The claim
MIT Sloan Management Review’s “The Path to Digital Transformation” shows that the barriers to digital transformation are mainly cultural, not technical.
What the primary source says
The page is a landing page. It gathers seven short pieces by different academics and a list of further reading. It has no single author and no publication date.
Its introduction reads: “As companies increase their digital capabilities, a variety of cultural, organizational, and technical shifts need to take place.”
That is the only place the word “cultural” appears. The page puts culture, organization and technology side by side. It reports no data on which of them holds companies back most.
What is wrong with the claim
- The source does not say it. Three kinds of change are listed as needed together. None is called the main one.
- A collection is not a study. It has no sample and no method, so it cannot “show” anything about how common a barrier is.
Is the idea itself wrong?
No. There is evidence that people and organization matter more than technology. It comes from other sources:
- In a survey of 108 specialists in the Netherlands, barriers to do with skilled employees had the strongest effect on AI maturity. Infrastructure and data barriers had no direct effect larger than chance.
- In a survey of leaders in Poland, most used AI every day while about 70% of their organizations had not moved beyond pilots.
- In McKinsey’s 2025 global survey, the companies that gained most from AI were nearly three times as likely to have redesigned their workflows.
These surveys support a version of the claim: people and process problems hold AI back more often than technology does. See budget for people and process, not just tools.
What to cite instead
MIT Sloan Management Review’s collection “The Path to Digital Transformation” says that “a variety of cultural, organizational, and technical shifts need to take place” as companies build digital capabilities. It does not rank them. For evidence that people-related barriers weigh most, cite a study that measured it.
Sources
- MIT Sloan Management Review. The Path to Digital Transformation. Collection page, no author or date. sloanreview.mit.edu
- van Veen, Zhu and Ravesteyn (2026). How AI Implementation Barriers Shape AI Maturity? The Interacting Roles of Skilled Employees, Technological Infrastructure and Data Quality. CONF-IRM 2026 Proceedings, 17. What this study did and found
- Wojewodzic (2026). AI Transformation in Polish Organisations: The Gap Between Individual Adoption and Organisational Maturity. e-mentor, 2(114), 75–83. What this study did and found
- McKinsey & Company (2025). The State of AI: Global Survey 2025. McKinsey Global Survey, published 5 November 2025. What this study did and found