The digitalisation of services and products is now a regular part of all business processes. However, its impact on performance of companies is not fully realized. In this study, the Italian startup population is analysed to discover their digital behavior. Particularly, the use of inter-organizational and intra-organizational digital infrastructures are considered. The results of the manual analysis (Steps 3 र 4) are triangulated with the computer-aided analysis of Steps 4 र 5 to discover the elements that affect the digital behavior of Italian startup companies.
The data analysis shows that, on average, Italian startups use 1.23 inter-organizational digital infrastructures and 1.75 intra-organizational digital infrastructures. It is also evident that the adoption of digital infrastructures by Italian startups is limited. On average just two inter-organizational systems are adopted and 68% of analyzed startups have only implemented one intra-organizational infrastructure.
These findings suggest that the vast majority of Italian startups exhibit a digital follower attitude rather than advancing digital leader behaviour. This could be due to the fact that despite being enrolled into the Startup Act initiative, they have not yet reached the point where they can adopt digital leadership strategies. This is the reason that it is suggested to the government to adopt new policies that are aimed at encouraging the digitalization of the Italian Startup Ecosystem. This could include among other things, public financial incentives for digitalizing startups.