From digital awareness to the twin transition: What drives maturity in Romanian enterprises?

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Digital transformation has become a strategic imperative across Europe, yet significant disparities persist between member states and within national economies. This study examines the determinants of digital maturity in Romanian enterprises using data from 199 firms assessed through the national Digital Maturity Assessment (DMA). By integrating regional, sectoral, and organizational characteristics with capability-based indicators, the analysis shows that Romania remains a developing digital ecosystem marked by low levels of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) adoption, persistent regional disparities, and sectoral fragmentation. Multiple regression results indicate that Human-Centric Digitalization, Automation & AI readiness, and Green Digitalization are the capability domains most strongly associated with overall digital maturity, collectively explaining more than 91% of the variance in DMA scores. In contrast, firm size and assessment timing show no significant effects, while regional context remains a persistent constraint, with firms in Sud-Muntenia scoring significantly lower than those in București-Ilfov. These findings suggest that digital advancement in Romania is driven primarily by organizational capabilities rather than structural firm characteristics. The study contributes to digital maturity research by showing how capability domains interact within an emerging digital ecosystem and by highlighting the limited integration of AI readiness and sustainability-oriented transformation. The results support targeted policies aimed at strengthening digital skills, data governance, and regionally differentiated innovation support to accelerate convergence with European digital transformation objectives. Romanian enterprises exhibit low levels of automation and AI adoption, reflecting persistent gaps in digital skills, data governance, and learning readiness. Internal capabilities - Human-Centric Digitalisation, Automation & AI readiness, and Green Digitalisation - are the strongest predictors of digital maturity, explaining over 91% of variance. Workforce-oriented digital cultures are widespread, but they do not consistently translate into advanced technological adoption or structured learning systems. Regional inequalities remain significant, with București-Ilfov outperforming Sud-Muntenia across all digital maturity dimensions. Firms rarely achieve fully integrated digital-green “twin transition,” highlighting fragmented capability-building and uneven development of learning-oriented digital ecosystems. Data governance awareness is increasing, yet implementation remains partial, especially in micro-enterprises, limiting organizational learning and advanced digitalisation. The findings underscore that digital maturity in Romanian firms is driven more by organizational capability-building than by structural characteristics such as size or timing.

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