Information Technology Background of Top Management Teams and Enterprise Digital Transformation Strategy:Based on the Cognitive Framework of Digital Strategy
In the wave of the digital economy,digital transformation has become a critical strategic choice for enter-prises to build sustained competitive advantages,but a number of companies still lack clear direction and effective strate-gies for digital transformation.In this context,exploring the factors driving corporate digital transformation strategy is of significant theoretical and practical importance.From the perspective of upper echelons theory,whether and how a firm ad-vances its digital transformation is a strategic behavior decided by the top management teams(TMTs).Given that digital transformation represents a fundamental shift from an"industrial management model"to a"digital management model,"the shared strategic cognition of TMTs undergoes significant changes in the context of digital transformation.TMTs are supposed to form a"digital strategic cognition framework"based on a thorough understanding of the specific characteris-tics and operational logic of digital technology to effectively advance digital transformation.While existing literature has examined the impact of normal characteristics of TMTs,such as age,education,and social capital,on corporate digital transformation strategy,most studies overlook the unique requirements of digital transformation for TMTs traits.In Un-locking success in digital transformations report by McKinsey & Company,managers who are proficient in digital tech-nology are interpreted as the primary factor for the success of corporate digital transformation,which indicates that TMT members with information technology backgrounds are expected to become a vital element in driving digital transforma-tion strategies.Rooted in the digital strategic cognition framework,This paper examines the impact and mechanisms of TMTs infor-mation technology backgrounds on corporate digital transformation strategy,and further explores situational factors based on the fundamental framework of corporate strategic transformation,thus providing insights for digital-era corporate digi-tal transformation.Using A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2021 as research samples,this paper employs the natural logarithm of the frequency of digital keywords in the"Management Discussion and Analysis(MD&A)"section of annual reports to reflect digital transformation strategies,and reflects the TMTs'information technology background based on whether TMT members have educational background and work experience related to information technology.The results show that:TMTs'information technology background significantly promotes digital transformation strate-gy,which holds true after a series of robustness and endogeneity tests.Slack resources and environmental dynamism both positively moderate the relationship between TMT information technology background and digital transformation strategy,and their joint effects positively moderate this relationship.Mechanism tests based on the digital strategic cognition frame-work demonstrate that TMTs'information technology background promotes digital transformation strategy by fostering digital innovation,strategic resource changes,and business model transformation.The exploratory analysis reveals that the positive impact of TMTs'information technology background on digital transformation strategy is more significant when TMTs has higher power and network embeddedness.The theoretical contributions of this paper are mainly reflected in the following three aspects.Firstly,this paper focuses on the TMTs'information technology background and explores its impact on corporate digital transformation strategy from a cognitive perspective,providing incremental contributions to extending upper echelons theory to the digital context.Secondly,this paper introduces the digital strategic cognition framework into the strategic deci-sion-making process of TMTs in the digital transformation context,which deconstructs the mechanism of the impact of TMTs'information technology background on digital transformation strategies,and extends the boundaries of digital trans-formation strategy research to the field of strategic cognition.Finally,this paper further investigates situational factors based on the fundamental framework of corporate strategic transformation.This comprehensive examination of the effects of information technology background on digital transformation strategy under different conditions contributes to the in-tegration of various theories in the research on digital transformation strategy.
information technology background TMTsdigital transformation strategydigital strategic cognitionslack resourcesenvironmental dynamics
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