Digital technology on financial performance

Abstract

This Master Thesis investigates the effect of digital technologies on the financial performance of companies listed in Norway. By adopting a Resource-Based View, this paper investigates 18 different digital technologies by using a quantitative text analysis approach on 212 989 announcements and 1169 annual reports from 2014 until today. An extensive literature review addresses the potential benefits of applying the named technologies. The paper finds a small significant increase in performance for the companies disclosing these technologies, while it does not find significant results for the specific technologies’ contribution to financial performance. In addition, the findings indicate that the market has positive expectations for digital technologies. At the same time, there is no significant evidence showing an increased financial performance by the companies disclosing the individual technologies. These findings contribute to the literature on the resource-based view by highlighting the need for capabilities to utilize the identified digital technologies and further contribute to the emerging technology trends amongst Norwegian firms.