Multinational companies enforce the adoption of digital technologies to comply with rising sustainability demands in their supply chains. However, these technologies can have unintended consequences for smallholder farmers in countries of origin. Based on a multi-sited ethnography along the cocoa supply chain, this study includes a seven-week field stay in Ghana and 60 interviews to explore the perspectives of origin actors (OAs). The findings, anchored in adaptive structuration theory, reveal two contrasting outcomes: backfire and thrive. Backfire occurs when digital technologies exacerbate OAs' exposure to environmental uncertainty, draining their natural, financial, and time resources. In response, OAs use the technologies in ways not intended by multinational companies. Conversely, technology implementations thrive when integrated with local culture and designed to empower OAs. Consequently, technologies enhance the resilience of OA's livelihoods, making them less vulnerable to external uncertainties and ensuring the survival of their land and farming communities. The study advances adaptive structuration theory by introducing the concept of "decoupled structuration," which describes the simultaneous but independent recreation of technological intentions across both consumption and origin logic within the supply chain. Decoupled structuration prevents backfiring and allows local understandings of sustainability to unfold.
