ZHANG Kequn, JIANG Yukun
Promoting enterprises to accelerate digital transformation is of great significance to enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises, empower the upgrading of traditional industries, generate new forms of business, as well as drive China's digital economy to become better and stronger. From the perspective of enterprises, this paper analyzes the antecedents of enterprises' digital transformation, constructs related indexes based on the text analysis method, proposes a two-factor theoretical model of manager characteristics and dynamic capabilities, and uses the structural equation model based on partial least squares estimation (PLS-SEM). The empirical results show that manager characteristics such as entrepreneurship, digital evangelist and coordinator, as well as corporate dynamic capabilities such as sensing, learning, integrating and coordinating, have a significantly positive role in promoting the tendency and output of digital transformation of enterprises. In addition, manager characteristics can significantly improve the level of enterprises' dynamic capabilities, and the effect of manager characteristics on enterprises' dynamic capabilities and digital transformation is moderated by managers' perception of policy uncertainty. In addition, the above effects are heterogeneous between state-owned and private enterprises, enterprises in the eastern, central and western regions, as well as enterprises in provincial and non-provincial capitals. This paper fills the research gap on the antecedents of digital transformation, and provide a feasible practical path for enterprises to cultivate managers in the digital era and improve their dynamic capabilities.
