Abstract

For governments around the world, digital transformation (DT) initiatives have been a cornerstone in a plan to gain strategic competitiveness in the global market. However, DT initiatives have a high failure rate, and prior studies have suggested that DT initiatives are disruptive and evolutionary by nature, requiring a longitudinal examination of DT initiatives to fully understand how their effects unfolded over time. In this exploratory study, we use an event study analysis to unveil the effects of DT initiatives on IT performance over a decade in 25 US state governments. The results suggest that DT initiatives only have a significant and positive effect on radical transformation of IT performance, but not for incremental transformation of IT performance. The findings support a revolutionary perspective on effects of DT initiatives and suggest that for public organization, radical transformation is worth considering despite of the risks.

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