The Digital Transformation of Corporate Entrepreneurship:
The Role of Digital Skills and Digital Champions
Stefano D’Angelo, Antonio Ghezzi, Angelo Cavallo, Andrea Rangone and Giulia Murani
Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
Keywords: Digital Skills, Corporate Entrepreneurship, Digital Transformation, Intrapreneurship, Lean Startup, Digital
Champions, Business Model, Business Model Innovation.
Abstract: Digital transformation is perhaps the most pervasive managerial challenge for incumbent firms of the last and
coming decades. Digital possibilities need to come together with skilled employees and executives to reveal
the transformative power of digital technologies. Despite the contemporary significance, extant literature
lacks guidance for digital competence enhancement - i.e., assess digital competencies and carry out effective
initiatives to bridge the identified and measured digital competence gaps. Moreover, existing literature on
digital skills focuses mainly on the educational context while leaving less explored the corporate context. And
more, there is still little evidence on how digital skills can affect entrepreneurship in incumbent organizations.
Thus, this study explores how incumbents assess and develop digital skills within their organizations through
an in-depth, longitudinal case study of a utility company. We shed light on how incumbents can integrate
digital skills in their organizations to embrace digital transformation and initiate corporate entrepreneurship
initiatives that leverage the usage of digital technologies. Based on the findings of this study, we contribute
to digital skills, digital transformation, and corporate entrepreneurship literature and we offer practical
implications for incumbents.
1 INTRODUCTION
This study explores how incumbents can assess and
develop digital skills within their organizations.
Digital transformation, defined as transformation
‘concerned with the changes digital technologies can
bring about in a company’s business model, ...
products or organizational structures’ (Hess et al.,
2016, p. 124) is perhaps the most pervasive
managerial challenge for incumbent firms of the last
and coming decades and increasingly digital
possibilities need to come together with skilled
employees and executives to reveal its transformative
power (Nadkarni and Prügl 2020; Van Laar et al.,
2017; Van Laar et al., 2020). To this matter, it is
important to understand how to cope with the
development and enhancement of digital skills within
an organization. Despite the extensive literature on
digital competencies and their contemporary
significance, extant literature lacks guidance for
digital competence enhancement - i.e., assess digital
competencies and carry out effective initiatives to
bridge the identified and measured digital
competence gaps (Badr, 2016). Specifically, the
literature presents a knowledge gap about how
incumbents can integrate old and new capabilities in
the context of digital transformation (Nadkarni and
Prügl, 2020). Furthermore, limited attention has been
placed on how incumbents can develop and sustain a
shared digital culture intended as an organizational
resource (Spante et al., 2018). In the digital era, digital
capabilities can enable corporate entrepreneurship
(Soltanifar et al., 2021; Recker and von Briel, 2019),
intended as the capability of firms to identify and
pursue new business opportunities, recognized as a
fundamental driver for innovation and a sustainable
competitive advantage (Kuratko and Covin, 2021;
Burgelman, 1983). Despite the considerable literature
on corporate entrepreneurship, there is little evidence
of how digital capabilities can affect entrepreneurship
and innovation in incumbent organizations (Ghosh et
al., 2021; Nambisan, 2017). In particular, in
corporate entrepreneurship literature, and more
specifically in intrapreneurship, i.e., corporate
entrepreneurship at the individual level (Pinchot,
1985; Antoncic and Hisrich, 2001), digitalization has
D’Angelo, S., Ghezzi, A., Cavallo, A., Rangone, A. and Murani, G.
The Digital Transformation of Corporate Entrepreneurship: The Role of Digital Skills and Digital Champions.
DOI: 10.5220/0011827300003467
In Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2023) - Volume 2, pages 349-360
ISBN: 978-989-758-648-4; ISSN: 2184-4992
Copyright
c
 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
349

opened new opportunities for intrapreneurship
(Pinchot and Soltanifar, 2021). While there is a large
body of research examining the role of intrapreneurial
figures (e.g., Howell and Higgins, 1990; Roure, 2001;
Obstfeld, 2005), such as “innovation champions”,
there is very little corresponding literature
investigating the role of digital intrapreneurial figures
(Pinchot and Soltanifar, 2021) and how they can
leverage on digital technologies to develop digital
entrepreneurship and innovation in incumbent
organizations despite the increasing interest in digital
technologies among managers and the growing
practitioner literature urging incumbent organizations
to embrace digital transformation. Given these
arguments, this study addresses the following
overarching question: “How do incumbents assess
and develop digital skills within their organization?”
The research design is based on a single case study.
Due to its novelty and the depth of the investigation
required to grasp the mechanisms and logics of
assessing and developing digital skills in incumbent
organizations, our research question warrants a
qualitative research methodology. Specifically, we
decided to address this research focusing on a single
case study based on qualitative interviews and
additional triangulated sources on a utility company.
A utility company represents an appropriate research
setting as the utility sector has been slow to embrace
digital transformation technologies and there is
increasing pressure on this sector to transition to the
digital age necessary for ecological transition (Booth,
et al., 2016; Stewart, et al., 2018). Thus, a company
operating in the utility sector represents a suitable
case for investigation following our research
questions. This study provides at least three potential
contributions. First, this study contributes to digital
skills literature, shading light on how incumbent
organizations can assess, develop and integrate digital
skills addressing the need of guidance for digital
competence enhancement in incumbent
organizations. Second, this study connects digital
skills and corporate entrepreneurship as few studies
have done so far, contributing to a better
understanding of digital skills as an enabler for
entrepreneurial initiatives in incumbent
organizations, as well as framing the role of digital
champions within organizational boundaries thus
contributing to digital corporate entrepreneurship at
the individual level. Third, this study offers a series
of practical actions for incumbent organizations to
implement digital transformation, by assessing,
developing, and implementing digital skills with
established capabilities simultaneously within their
organization in the context of digital transformation
and identifying and empowering digital champions.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Digital technologies are increasingly reshaping the
global competitive scenario. To cope with the current
digital context, organizations are increasingly prone
to develop new skills and develop a proper people
strategy to deal properly with the challenges brought
by technological change and innovation in an
increasingly fast-moving digital world. Given the
pervasiveness of digital technologies and their
continuous evolution, employees need to develop a
set of digital skills that allows them to thrive in the
current changing world. Van Laar and colleagues
(2017) define a set of 21st century digital skills,
recognizing that in a global knowledge economy
those skills determine organizations’ competitiveness
and their ability to drive innovation in organizations.
Van Laar et al. (2017) framework of digital skills is
based on six core aspects: technical information
management, communication, collaboration,
creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving.
Since employees’ skills drive organizations’
competitiveness and innovation capacity, the
integration in organizations of these new skills is
fundamental. Moreover, digital technologies offer
new opportunities for incumbent organizations to
seek, develop and launch innovations based on
internal entrepreneurial ideas and capacities. To
better leverage on entrepreneurial opportunities in the
current digital context, organizations must adapt
themselves and digital skilled employees and
executives are required (Nadkarni and Prügl, 2019).
However, despite practitioners have started multiple
digital transformation initiatives, there are limited
guidelines for fostering entrepreneurship and
innovation in large organizations enabled by digital
affordances and how incumbents can develop and
sustain a shared digital culture (Ghosh, et al., 2021).
And more, literature lacks a guidance for digital
competence enhancement in incumbent
organizations, i.e., assess digital skills and carry out
effective initiatives to bridge the identified and
measured digital gaps. Moreover, few studies
specifically address training to acquire, nurture, build
and transfer digital competences and the mechanisms
required for facilitating or hindering the integration of
digital skills and competences in the organization.
Firms need to incorporate ‘old’ and ‘new’ capabilities
into their organizational structure in a complementary
and not impeding way (Nadkarni and Prügl, 2019).
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Despite the relevance of integrating digital skills for
innovation and entrepreneurship, one of the most
intriguing challenges for incumbents is to manage the
ambidexterity of capabilities in terms of analog and
digital capabilities. In addition, given the complexity
and explosive pace of digital technologies, there is a
threat of a growing skills gap between pre-digitization
workers and recently hired digitally savvy employees
and traditional IT trainings may not be effective
anymore (Kohli and Johnson, 2011). Moreover, little
evidence is present in literature on how digital skills
can influence and empower corporate
entrepreneurship. Digital skills, allowing to explore
and face new technological situations in a flexible
way and to exploit technological potentials in order to
represent and solve problems and build shared and
collaborative knowledge (Calvani et al., 2009), can
enable entrepreneurial behavior and activities within
the organization, i.e., corporate entrepreneurship
defined as “the process whereby an individual or
group of individuals, in association with an existing
organization, create a new organization or instigate
renewal or innovation within that organization”
(Sharma & Chrisman, 1999, p. 18). Considering the
disruptive nature of digital technologies,
organizations can revitalize and reinvent
organizations also through digital technologies
(Nadkarni and Prügl, 2021). Despite the extensive
literature on corporate entrepreneurship, there is little
research regarding how digital skills can enable
corporate entrepreneurship (Soltanifar et al., 2021;
Recker and von Briel, 2019), facilitating the adoption
of digital technologies to explore and exploit
entrepreneurial opportunities (Soltanifar et al., 2021).
Digital technologies can offer opportunities also for
intrapreneurial behavior. Intrapreneurship, intended
as corporate entrepreneurship at individual level
(Antoncic and Hisrich, 2001) creates opportunities
for individuals to be innovative and entrepreneurial
within and for the organization that employs them
(Soltanifar et al., 2021). Moreover, more studies are
needed to leverage on intrapreneurial capabilities
leveraging on digital technologies. Despite the
extensive literature on intrapreneurial figures, such as
innovation champions, defined as experienced
employees which have gained organizational
knowledge and extensive network inside the
organization, there is limited research on
correspondent digital figures that can enhance digital
entrepreneurship and innovation within incumbent
organizations (Drechsler et al., 2018). Literature
underlines the necessity to investigate this emerging
figures also in the context of digital transformation
shading lights on digital intrapreneurship defined as
“any intrapreneurship that uses digital means as a
critical component of its innovation initiative”
(Pinchot and Soltanifar, 2021, p.238). Although
digital transformation is currently impacting a large
variety of businesses, there has been a limited
attention towards the role of digital intrapreneurship
within traditional industries (Soltanifar et al., 2021).
Few studies had explored so far how to search
employees in the organization that possess the
required digital skills and the intrapreneurial behavior
with the use of digital technologies within the
corporate context (Soltanifar et al., 2021). And more,
it is underexplored the role of champions within
digital transformation and there is limited empirical
investigation of champions to keep technological
innovation ideas alive and thriving. In addition, very
little research has been done on how the process of
championing takes place within firms, what
mechanisms are used by champions to foster
entrepreneurship, especially in the digital context,
and which mechanisms are successful or not.
3 METHODOLOGY
Given the early stage of development of research
linking digital skills with digital transformation and
corporate entrepreneurship, a qualitative approach
was felt to be necessary (Miles et al., 2013).
Consequently, we opted for an in-depth single,
longitudinal case study, to shade lights on the role of
digital skills in facilitating digital transformation and
corporate entrepreneurship in incumbent organiza-
tions. We choose the single case methodology for
three main reasons. First, a case study as empirical
enquiry is suitable to “investigate a contemporary
phenomenon within its real-life context; when the
boundaries between phenomenon and context are not
clearly evident; and in which multiple sources of
evidence are used” (Yin, 1984, p.23). Second, a case
study allows to investigate an under-explored
phenomenon at various levels and to acquire an in-
depth understanding, together with the needed depth
and insight, which is difficult to replicate on a wider
sample (Yin, 2013; Eisenhardt, 1989). Third, recent
studies have pointed out the necessity to investigate
in a detailed and comprehensive manner the
challenges generated by the integration of digital
skills with pre-existing competences in incumbents,
as well as how digital skills can facilitate digital
transformation and corporate entrepreneurship
(Nadkarni and Prügl, 2021; Pinchot and Soltanifar,
2021; Shakina et al., 2021). This study analyzes the
case of a leading utility company EnerWaterGas
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Group (hereafter \EnerWaterGas” or \the Group" or
\the Company”).
3.1 Data Gathering and Data Analysis
In our case study, data were collected through
multiple sources of information (Yin, 1984). Primary
source of information in our research were semi-
structured interviews. Primary data source consisted
in 25 semi-standardized. The interviews lasted
between 45 and 60 minutes, and was recorded and
fully transcribed, to ensure the quality of the data. As
case studies rely heavily on the correctness of the
information provided by the interviewees for their
validity and reliability; this can be enhanced by using
multiple sources or “looking at data in multiple ways”
(Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2009). For this reason, we
proceeded with a triangulation of data, to ensure the
qualitative research to be trustworthy and persuasive.
To this end, several secondary sources of evidence
and archival data including strategic reports, internet
pages, newspaper articles, podcasts and whitepapers
were also added to supplement the interview data. We
indeed collected information from internal
documents (e.g., presentations, emails, reports,
additional memos from meetings) and external
documents. Interviews content analysis was
performed applying the open coding practice from
Grounded Theory methodology (Glaser & Strauss,
1967). Through the inductive coding tree, fine-
grained in vivo codes were transformed into
aggregated concepts, and the real-world content
obtained from the qualitative interviews enabled us to
proceed with the abstraction and theory building
(Saldaña, 2009). Through the three-order analysis we
were able to highlight the connection between the
data and the inductive concepts, to prove a high-
quality qualitative study (Gioia, et al., 2012).
3.2 Case Description
The single case study relates to an Italian multi-utility
company undergoing a process of digitalization and
integration of new digital skills within the
organization. The company is among the nation's
largest multi-utilities, born in 2002 out of the
aggregation of 11 municipal Italian companies and
specifically operating in the environment (waste
management), water (aqueduct, sewerage and
purification) and energy (electricity, gas distribution
and sales, energy services) sectors, offering
additional services in the public lighting and
telecommunications.
4 RESULTS
The presentation of our findings is organized as
follows. First, we illustrate how digital skills are
assessed and developed within the incumbent
organization and the mechanisms to facilitate the
integration of them within the corporate. Finally, we
focus on the role of digital champions to enable
digital transformation and corporate entrepreneurship
within the incumbent organization.
4.1 How Digital Skills Are Assessed
and Developed Within the
Incumbent Organization
To assess and develop digital skills, the Company has
defined a three-phase process with the support of the
consulting firm: (i) assessing digital skills; (ii)
identifying digital champions; (iii) developing digital
skills and carrying out corporate entrepreneurship
initiatives. In the first phase, “Assessing digital skills”
phase, the Company launched in 2019 an assessment
of digital skills based on Van Laar and colleagues’
digital skills’ scale (2017), addressed to the entire
organization, to map the individual digital skills of the
entire company population, involving even the most
operative figures in the organization. The
assessment, based on an online survey, was extended
to the entire company population, ca. 8.500
employees, with a redemption of almost 60%,
obtaining a final sample of 5.000 respondents.
Despite the company population was invited to fill the
online survey through an email invitation,
EnerWaterGas had to manage the segment of people
with difficult accessibility towards the usage of
digital technologies, i.e., the blue collars - the more
operative figures. For this critical segment, specific
communication actions consisted in non-digital
communication initiatives and offline measures such
as printed communications, QR codes or short
message service to fill in the survey. This phase of
assessing digital skills lasted about one month and an
half from the official launch of the assessment to the
closing and it was preceded by one month of
preparatory communications started from the
institutional communication of the Chief Executive
Officer to the launch of the assessment of digital
skills. In the second phase, the “Identify digital
champions” phase, EnerWaterGas aimed to identify
digital champions to facilitate digital transformation
and corporate entrepreneurship in the incumbent
organization. To do so, on the basis to the results
obtained on the assessment of digital skills, a specific
profile for each employee was assigned following a
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gamification logic to increase the engagement of
company population. The identification of digital
champions leveraged on an evaluation based on a
likert scale (from 1 to 5) for each dimension included
in the Van Laar and colleagues (2017) 21st-century
digital skills assessment scale, i.e., technical;
information management; communication;
collaboration; creativity; critical thinking; problem
solving. Values below than 3 (i.e., neutral value for
the scale) in the likert scale were considered as
“negative” for that specific dimension while values
above than 3 were considered “positive” for the same
dimension of the assessment of digital skills.
EnerWaterGas assumed to identify potential digital
champions if respondents obtained an average value
higher than 3 for all the dimensions of the Van Laar
and colleagues (2017) 21st-century digital skills
assessment scale or in at least five dimensions (on
seven) of the entire assessment. The clustering of
profiles and restitution of results was managed by the
HR and Training & Development function with the
support of the consulting firm to identify digital
champions and develop customized and targeted
activities based on the target profile. To identify
digital champions, EnerWaterGas triangulated the
results obtained from the assessment of digital skills
with two other factors: first, the time availability that
these people have to dedicate on digital champions
activities; second, the willingness to exert efforts as
digital champions. Digital champions could come
from every hierarchical level and function also to
favor a transversal diffusion of digital skills within
the organization. The final resulting cluster of digital
champions was engaged in digital corporate
entrepreneurial activities within the organization, i.e
Digital lab (see below), while the remaining part of
the company population was involved in training and
development activities aimed to empower digital
skills. In the third phase, “Developing digital skills
and carrying out digital corporate entrepreneurial
activities” phase, based on the assessment of digital
skills, EnerWaterGas organized customized training
and development activities for digital skills as well as
corporate entrepreneurship initiatives. These
activities following the assessment of digital skills
were included in the new program called “Digital
engagement program” aimed to nurture, develop, and
spread digital skills as well as to create a community
of “digital champions” able to contribute to digital
transformation and corporate entrepreneurship within
the organization. In other words, through the Digital
engagement program, the firm aimed to engage every
person at every hierarchical level of the organization
to be protagonist of its own training. The program has
been structured in three main sections, each one with
a different objective and including specific initiatives
addressing a specific segment of company
population. The three sections of the program were
respectively: “Digital mindset”, “Digital
envisioning” and “Digital lab”. The first two types of
activities aimed to develop digital skills while the
third one, addressing digital champions, was more
“entrepreneurial”, focused on the development of
new corporate innovation solutions based on digital
technologies. First, Digital mindset is a dedicated
online training path formed by training courses open
to the entire company population to spread a common
digital culture about the use of digital technologies.
Second, Digital envisioning are events addressed to
the top management aimed to inspire and train the top
management of EnerWaterGas on the opportunities
offered by digital technologies. These events involve
also expert teachers and external testimonies with the
objective to promote and share best practices and
open debates on topics related to digital technologies
and digital entrepreneurship and innovation as well as
to present future emerging trends offered by digital
technologies. Finally, Digital lab are structured
programs directly involving the digital champions
with the objective to develop digital corporate
entrepreneurship solutions focused on organizational
improvement and rejuvenation leveraging also on
digital technologies. In other words, in Digital lab
activity, digital champions, i.e digital talents
identified starting from the assessment of digital
skills, take part of this structured program to develop
digital corporate innovation solutions focused on
organizational rejuvenation, thus developing new
solutions focused on improving the organizational
functioning of EnerWaterGas. Specifically, Digital
lab activity involves two teams, each formed by six
digital champions that are the final digital champions,
resulting from the assessment of digital skills and
selected by HR function also considering the time
availability and willingness to act as a digital
champion). Specifically, each team is committed to
find new ways of working or improve organizational
processes of the company leveraging on digital tools.
Related to this, the HR and Training & Development
function was responsible to facilitate the formation of
the teams even if it was given the possibility to the
digital champions to form independently their teams.
In particular, the HR and Training & Development
function tried to form cross-functional teams in order
to spread knowledge and skills within the entire
organization. In the Digital lab, the final resulting 12
“digital champions” (accurately identified within the
top 500 emerging from the assessment of digital
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353

skills) carry out selected briefs together with an
internal sponsor who proposed the brief based on
business needs emerged with the internal
confrontation with the top management. For instance,
business needs relate on how to allow employees to
report in real-time problems related to the operational
services provided by EnerWaterGas; how to improve
the employee’s experience with a focus on
onboarding and participation of employees in training
activities or how or to stimulate internal virtuous
behaviors leveraging on digital tools. In sum, Digital
lab aimed to bring digital corporate entrepreneurship
solutions in the organization and create a community
of digital entrepreneurial figures starting from the
selected “digital champions”. In the next section we
illustrate the specific organizational mechanisms that
facilitated EnerWaterGas in assessing and developing
digital skills.
4.2 Organizational Mechanisms to
Facilitate the Integration of Digital
Skills Within the Organization
In this section, we describe the organizational
mechanisms that have facilitated to assess, develop
and integrate digital skills in the incumbent
organization. Specifically, the organization enabled
the integration of digital skills as well as the
identification of digital champions through top
management support, the engagement of the entire
company population and the intervention of HR
function.
4.2.1 Top Management Support
The assessment, development, and integration of
digital skills in the organization required the top
management support resulting in three different ways.
First, encouraging employees to believe that digital
skills are part of the role set for all members of the
organization and they are necessary to introduce
innovation in the organization in the current digital
scenario. Second, recognizing digital champions who
bring ideas forward in the organization. Finally,
supporting the solutions of the digital innovation
projects generated by digital champions, the top
management has been involved in the choice to
implement the solutions created by the digital
champions but also in allocating necessary seed
money to get projects off the ground and implement
them in the organization.
4.2.2 Company Population Engagement:
Mechanisms to Face the Digital Gap
Within the Incumbent Organization
The second mechanism that allowed EnerWaterGas
to embrace the integration of digital skills within the
organization was the engagement of the entire
company population. In this respect, EnerWaterGas
has engaged the entire company population in order
to have a representative picture of the current level of
individual digital skills within the entire organization
but also to bring the entire company population on
board to facilitate a successful integration and
empowerment of digital skills within the organization
to face digital transformation and undertake corporate
entrepreneurship in the digital age. And more, to
involve the entire company population and thus
facilitate the initiative for digital skills, the
organization had to implement specific actions to face
and mitigate the digital skills gap within the
organization addressing specific critical segments of
company population: first, the segment of the
reluctant people for organizational issues towards the
introduction of digital technologies; second, the
segment of people with difficult accessibility towards
the usage of digital technologies (i.e., blue collars,
thus the operative figures of the company) and finally
the segment of people with limited abilities for
individual characteristics towards the adoption of
digital technologies (i.e., seniors figures that do not
have familiarity with digital technologies).
4.2.3 HR Function Intervention:
Reallocation of Work Activities and
Selection of Digital Champions
The third tactic that has facilitated the assessment and
development digital skills and thus the integration of
them within the organization was related to the
intervention of HR function. Related to this aspect,
beyond its role in involving the entire company
population, the role of HR function resulted
fundamental in two ways. First, in the management of
the digital intrapreneurial initiatives, specifically the
Digital lab, i.e., the activities of development of new
solutions focused on organizational improvement and
rejuvenation of EnerWaterGas, with the business as-
usual activities. In this respect, the HR function
facilitated the management of the time of the digital
champions involved in the Digital lab. The
intervention of HR function resulted fundamental to
allocate protected time for the development of
innovative solutions carried out by digital champions
and aligning the head of business of digital
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Figure 1: Assessing and developing digital skills in incumbent organizations: the role of digital champions.
champions for their activities. This protected time
resulted a half day per week (10%) plus extra
voluntary time dedicated to carry out digital
champions activities (i.e., organizational rejuvenation
based on digital technologies, facilitator for digital
transformation as well as dissemination of knowledge
on digital technologies), defined in accordance with
the heads of business. Second, the intervention of HR
function resulted fundamental in the selection of
digital champions. Due to their view and knowledge
on the human resources of EnerWaterGas, the HR
resulted fundamental to select and engage the suitable
digital champions considering the individual digital
skills resulted from the assessment of digital skills but
also the time availability to dedicate on digital
champions activities and willingness to act as digital
champions.
4.3 Who Are the Digital Champions?
In this section we illustrate, first, the role of digital
champions and, second, the organizational
characteristics and individual characteristics enabling
their activity.
4.3.1 The Role of Digital Champions
Digital champions are individuals internal within the
organization that can come from every hierarchical
level or function and selected starting from the
The Digital Transformation of Corporate Entrepreneurship: The Role of Digital Skills and Digital Champions
355

assessment of digital skills with two objectives: first,
to facilitate digital transformation within the
organization; second, to carry out corporate
entrepreneurship initiatives with a focus on
organizational rejuvenation, i.e., the improvement of
organization functioning leveraging on digital
technologies. Specifically, digital champions are
selected first to take part at the Digital lab initiative
aimed to develop digital corporate innovation
solutions and bringing a digital culture within the
organization. Beyond the activities planned for the
Digital lab, the role of digital champions is at least
twofold. First, EnerWaterGas has assigned to the
digital champions the role to become reference and
mentors for less digital ready colleagues within the
organization, by highlighting the possible benefits
deriving from the adop tion of digital technologies as
well as offering a guidance for them in the adoption
of digital technologies.
Second, they are in charge of developing digital
corporate entrepreneurship solutions, focused on
organizational rejuvenation and that leverage on
digital technologies, bringing potential benefits and
solutions to specific units or directly to the whole
organization in accordance with the business needs
expressed by internal sponsors of EnerWaterGas. To
do so, they are called to rethink and improve how the
organizational processes are formulated leveraging
on the usage of digital technologies. In sum, digital
champions act first as facilitators and ambassadors of
digital transformation within the organization,
spreading digital culture within the organization,
second, as catalyst for digital intrapreneurial
initiatives within the organization, undertaking digital
corporate innovations while pursuing their everyday
job.
4.3.2 Organizational Characteristics and
Individual Characteristics that Enable
to Act as Digital Champions in the
Incumbent Organization
Digital champions are selected not only based on
digital skills assessment, and thus on the basis of
individual digital skills, but also considering
organizational characteristics and individual
characteristics: first, the time availability to dedicate
on activities related to digital champions as well as
the formal recognition assigned by the organization to
the digital champions; second, the willingness to
undertake and take part to these initiatives within the
organization.
5 DISCUSSION
In this study we explored how incumbents can assess
and develop digital skills and address the related
challenges. We highlight also the role played by
digital champions for digital transformation and
corporate entrepreneurship in incumbent
organizations using a single longitudinal case study,
as highlighted in Figure 1. Our first key findings show
how incumbents can nurture and develop digital skills
to support digital transformation and undertake
corporate entrepreneurship in the digital age. In
particular, the study shows some specific tactics the
incumbent firms can deploy to assess, develop and
integrate digital skills within the organization and
address the related barriers. Borrowing a terminology
from corporate entrepreneurship literature, we found
three organizational mechanisms that can enable
incumbents in developing and integrating digital
skills in a corporate context: (i) the top management
support (Antoncic and Hisrich, 2001); (ii) the
engagement of company population (Kassa and Raju,
2015; Lockwood, 2007); and (iii) the involvement of
HR function (Kassa and Tsigu, 2021). Our second
key finding regards the enabling role of digital
champions in driving digital transformation and
corporate entrepreneurship in the digital age. While
the extant literature on corporate entrepreneurship has
largely documented how innovation champions
support entrepreneurship in incumbent organizations
(Drechsler et al., 2021; Perry-Smith and Mannucci,
2016; Kelley and Lee, 2010), less is known about the
corresponding figures in the digital age (i.e., digital
champions) and the internal corporate environment
that can influence the decision to act as digital
champions. We address this gap by showing the role
of digital champions in facilitating digital
transformation and organizational rejuvenation
leveraging on their digital skills (i.e., the
improvement of organizational functioning
leveraging on digital tools). More specifically, our
case shows some organizational characteristics and
individual characteristics that can enable the decision
to act as digital champions in incumbent
organizations. We found that the organizational
characteristics take the forms of time availability and
recognition. While we found that the individual
characteristics take the forms of individual digital
skills (Van Laar et al., 2017) and the willingness to
act as digital champions.
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6 CONCLUSIONS
6.1 Contributions to Research
We offer contributions to digital skills, digital
transformation, and corporate entrepreneurship
literature. First, we contribute to the debate on digital
skills by exploring how incumbents can assess and
develop digital skills and used them as a tool to
support digital transformation in incumbent
organizations and corporate entrepreneurship in the
digital age (Nadkarni and Prügl, 2021; Pinchot and
Soltanifar, 2021). This study contributes to digital
skills literature also investigating the role of digital
skills in a corporate context as few studies have done
so far. By illustrating how incumbents can assess and
develop digital skills, we advance the extant research
offering guidance for digital skills enhancement in
incumbent organizations, i.e., assess digital skills and
carry out effective initiatives to bridge the identified
and measured digital skills gaps (Nadkarni and Prügl,
2021; Hess et al., 2016). By extending the literature
on digital skills, this paper offers some distinctive
contributions also to research on digital
transformation and corporate entrepreneurship.
Concerning digital transformation, this paper
contributes to the extant literature on digital
transformation in two ways. On the one hand, this
study advances digital transformation literature,
shading light on how incumbents can structure
(digital) skills and thus providing a better
understanding of the role of digital skills in this aspect
(Solberg et al., 2020; Ferreira et al., 2019; Nambisan,
2017). Our case shows a people strategy based on the
enhancement of digital skills (i.e., assessment and
development of digital skills) to face digital
transformation in an incumbent organization. On the
other hand, our study adds knowledge on how
incumbents can develop and sustain a shared digital
culture intended as an organizational resource (Ghosh
et al., 2021; Nadkarni and Prügl, 2021; Spante et al.,
2018). Our case shows how the presence in the
organization of digital champions, who have
appropriate individual digital skills and willingness to
drive digital transformation and to create and
implement corporate entrepreneurship leveraging
digital technologies, can serve this purpose. Finally,
concerning corporate entrepreneurship, our study
advances intrapreneurship literature in the digital age,
i.e., corporate entrepreneurship at the individual level
(Antoncic and Hisrich, 2001; Pinchot, 1985), shading
lights on digital champions, i.e., champions in the
digital age as few studies have done so far (Drechsler
et al., 2021). In particular, our study shades light on
the role of digital champions in facilitating digital
transformation and corporate entrepreneurship
leveraging digital technologies in incumbent
organizations as well as how the process of
championing takes place within incumbent
organizations in the digital context, i.e., how to select
digital champions in incumbent organizations.
6.2 Implications for Practice
This study offers several practical implications for
strategic leaders of incumbent organizations who are
confronted with the challenge of digital
transformation and corporate entrepreneurship in the
digital age. First, our study shades light on the
enabling role of digital skills for digital
transformation and corporate entrepreneurship in
incumbent organizations. Another crucial
implication from our study regards the design and
implementation of tactics to face and mitigate the
digital skills gaps and the related barriers within an
incumbent context and thus facilitate the integration
of digital skills in incumbent organizations. An in-
depth exploration of the corporate digital divide could
be vital for strategic leaders and practitioners in
incumbent organizations. Related to this, this study
offers guidance for digital competence enhancement
in incumbent organizations i.e., assess digital
competencies and carry out effective initiatives to
bridge the identified and measured digital
competence gaps in incumbent organizations.
Finally, our study offers practical implications for
practitioners to identify digital champions in
incumbent organizations.
6.3 Limitations and Further Research
Developments
Despite the several potential contributions, this study
is not free of limitations and corresponding remedies
point to possible future avenues of research. First, a
single case study is apt to our research goal to
inductively explore and generate evidence on those
processes through incumbent firms can assess and
develop digital skills. For instance, future quantitative
studies can investigate under which conditions
individual digital skills (Van Laar et al., 2017) may
influence individual entrepreneurial orientation
(Bolton and Lane, 2012), thus allowing a better
understanding of their influence on entrepreneurial
behaviors in incumbent organizations.
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