Abstract
In today's increasingly technological world, digital transformation is essential for organizations to stay competitive. This trend has also affected traditional family-owned businesses, including immigrant family businesses (IFBs), which must adopt advanced technologies to remain relevant. However, research on digital transformation in IFBs is limited. This study uses a dynamic capabilities framework to explore digital transformation in IFBs and identifies unique capabilities that helped IFBs face the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. The study used in-depth interviews with 36 owners and managers of IFBs in the UK and found that IFBs have two digitalization strategies - survival-oriented and growth-oriented - leading to gradual or radical digital transformation. The study also identified three types of capabilities - threshold capability, dynamic capability, and crisis response capability - that IFBs developed to achieve digital transformation. This research provides new insights into the role of dynamic capabilities in digital transformation in IFBs and contributes to the literature in this area.