Cai Hongbo's Collaborative Paper Was Published in British Journal of Management, a Leading Journal in the Field of Management

Recently, the paper, Employee Ownership and Firm Digital Transformation co-authored by Prof. Cai Hongbo from the Department of International Trade of our School, Dong, M. from University of Science and Technology of China, Choi, Y. and Cui, L. from Australian National University, and Ma, P. from Renmin University of China, was published in British Journal of Management.

The British Journal of Management is the official journal of the British Institute of Management (published quarterly) and one of the authoritative academic journals in the field of management. It is a 4-star ABS journal with an average impact factor of 7.138 over the past 5 years.

About the paper:

Dong, M., Choi, Y., Ma, P., Cai, H., & Cui, L. Employee Ownership and Firm Digital Transformation, British Journal of Management. First published: 10 October 2024.

Abstract：

The development of digital technologies has triggered the digital transformation of organizations, enabling business model innovation. With the rise of a human-centred view of digitalization, previous studies have been devoted to exploring how leadership drives digitalization, overlooking the role of employees as a key stakeholder. Motivated by this gap, based on agency theory, we investigate how employee ownership affects digital transformation in firms. Further, we identify vital contingencies based on heterogeneity in human resource management under the ability–motivation–opportunity framework. Analysing data on Chinese listed firms from 2015 to 2021, we find that the adoption of employee ownership promotes firms’ digital transformation, and that this positive effect is moderated by R&D personnel (ability), female CEO (motivation) and state ownership (opportunity). Our findings reveal the role of employees in the digital transformation process, which deepens our understanding of the literature on employee ownership and business model innovation.

Contributed by Discipline Research Office

Edited by Sun Yue

Reviewed by Wei Hao