Open Access
Peer-Reviewed
Original Research
Unraveling Perceptions of Barriers to Digital Transformation – Contrasting Small and Medium-sized with Large Enterprises
Abstract
With the proliferation of contemporary digital technologies, Digital Transformation (DT) has become a significant theme for companies across almost all industries. DT encompasses the digitalization of internal processes, the provision of digital services and products, and the enhancement of the customer experience. Previous research has delved into different barriers that impede successful DT. In our study, we investigate further how these barriers are perceived by employees at small and medium -sized enterprises (SMEs) in contrast to larger enterprises (LEs). We employ a mixed-methods approach by performing a quantitative analysis using the Means, Mann-Whitney U test with effect size and integrating it with qualitative results converted into frequencies. Our empirical data consist of two samples consisting of participants from 189 SMEs and 221 LEs for quantitative analysis and participants from 238 SMEs and 281 LEs for qualitative analysis. Overall, the results suggest a relatively similar perception of DT processes, indicating culture and structure as major barriers. However, the establishment of resources dedicated to managing DT emerges as a vaster barrier for SMEs than for LEs. At the same time, SMEs face fewer barriers regarding general personnel resources.
Keywords
Digital Transformation
Barriers
Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise (SME)
Large Enterprise (LE)
Mixed-Methods
Declarations & Ethics
Funding:
This research received academic dissemination support through ESCAP / JournalsHub publishing programs.
Conflicts of Interest:
The authors declare no competing financial or institutional interests.
Peer Review:
Double-blind peer reviewed by international subject specialists.
License:
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
How to Cite This Article
APA / MLA / BibTeX
Packmohr, et al. (2023). Unraveling Perceptions of Barriers to Digital Transformation – Contrasting Small and Medium-sized with Large Enterprises. IADIS International Journal on Computer Science and Information Systems, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.33965/ijcsis_2023_v18i1_08
Packmohr, et al. "Unraveling Perceptions of Barriers to Digital Transformation – Contrasting Small and Medium-sized with Large Enterprises." IADIS International Journal on Computer Science and Information Systems, vol. 18, no. 1, 2023. https://doi.org/10.33965/ijcsis_2023_v18i1_08
Packmohr, et al. "Unraveling Perceptions of Barriers to Digital Transformation – Contrasting Small and Medium-sized with Large Enterprises." IADIS International Journal on Computer Science and Information Systems 18, no. 1 (2023). https://doi.org/10.33965/ijcsis_2023_v18i1_08