From Traditional Universities to Digital Institutions

Universities worldwide are under growing pressure to reinvent themselves as digital institutions, yet the factors that actually drive this shift are rarely examined systematically. Using the Technology–Organization–Environment (TOE) framework, this study investigates the relative influence of technological, organizational, and environmental drivers on the digital transformation progress of higher education institutions (HEIs). Data were collected from 245 administrators, faculty, IT staff, and student affairs personnel across public and private universities at varying stages of digital maturity. Hierarchical regression results show that all three TOE dimensions significantly predict institutional transformation progress, with organizational context (leadership vision, culture, resource allocation) emerging as the strongest predictor (β = .36, p < .01), followed by technological context (β = .27, p < .01) and environmental context (β = .22, p < .01), together explaining 36% of additional variance beyond institutional controls. Ranked driver analysis further reveals that student expectations, leadership vision.....