Article Open access Hongfang Cui Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 11 , Article number: 1021 (2024) Cite this article Metrics Abstract The digital transformation of firms is a pervasive trend within the digital-based economy. Despite its inevitability, there is a continuing debate regarding the most effective methods for implementing such transformations. This study delineates four digital technology strategies—searching, enhancing, grafting, and integrating—within the theoretical framework that digital technology can strengthen an enterprise’s existing legacy technology. Using fuzzy qualitative comparative analysis, this study examines 76 Chinese high-tech manufacturing companies to uncover the configuration effects of technology distance, the type of technical search, and leadership perceptions on the adoption of these strategies. The empirical results reveal that the searching strategy is commonly employed in scenarios involving general technology, search breadth, and the perceived usefulness of the technology. The enhancing strategy is typically adopted when companies engage in extensive searches and perceive digital technology as easy to use. Moreover, the grafting strategy has emerged as the natural choice when there is a deep search for specific technologies coupled with a recognition of their usefulness. The integrating strategy becomes prominent when a company identifies a specific technology through both search breadth and search […]