
• Socio-Technical Lens: Balancing technical automation with human capability.

Our literature review tracks how localized, centralized service delivery has given way to complex digital orchestration across distributed networks. However, many organizations fall into a “maturity trap.” Without radical process normalization, advanced AI models retrofitted onto fragmented, non-standardized legacy architectures act as a multiplier of inefficiency rather than a catalyst for value creation.

II.C: Socio-Technical Systems & Paradoxes

• Technical vs. Social: Harmonizing AI-native workflows with human-centric Industry 5.0 and talent development.
• Digitalization Paradox: Advanced digital tools can inversely affect stakeholder well-being and localized upgrading.
• System of Systems (SoS): Treating “messy legacy processes” as systemic transitions requiring process hygiene and leadership alignment.
• Open Innovation: Prioritizing smart platforms and carbon-neutral management to adapt to technical velocity.

Modern GBS hubs are complex Socio-Technical Systems, where AI-native workflows must harmonize with human-centric talent development under Industry 5.0. We must also address the “digitalization paradox,” where advanced tools can inversely impact stakeholder well-being. By treating legacy processes as systemic transitions rather than technical glitches, management can prioritize process hygiene, leadership alignment, and open innovation.

II.D: MLP and the Twin Transition

• Nested Levels: Analyzing transitions through micro-level Niches, meso-level Regimes, and macro-level Landscapes.
• Exogenous Pressures: EU “Twin Transition” mandates destabilizing stable corporate regimes and rules.
• Agentic Workflows: Integrating AI with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to democratize innovation flows.
• Living Laboratory: Moving beyond static maturity toward active interplay between niche innovation and regime stability.

The Multi-Level Perspective analyzes GBS across niches, regimes, and global landscapes. Current corporate regimes are being destabilized by exogenous pressures like the EU’s Twin Transition mandates. By integrating agentic workflows and AI, GBS centers can transition from simple cost-centers to sustainability drivers, serving as a living laboratory for the socio-technical transition of AI.

🧩 Section III: Methodology

Dual-Horizon Mixed-Methods Framework

• Science Mapping: Bibliometric analysis of 979 items to identify regimes.
• Prospective Design: Applying the ITU ICT-Centric Toolkit for roadmaps.
• MLP Transition Lens: Tracking niche innovations vs. macro-landscape pressures.

We deploy a mixed-methods design connecting retrospective science mapping with prospective service design. By reviewing three decades of literature through a Multi-Level Perspective lens, we classify stable industrial regimes and locate emerging niche innovations that can alter global value chain operations, grounding our roadmap in empirical bibliometric evidence rather than speculation.

🧩 Section III: Methodology

The ITU ICT-Centric Innovation Ecosystem Toolkit Ecosystem Canvas Alignment

Tool Components	Goals in Twin Transition Governance
Stakeholder Engagement (operationalized)	Capture common regime needs and value positions.
Ecosystem Canvas (future work)	Align niche actors around shared operational manifestos.
Sector Development (future work)	Monitor cross-sectoral supply chain and talent flows.

The ITU innovation toolkit provides the diagnostic canvases needed for this study. By treating GBS hubs as socio-technical interfaces, we track how policy goals, clean tech scale-ups, and workforce development progress from isolated niches toward consolidated regimes. This study operationalizes the Stakeholder Engagement Tool; the Ecosystem Canvas and Sector Development tools remain future research.

👩‍🏫 Section IV: Findings

Bibliometric Baseline & Specialized Keywords

Bibliometric Indicator	Dataset Metrics (1993–2026)
Total Documents (\(N\))	979 core database publications
Annual Growth Rate	7.23% continuous literature expansion
Unique Author Keywords	2,630 specialized thematic descriptors
International Co-authorship	20.63% cross-border research links

Our database baseline of 979 documents, spanning 1993 to 2026, confirms a mature and highly collaborative field with a 7.23% annual growth rate. Crucially, the high volume of 2,630 unique author keywords signals that the academic conversation is shifting from broad definitions toward practitioner-defined, specialized technical methodologies and intellectual specialization.

👩‍🏫 Section IV: Findings

Conceptual Network Topology

Fig 1: Conceptual network: keyword co-occurrence visualization

• Red Cluster: Legacy BPO/offshoring, anchored in risk and performance.
• Green Cluster: Technical “engine room” — process engineering and optimization.
• Blue Cluster: Structural maturation — SSCs and accounting maturing into integrated GBS frameworks.
• Yellow & Purple Clusters: Macro-strategic shift toward digital economy and AI-driven supply chains.

The keyword network maps a clear structural path across five clusters. While the traditional Red BPO cluster remains anchored in cost-arbitrage risk, the Green engineering cluster and Blue structural-maturation cluster act as bridges, pulling old administrative frameworks toward the Yellow and Purple clusters representing digital economy and AI-driven supply chain intelligence.

👩‍🏫 Section IV: Findings

Factorial Mapping & The Policy Gap

Fig 2: Factorial Analysis MCA Map

• High-Density Core: Alignment of cloud computing and process automation.
• Structural Hole: Isolation of public administration and policy clusters.
• Conceptual Inertia: Risk-mitigation metrics overshadowing green ICT tools.

Our multiple correspondence analysis uncovers an engineering core focused heavily on cloud execution and process automation. However, we detected a severe structural hole: public administration and strategic environmental governance remain statistically decoupled from this central technical core, revealing a noticeable execution-policy gap that future GBS leaders will need to bridge.

👩‍🏫 Section IV: Findings

Thematic Evolution Materialization

• Fig 4a
• Fig 4b
• Fig 4c

Longitudinal Thematic Evolution Map

Longitudinal Thematic Evolution Map

Longitudinal Thematic Evolution Map

• Early Era (1993–2015): BPO, Business Process Optimization, and SSC dominate — efficiency, cost reduction, task centralization.
• Middle Era (2016–2020): RPA, performance metrics, and ICT emerge as bridging themes.
• Modern Horizon (2021–2026): Diversification into Digital Transformation, CSR, process automation, and the digital economy.

Tracing evolutionary pathways across three periods reveals a clear mutation. The early regime of BPO and Shared Service Centers gave way, after 2016, to RPA and ICT as bridging themes, before fracturing further into Digital Transformation, machine learning, and corporate social responsibility tracking mechanisms in the current 2021–2026 period.

👩‍🏫 Section IV: Findings

Strategic Map: Niche Trajectories: Fig 4a-c

• Fig 4a
• Fig 4b
• Fig 4c

Fig 4a: Longitudinal Thematic Evolution Map

Fig 4b: Longitudinal Thematic Evolution Map

Fig 4c: Longitudinal Thematic Evolution Map

• Motor Themes: Capability-driven GBS, lean orchestration models.
• Basic Themes: Machine learning, robotic process automation, IT management.
• Niche Quadrant: ESG metrics, blockchain networks, employee wellness frameworks.

Our strategic map visualizes current niche trajectories across the regime quadrants. While RPA and standard digital workflows are now basic requirements, and capability-driven orchestration has matured into a motor theme, topics like ESG tracking and workforce wellness sit in the high-density niche quadrant, poised to become tomorrow’s core regime rules.

👩‍🏫 Section IV: Findings

Global Research Network & Nodes: Fig 5a-c

• Fig. 5a
• Fig. 5b
• Fig. 5c

Fig 5a: Global Research Network & Nodes

Fig 5b: Global Research Network & Nodes

Fig 5c: Global Research Network & Nodes

• Trans-Pacific Trajectories: High research links between major economies.
• Decoupling Realities: Academic collaboration stays highly integrated.
• Distributed Network: Shifting from single-site spokes to multi-hub setups.

The social network analysis proves that international collaboration remains integrated despite macroeconomic friction, with an international co-authorship rate above twenty percent. Rather than total decoupling, GBS research centers are establishing distributed, multi-hub nodes — Poland, Malaysia, and France among them — to maintain knowledge continuity across borders.

👩‍🏫 Section IV: Findings

The “Middle Power” Airlock Gateways

• Avoiding Development Traps: Bypassing middle-income constraints through high talent.
• Geopolitical Cushioning: Insulating value chains from U.S.-China bifurcation.
• Living Laboratories: Deploying real-world automated compliance workflows.

These regional hubs act as critical “middle power” airlocks. By supplying high-value technical services, they protect corporate value chains from geopolitical cloud fractures and bypass the middle-income trap, showing that location competitiveness now relies on local ecosystem readiness and resilient talent rather than cheap labor alone.

💡 Section V: Discussion

The Operational Airlock Mechanism

• Landscape Mediation: Translating macro climate regulations into reality.
• Process Normalization: Standardizing raw data inputs before AI deployment.
• Regime Upgrade: Converting corporate policy targets into active workflows.

Our main theoretical contribution identifies the GBS unit as an operational airlock. When a multinational corporation absorbs landscape shocks like carbon adjustment taxes or the EU’s dual mandate, the GBS unit processes and standardizes that pressure, translating it directly into actionable, regime-level corporate workflows rather than ad hoc responses.

💡 Section V: Discussion

Stakeholder Engagement Alignment

Fig 6: Operational ITU Stakeholder Canvas

• Policy Thread: Translating environmental directives into standards.
• Talent Thread: Coordinating university programs with tech targets.
• Reward Thread: Linking green financial systems to audit checks.

Fig. 6. Stakeholder Engagement Tool Canvas

By organizing our bibliometric clusters using the ITU toolkit, we mapped four core stakeholder engagement threads — Policy, Talent, Reward, and Living Lab. This setup moves teams away from static reporting, establishing shared design models where governments, corporations, academia, and entrepreneurial support networks cooperate around a common manifesto.

💡 Section V: Discussion

Deep-Dive: Reward-Orchestration & Living Lab Threads

• Reward-Orchestration: Evolves SSC-Finance into Supply Chain Finance via green FinTech, RegTech, and automated auditing.
• Living Lab: AI worflows: Gives entrepreneurs a sandbox to test AI-native workflows before company-wide rollout.
• Living Lab: regime-niche game: Alleviates MNCs’ historical information asymmetries, reframing reskilling as a regime-niche strategy.
• Talent-Innovation: Bridges entrepreneurial demand with academic research; D&I strategies and hybrid work models enable “Middle Power” hubs to capture higher-value delivery.

Fig. 6. Stakeholder Engagement Tool Canvas

The reward and living-lab threads show how financial incentives and safe experimentation reinforce each other. Reward-Orchestration evolves SSC-Finance into Supply Chain Finance through green FinTech and automated auditing, while the Living Lab thread lets entrepreneurs sandbox AI-native workflows, easing MNCs’ historical talent and information asymmetries before company-wide rollout.

💡 Section V: Discussion

Deep-Dive: Reward & Experimentation

• Green RegTech Integration: Using automated checks to guide sustainable supply actions.
• Democratizing Innovation: Creating sandbox spaces for AI process tests.
• Cultural Resilience: Protecting employee well-being amid technical transitions.

Fig. 6. Stakeholder Engagement Tool Canvas

The reward and experimentation threads focus on continuous improvement under Industry 5.0. By integrating automated RegTech checks with shared sandbox spaces for testing AI workflows, organizations can experiment safely, protecting baseline operational stability and employee well-being while progressively upgrading toward more sustainable, human-centric service delivery.

🏁 Section VI: Conclusion

Core Strategic Implications

• Socio-Technical Governance: Moving beyond isolated technology metrics.
• Mandatory Process Hygiene: Normalization is an absolute requirement for AI tools.
• Value Redefinition: Positioning sustainability criteria at the core of performance.

In conclusion, managing the Twin Transition requires treating GBS hubs as integrated socio-technical systems rather than isolated cost centers. Leaders must look past simple technology metrics and recognize that process normalization is the vital foundation for both AI integration and credible green reporting systems going forward.

🏁 Section VI: Conclusion

Human-Centric Industry 5.0 Goals

• Simultaneous Investment: Balancing technology investments with workforce talent development.
• Co-dependent Workflows: Designing software tools and human work together.
• Mitigating Disruption: Using targeted training models to manage automation risk.

Adopting an Industry 5.0 vision means recognizing that human talent and AI deployment are co-dependent investments, not sequential tasks. Algorithmic workflows and human jobs must be designed together from the outset, protecting organizational knowledge and well-being while optimizing performance across the whole socio-technical system.

🏁 Section VI: Conclusion

Future Research Frameworks

• Supply Chain Control Towers: Expanding GBS roles into material tracing.
• Product Digital Passports: Integrating automated lifecycle audits.
• Trustworthy AI & Industrial Data Spaces: Testing federated data networks as regulatory proxies for RegTech innovation.

Our future research will explore GBS as the core socio-technical control tower for advanced digital economies. We plan to test how trustworthy autonomous AI agents and federated industrial data spaces can secure RegTech innovation, alongside digital product passports that support material lifecycle tracking across global value chains.

🏁 Section VI: Conclusion

Strategic Resilience Architecture

• Navigating Multi-Polarity: Building distributed ecosystem governance models.
• Sustainable Intelligence: Setting a new global standard for modern operations.
• Collaborative Inquiry: Thank you. We welcome your questions and partnerships.

Redefining GBS as a primary governance mechanism is essential for maintaining global resilience in a volatile, multipolar digital economy. By aligning technical talent with sustainable intelligence, organizations can safely navigate multi-polar strains and bifurcated supply chains. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions and partnerships.

🙏 Thank You for Your Attention!

Orchestrating the Twin Transition in Multinational Corporations

Technology Roadmapping for Green and Digital Global Business Services

RS-PO-1B: Innovation Policy, Regulation & Standards,

ICE 32nd Ed.

Han-Teng Liao 0000-0003-1081-5599
Independent Researcher

Karen Ang 0009-0008-5923-0106
Independent Researcher / Infineon