Digital Openness and Digital Readiness

The publication WIFU_compact_17: Digital Openness and Digital Readiness (2023) by the WIFU Foundation analyses the role of the entrepreneurial family as a key influencing factor in the digital transformation of family businesses. The starting point is the thesis that digital change fails less because of technological issues than because of the attitudes, skills and decision-making logic of the owner family. Digital openness is identified as a cultural and value-based prerequisite for successful transformation processes.

The focus is on the distinction between digital openness – understood as open-mindedness, curiosity, and a willingness to experiment – and digital readiness, meaning the concrete ability to initiate, manage, and control digital projects from a professional standpoint. It is shown that generational differences within the family business can lead to tensions, but at the same time can also open up potential for a productive division of roles between the senior generation and the next generation. The publication emphasises the importance of intergenerational dialogue and the conscious involvement of the next generation in digital decision-making processes.

Furthermore, the WIFU integrates digital transformation into its typology of mental models of entrepreneurial families and derives four typical situations of digital readiness from this. For each of these constellations, practical governance and organisational solutions are described, such as the integration of external digital expertise, the development of family-internal competencies, or the establishment of advisory boards. The aim is not digitalisation for its own sake, but the long-term future viability of the family business in the interplay of family, ownership, and management.