The digitization of products and services is becoming a element of every business process. Its impact on business performance however, isn’t yet fully comprehended. In this study the Italian startup population is studied to understand their digital behaviour. The adoption of intra-organizational and inter-organizational electronic infrastructures are considered. Utilizing a mixed methods approach, the results of manual analysis (Step 3) Computer-assisted analyses (Step 4), and confirmation analysis (Step 5) are triangulated to identify the most important factors that affect the digital behavior of Italian startups.
The analysis of the data shows that the average Italian startups use 1,23 interorganizational and 1,75 intra-organizational systems. It is also evident that the use of these digital infrastructures is very limited: on https://adslwireless.biz/creative-deal-structures-with-vdrs-in-italys-ma/ average, almost eighty percent of the Italian startups have no more than two of the inter-organizational digital systems considered and 68% of the analyzed startups have adopted no more than one of the intra-organizational digital infrastructures.
These findings suggest that the vast majority of Italian startups exhibit a digital follower behaviour rather than developing digital leader behavior. This could be due to the fact that, despite being part of the Startup Act initiative, they haven’t yet reached an age at which they can begin to implement digital leadership strategies. This is why it is suggested to implement new policies aimed at supporting the digitalization of the Italian startup ecosystem. This could include among other things, public financial incentives for digitalizing startups.
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