The Importance of Digital Transformation in International Business

Carla Santos Pereira, Natercia Durão, Fernando Moreira and Bruno Veloso
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Carla Santos Pereira: REMIT (Research on Economics, Management and Information Technologies), IJP (Portucalense Institute for Legal Research), University Portucalense, 4200-072 Porto, Portugal
Natercia Durão: REMIT (Research on Economics, Management and Information Technologies), IJP (Portucalense Institute for Legal Research), University Portucalense, 4200-072 Porto, Portugal
Fernando Moreira: REMIT (Research on Economics, Management and Information Technologies), IJP (Portucalense Institute for Legal Research), University Portucalense, 4200-072 Porto, Portugal
Bruno Veloso: INESC TEC—Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering, Technology and Science, University Portucalense, 4200-072 Porto, Portugal

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 2, 1-26

Abstract: This study was developed under the scope of a Portuguese project focused on the entrepreneur’s perspective and perception on the internationalization process of his company: more specifically, about the factors that enhanced the company entry into foreign markets as well as the constraints found in this process. This work focuses on the importance of using digital transformation to integrate technological tools in international business practice and strategy and the obstacles encountered with introducing these new technologies. This study aims to determine the relationships between technology categories and obstacles. The final goal is to assess the impact of these characteristics of the companies by the sector of economic activity, size, and percentage of profits resulting from international expansion. A questionnaire was designed and sent by email to 8183 companies from the AICEP database, distributed by three main activity sectors. A total of 310 valid answers were gathered from the Portuguese internationalized companies. The research limitations are related to the reduced number of interviews. These interviews showed that managers were not aware of the concept of digital transformation and misunderstood the use of digital technologies in the internationalization process of the business. This limitation can add some bias to the qualitative results. In addition to these limitations, the number of responses per sector was also not homogeneous. The practical implications of this study are that managers and top-level executives can use that to better understand how companies could use digital tools and what obstacles they should avoid when they want to internationalize their business. This paper is one of the first research contributions to analyze the impact of digital transformation in the internalization of Portuguese companies.

Keywords: digital transformation; business digitalization; information systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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