Does Executives' IT Imprint Enhance Digital Transformation Quality?

As digital transformation (DT) accelerates, ensuring its quality has become a pressing challenge for firms. This study explores how executives' IT imprints affect DT quality by drawing on data from Chinese listed companies between 2008 and 2023. Executives' personal resumes are manually collected to identify IT imprints, and text analysis is employed to quantify DT quality, with the underlying mechanisms further tested. Empirical results show that IT imprints significantly improve DT quality, with IT work experience exerting stronger influence than IT education. Moreover, the effect is amplified when executives hold greater power, demonstrate higher stability, or when firms possess abundant redundant resources. Mediating analysis indicates that IT imprints cultivate forward thinking and innovative awareness, thereby enhancing DT quality. This study extends imprinting theory to the digital era and offers managerial implications for executive recruitment and talent management in driving digital transformation.