Digital transformation has become a critical yet challenging process for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), requiring not only the adoption of digital technologies but also substantial internal reorganization. While prior research has focused primarily on the antecedents and performance outcomes of digital transformation, considerably less is known about how SMEs reconfigure their organizational design in response to digital change. Drawing on multi-contingency theory, this study examines how digital transformation technologies reshape organizational design in Italian SMEs. We conducted a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews with 36 CEOs and senior executives of SMEs located in Southern Italy. Our findings show that digital transformation in SMEs is neither uniform nor technology-deterministic; rather, it unfolds through heterogeneous and incremental reconfigurations of organizational goals, structures, systems, and work practices. SMEs predominantly associate digital transformation with digital marketing and e-commerce, while analytically intensive technologies such as big data remain marginal. Different technologies impose distinct information-processing requirements and trigger qualitatively different organizational responses. Digital marketing primarily reshapes relational activities and external coordination, whereas e-commerce adoption leads to deeper organizational redesign, including role reconfiguration, skill upgrading, and changes in task allocation and autonomy. Where present, big data analytics support more centralized and analytical forms of coordination. By foregrounding organizational design as a core outcome of digital transformation, this study advances digital transformation research beyond adoption and performance perspectives, extends multi-contingency theory to a contemporary digital context, and contributes to SME scholarship by showing how resource constraints shape organizational reconfiguration pathways.
Digital Transformation Technologies and Organizational Design in Italian SMEs
Aizhan Tursunbayeva;
2026-01-01
Abstract
Digital transformation has become a critical yet challenging process for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), requiring not only the adoption of digital technologies but also substantial internal reorganization. While prior research has focused primarily on the antecedents and performance outcomes of digital transformation, considerably less is known about how SMEs reconfigure their organizational design in response to digital change. Drawing on multi-contingency theory, this study examines how digital transformation technologies reshape organizational design in Italian SMEs. We conducted a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews with 36 CEOs and senior executives of SMEs located in Southern Italy. Our findings show that digital transformation in SMEs is neither uniform nor technology-deterministic; rather, it unfolds through heterogeneous and incremental reconfigurations of organizational goals, structures, systems, and work practices. SMEs predominantly associate digital transformation with digital marketing and e-commerce, while analytically intensive technologies such as big data remain marginal. Different technologies impose distinct information-processing requirements and trigger qualitatively different organizational responses. Digital marketing primarily reshapes relational activities and external coordination, whereas e-commerce adoption leads to deeper organizational redesign, including role reconfiguration, skill upgrading, and changes in task allocation and autonomy. Where present, big data analytics support more centralized and analytical forms of coordination. By foregrounding organizational design as a core outcome of digital transformation, this study advances digital transformation research beyond adoption and performance perspectives, extends multi-contingency theory to a contemporary digital context, and contributes to SME scholarship by showing how resource constraints shape organizational reconfiguration pathways.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
