The digital maturity of boards of directors of international companies

This thesis aims to contribute to the successful digital transformation of international companies. In fact, one of the key responsibilities of boards of directors is to ensure the long-term health of their companies and digital transformation is likely to disrupt most international companies. This paper, therefore, argues that boards of directors should be digitally mature to be able to preserve their companies in the long term. The question tackled by this research is thereby “How to measure the digital maturity of boards of directors of international companies?”. The answer is formulated as a digital maturity model that not only allows boards of directors to measure their digital maturity but also to build action plans to increase their maturity. Besides this practical model, it was found that not all boards of directors need to have the same maturity level and that even though they need complementary directors, all administrators should have a minimum level of digital maturity. Also, it was concluded that boards of directors should keep a helicopter view on digital transformation and should understand that digital transformation is not about digital but about creating business value for their companies. Finally, it was inferred that having a digitally mature board of directors is not enough if the financials are not aligned. Overall, the thesis was structured into four parts. In the first part, the literature on boards of directors, digital, digital transformation, the role of the board of directors in digital transformation and maturity models is reviewed. The second part further builds on the reviewed literature to propose a first theoretical version of the model. Then, the third part presents the results of semi-directive interviews conducted with eight experts with both non-executive and executive experience in international companies. Lastly, the fourth part describes the changes made to the first proposed model following its confrontation with experts.