Survival of the Fittest Through Digital Transformation: Turning the Board's Digital Awareness to Action

ABSTRACT Digital transformation (DT) is a complex, lengthy and risky process that can disrupt habituated operations. Thus, the board of directors can and should play a crucial role in strategically steering DT initiatives. However, interviews ( n = 21) with and survey responses ( n = 19) from board members and IT leaders of large enterprises revealed that boards often lack digital awareness , which makes them insufficiently equipped to understand the risks and opportunities presented by new digital technologies (e.g., AI). We identified four ways in which the digital awareness deficit manifested in practice, as well as specific impacts of such deficits on the DT process. Our data also revealed several practices that can be used for increasing the digital awareness of board members and translating this awareness into board DT actions.