Assessing the senior management support and approach to business digitisation. The case of top Finish and Spanish companies

Abstract

[EN] Busines digitisation represents a milestone for companies’ prospects, and senior management support is one of the key aspects for its successful implementation. However, this support through their discourse has been underexplored. This paper contributes in this direction, by taking the cases of the top Finish and Spanish companies listed in the OMXH 25 and IBEX 35 respectively, with Finland at the top of the list of European Union countries in terms of business digitisation and Spain in the average, as benchmarks for examining the letters of top managers in annual reports in relation to their support and drivers approach. The results show that yet in both countries a relevant part of top managers does not show this support, more pronounced in Spanish companies. In addition, the weight of each block of drivers to support business digitisation identified in the literature also differs between the two countries, with the top managers of Finish companies showing a more customer-driven approach, and in the case of Spain a more business-driven approach, whereas sustainability is the least mentioned driver in both cases, as an aspect to improve.