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This study aims to investigate three relevant antecedents of digital transformation (digital orientation, digital intensity and digital maturity) and their influences on the financial success of companies.

Building on the strategic management and digital transformation literature, five hypotheses are developed to find the relationships between these antecedents and financial success.

Digital orientation and digital intensity alone do not contribute to the financial success of companies. Specifically, digital intensity serves as a negative moderator between digital orientation and financial success, meaning that it reduces the performance effects of digital orientation. Digital maturity acts as a mediator between digital orientation and the financial success of companies and between digital intensity and the financial success of companies.

This research contributes to the literature on strategic management and digital transformation by providing a further understanding of three relevant antecedents of digital transformation (digital orientation, digital intensity and digital maturity) and how they should be positioned alongside digital transformation settings to achieve financial success.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the association between the capacity to use enterprise architecture tools and the effectiveness of business model digitalization in companies.

The authors used two research strategies – survey and focus group – to analyze the relationship between maturity in using enterprise architecture (EA) and digital maturity, under the perspective of sociomateriality.

The use of EA is not a strategic competence that contributes to building sustainable competitive advantage, in the process of business model digitalization. On the other hand, top management’s determination and clarity, expressed by its sponsorship to communicating the strategy, contribute to the integration, engagement and adaptability of those involved and are responsible for higher maturity in the digitalization of business models.

The statistical treatment used does not allow understanding the causality between the variables.

It provides executives with important elements for clarifying and operationalizing digital business models.

The study operationalizes a theoretical and measurement model, through a strategy that used simultaneously a survey and a focus group, which allowed to know associations between technological capacities and maturity in digital business models.

Organisational resilience and digital maturity both explain how some organisations are better able to cope with unexpected disruptions. However, research exploring the relationship between these two concepts, and their role in addressing exogenous shocks, remains sparse. This study first aimed to compare digitally mature SME retailers’ organisational resilience with that of digitally less mature SME retailers and then investigate further how their digital maturity impacted their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors adopt an explanatory two-phase mixed-method research design, with online surveys from 79 SME retailers in South Africa, followed by interviews.

Digitally mature SMEs exhibited higher levels of organisational resilience, specifically with respect to situational awareness, management of keystone vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity. The authors also demonstrate that digital leadership is a greater driver of organisational resilience than digital capabilities.

The authors suggest ways for SME retailers to develop their digital maturity, particularly their digital leadership, to increase their organisational resilience.

This paper makes a case for SME retailers to focus on building their digital maturity to better cope with and learn from unexpected events. In particular, digital maturity is positively associated with SME retailers’ innovation and creativity and their devolved and responsive decision-making.

The purpose of this research is to explore and define the digital maturity of events using the Industry 4.0 model (I4.0) to create a definition for Events 4.0 (E4.0) and to place various relevant technologies on a scale of digital maturity.

In a mixed methods approach, we carried out a qualitative social media analysis and a quantitative survey of tourism and events academics. These surveys and the thorough literature review that preceded them allowed us to map the digital technologies used in events to levels of a digital maturity model.

We found that engagement with technology at events and delegate knowledge satisfactorily coexists for and across a number of different experiential levels. However, relative to I4.0, event research and the events industry appear to be digitally immature. At the top of the digital maturity scale, E4.0 might be defined as an event that is digitally managed; frequently upgrades its digital technology; fully integrates its communication systems; and optimizes digital operations and communication for event delivery, marketing, and customer experience. We expect E4.0 to drive further engagement with digital technologies and develop further research.

This study has responded to calls from the academic literature to provide a greater understanding of the digital maturity of events and how events engage with digital technology. Furthermore, the research is the first to introduce the concept of E4.0 into the academic literature. This work also provides insights for events practitioners which include the better understanding of the digital maturity of events and the widespread use of digital technology in event delivery.

This study aims to analyze and synthesize the design features of existing digital transformation maturity models with a developed classification scheme and propose a generic maturity model development wireframe based on design science research.

A systematic literature review is conducted on digital transformation maturity models in peer-reviewed journals, including the Emerald Insight, Science Direct, Scopus, Taylor & Francis and Web of Science databases, which resulted in 21 studies. A concept-centric tabular approach is used to analyze the studies, and intersectional demonstrations are used to synthesize the findings regarding the design features.

The classification scheme derived from the tabular concept-centric approach and iteratively evolved results in three main and 25 subcategories related to the design features. Analysis and synthesis of the studies reveal the granularity of the existing digital transformation maturity models concerning the design features. Furthermore, considering the design features in the classification scheme, a generic maturity model development wireframe is proposed to guide the researchers.

The generic maturity model development wireframe and the classification scheme that represents the design features of existing maturity models guide the researchers for the maturity model development roadmap.

The existing literature review studies do not focus on the design feature of digital transformation maturity models within a systematic literature review perspective. A unique classification scheme derived from the tabular concept-centric approach aims to analyze the granularity level of the existing models. Furthermore, the generic maturity model development wireframe includes the guidelines and recommendations of design science studies and presents a roadmap for maturity model researchers.

This study aims to propose a novel maturity model development framework based on design science theory utilizing qualitative and quantitative methods for empirical evidence and develops a descriptive digital transformation maturity model by using the proposed framework.

Design science theory is deeply explored and extended to propose a novel maturity model development approach, including robust and rigorous validation processes. Thus, three consecutive discussion sessions and evaluations with experts are carried out iteratively to evolve and saturate the efficiency and utility of the maturity model, and consensus among experts at each session is validated by the intra-class correlation (ICC) coefficient. Furthermore, the Wilcoxon signed rank test is utilized to test whether there is a difference between consecutive sessions. Finally, prototype testing as a pilot study and two case studies in the manufacturing industry are carried out to validate the applicability of the developed maturity model.

A 3-phase maturity model development framework that includes the activities and outcomes in each phase emerge based on the design science theory. The comparative literature analysis and discussion sessions resulted in six dimensions, ten sub-dimensions, 39-capability items that circumscribe the digital transformation concept and five maturity levels that demonstrate conceptual consistency and a measurement tool for self-assessment. In addition, prototype testing and case studies show that the developed maturity model can measure the company's maturity level. Finally, it is proven that the digital transformation maturity model is developed by following the proposed maturity model development framework.

The maturity model draws a framework for practitioners that facilitate an initial roadmap and enhance the adoption rate, and it motivates the practitioners for frequent and efficient assessments, thus helping the continuous improvement of the digital transformation journey.

The originality of this paper lies in proposing a novel maturity model development framework based on design science and presents the activities and validation methods for this purpose. Furthermore, a comprehensive and rigorously validated digital transformation maturity model is developed based on the proposed framework.

The purpose of this paper is to provide guidance to SMEs to sense and seize digitally enabled growth opportunities as well as start a project-based learning process to transform the organization in order to remain competitive in turbulent environments.

The proposed framework is nurtured from a dynamic capabilities approach as well as from digital transformation studies and mitigates shortcomings of existing frameworks on IT-enabled business transformation. A pilot study has also been carried out for testing the proposed framework.

The results of the pilot study show that the framework is well understood by SME owners or managers and contributes to a comprehensive perception of digitalization challenges and potentials. The overall maturity level of the 52 companies analyzed is moderate. Firms are better at “sensing” than “seizing”, that is, at identifying digitally based growth opportunities than in profiting from them. The test of the proposed framework also contributes to its further adjustment and refinement.

The developed framework is useful for owners and managers of SMEs as a self-assessment of digital maturity. It sets a baseline regarding the current position and supports coordinated initiatives for digitally enabled growth.

Few frameworks regarding digital maturity have been developed. Most of them lack a sound theoretical foundation and are less suited to the needs of SMEs. There are few studies on digitalization in SMEs and they are not focussed on capabilities development but mostly on processes (Trung Pham 2010; Blatz et al., 2018; Mittal et al., 2018). Therefore, the originality of this paper is to propose a framework that allows SMEs to assess their digital maturity level and the capabilities associated with each level to enhance digitally enabled growth, contributing to expand the research on the relationship between dynamic capabilities and digitalization (Teece, 2017).

Supply chain resilience (SCR) is a key concept for managers who wish to develop the capacity to enhance their supply chain’s (SC’s) ability to cope with unexpected turbulence. SC digital tools are often seen as a solution that provides more visibility, anticipation and collaboration (SCR capability factors). The purpose of this paper is to investigate the link between SCR and SC digitalisation

A sample was considered with 300 managers in the field of SCM, and the results were analysed using factor analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM). SEM was employed to test the impact of the degree of digital maturity and SC digital tools on SCR.

SC digitalization is characterised by the degree of digital maturity and the adoption of SC digital tools. The degree of digital maturity has a strong influence on digital tool adoption. SCR is positively impacted by both the degree of digital maturity and the adoption of digital tools.

The findings do not indicate which tools contribute the most to SCR.

Managers should reflect on the need to continue digitalizing their SCs if they want greater SCR in the current uncertain environment.

This is the first quantitative study that focuses on assessing the impact of the degree of digital maturity and the SC digital tools adopted on SCR. Validation of the hypotheses model confirms the positive impact of SC digitalisation on SCR for researchers and managers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance of websites and social media platforms to find out how they contribute to the improvement of business performance. A new automated data collection method is developed to determine the technology maturity level of websites. These website quality indicators are linked to and compared against small and medium enterprise (SME) competitiveness data set to find competency pillars having significant impacts on the online presence, and to identify most important factors for online digital transformation. In this way, periodic analysis of websites can signal early warnings if competitiveness data of an SME is worth to refresh. Continuous maturity monitoring of competitors’ websites provides useful benchmark information for an enterprise as well.

A conceptual model was developed for the examination of the online presence and its effect on the competitiveness of small- and medium-sized businesses. An innovative, automatically generated WebIX indicator was developed through technical and content analysis of websites of 958 SMEs’ included in the Global Competitiveness Project (GCP) network data set. A series of ANOVA analysis was used for both data sources to determine the relationships between Web quality and competitiveness levels to define the online presence maturity categories.

Both the existence and the quality of the websites proved to have positive impact on the SME’s competitiveness. Different online presence maturity categories contribute to different competitiveness pillars; therefore, key factors of online digital transformation were identified. According to the findings, company websites are more related to marketing functions than information technology from the point of competitiveness.

Competency relationships were identified between online activity and competitiveness. The foundations of automated competitiveness measures were developed. The traditional survey based subjective data collection was combined with objective data collection methodology in a reproducible way.

This paper presents a maturity model for digital transformation effectiveness in laboratories (labs) with education and research purposes.

The model was developed using design science research methodology, expert interviews and case studies.

The model fulfills three practical goals: (1) to establish comparability of the effectiveness of the digital transformation of labs, (2) to provide lab operators from academia and industry with a guide for (further) transformation and (3) to build initial trust among lab users. In addition, the maturity model contributes to the literature on digital lab transformation by capturing, describing, structuring and evaluating relevant dimensions, items and levels. Model strengths and weaknesses, areas for improvement, international applicability and practical and reusable recommendations are presented as well as the added value in assessing lab functionalities and lab sustainability.

Although originally developed as a maturity model driven by lab education, the model is also suitable for the transformation of research labs in manufacturing technology management. Digital labs can efficiently support industry training and research and development activities as well as simulate the development of new processes prior to their implementation.

Especially for these use cases, the authors see application potentials for the use of online labs from an organizational perspective and from the perspective of stakeholders such as industry users and operators with a manufacturing background, who use and develop transformed labs for teaching and research.