Executives’ IT Background, Managerial Myopia, and Digital Transformation

Combining the upper echelons theory and imprinting theory, we use data of Chinese listed companies from 2013 to 2022, to explore the relationship between executives’ IT background, managerial myopia, and digital transformation, together with the moderating effect of digital peer effect. We found that executives’ IT background significantly promotes corporate digital transformation, which is robust after serials of robustness tests. Executives’ IT education and practical background can significantly promote digital transformation. Mechanism analysis found that executives’ IT background, especially the IT education background, can promote digital transformation by alleviating managerial myopia, while the IT practical background cannot significantly alleviate the managerial myopia. The digital peer effect, digital industry and province peer effect can significantly promote the positive effect of executives’ IT background on digital transformation. Further analyses indicate that the improvement of executives’ IT background is more significant in the non-state-owned firms, non-manufacturing, and the fiercely competitive industry. This article divides the executives’ IT background into education background and practical background, which enriching the relevant research on the role of managers in digital transformation.