Introduction According to the Digital China Development Report 2022, China’s digital economy surged in size to 45.5 trillion Yuan during 2021, constituting 39.8% of the country’s GDP. This transformation established the digital economy as a significant driving factor behind China’s overall economic advancement (Ma and Lin, 2023 , Zhang et al. 2024 ). The private sector enterprises (PSEs) in China have witnessed a swift expansion in recent years. They now constitute 90% of the nation’s businesses, contributing over 50% of its tax revenue, driving 60% of its GDP, fostering 70% of its technological innovation, and accounting for 80% of its employment opportunities Footnote 1 . The ability of PSEs to effectively implement digital transformation is important for the long-term development of China’s digital economy. Meanwhile, Petani et al. ( 2023 ) highlight that digital transformation is essential for ensuring organizational survival and achieving business success. However, digital transformation often entails high capital investment, technical difficulties, and a long return period (Liu et al. 2022 ; Xu and Tan, 2024 , Eller et al. 2023 , and Fan et al. 2024 ). Compared with state-owned enterprises (SOEs), PSEs in China frequently lack sufficient economic resources to assist with their digital […]