Assessing the impact of national culture on digital maturity

Companies are progressing with their digital transformation. However, in order to successfully manage this transition to a high degree of digital maturity, they must not only adopt digital technologies but also use them to optimize their processes, products, services and business models and develop...

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Main Authors: Christian Festing, Heike Proff
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2025-12-01
Series:Digital Business
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266695442500016X
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author Christian Festing
Heike Proff
author_facet Christian Festing
Heike Proff
author_sort Christian Festing
collection DOAJ
description Companies are progressing with their digital transformation. However, in order to successfully manage this transition to a high degree of digital maturity, they must not only adopt digital technologies but also use them to optimize their processes, products, services and business models and develop the necessary capabilities. As part of the search for drivers and antecedents, this article sheds light on the influence of national culture on firms' digital maturity. To this end, hypotheses on the effects along Hofstede's six cultural dimensions are derived from the literature and then tested in a quantitative study of 603 companies from the manufacturing industry applying multiple regression analysis. The results confirm that digital maturity is fostered by strong uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation and hampered by strong individualism and indulgence. In contrast, no significant effects were found for power distance and masculinity. The study thus contributes to research by affirming the culture-bound nature of digital maturity and encouraging companies to incorporate conducive values of national culture into their global strategies for digital transformation.
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publishDate 2025-12-01
publisher Elsevier
record_format Article
series Digital Business
spelling doaj-art-6a28280d64c44b8ca1f45f94b5d9a7e12025-08-20T03:18:15ZengElsevierDigital Business2666-95442025-12-015210012110.1016/j.digbus.2025.100121Assessing the impact of national culture on digital maturityChristian Festing0Heike Proff1Corresponding author at: Bismarckstr. 120, 47057 Duisburg, Germany.; Faculty of Engineering, Chair of General Business Administration & International Automotive Management, University of Duisburg-Essen, GermanyFaculty of Engineering, Chair of General Business Administration & International Automotive Management, University of Duisburg-Essen, GermanyCompanies are progressing with their digital transformation. However, in order to successfully manage this transition to a high degree of digital maturity, they must not only adopt digital technologies but also use them to optimize their processes, products, services and business models and develop the necessary capabilities. As part of the search for drivers and antecedents, this article sheds light on the influence of national culture on firms' digital maturity. To this end, hypotheses on the effects along Hofstede's six cultural dimensions are derived from the literature and then tested in a quantitative study of 603 companies from the manufacturing industry applying multiple regression analysis. The results confirm that digital maturity is fostered by strong uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation and hampered by strong individualism and indulgence. In contrast, no significant effects were found for power distance and masculinity. The study thus contributes to research by affirming the culture-bound nature of digital maturity and encouraging companies to incorporate conducive values of national culture into their global strategies for digital transformation.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266695442500016XDigital transformationDigitalizationNational cultureCultural dimensionsCapabilities
spellingShingle Christian Festing
Heike Proff
Assessing the impact of national culture on digital maturity
Digital Business
Digital transformation
Digitalization
National culture
Cultural dimensions
Capabilities
title Assessing the impact of national culture on digital maturity
title_full Assessing the impact of national culture on digital maturity
title_fullStr Assessing the impact of national culture on digital maturity
title_full_unstemmed Assessing the impact of national culture on digital maturity
title_short Assessing the impact of national culture on digital maturity
title_sort assessing the impact of national culture on digital maturity
topic Digital transformation
Digitalization
National culture
Cultural dimensions
Capabilities
url http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266695442500016X
work_keys_str_mv AT christianfesting assessingtheimpactofnationalcultureondigitalmaturity
AT heikeproff assessingtheimpactofnationalcultureondigitalmaturity