Human competencies and data capabilities in digital government: the roles of business intelligence, data understanding, and employee skills in digital entrepreneurship

Governments need to ensure human capabilities are upgraded to fully benefit from digital transformation, rather than simply only rely on technological investment. This study investigates how a range of features - Business Intelligence (BI), Data Understanding (DU), Innovative Thinking (IT), Technical Proficiency (TP), and Adaptability (AD) impact on the digital entrepreneurial behaviour of employees working in the public sector. The study harnesses an organisational behaviour and competencies-based perspective to design and test an integrated capability model, drawing on data gathered from 264 government employees taking part in digital initiatives. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) demonstrates that BI strongly improves DU, and DU is the most influential predictor of digital entrepreneurship. IT and TP contribute indirectly by facilitating the use of BI, whereas Adaptability was not found to have a significant effect. The findings highlight a sequential capability path from behavioural/technical skills → BI use → DU → digital entrepreneurship, thereby pointing out that domain-specific cognitive capability (data understanding), rather than general openness to change, is what drives government innovation. The study pinpoints the human mechanisms which transform digital infrastructure into innovation and offers a number of recommendations for creating data-literate, BI-enabled workforces in the public sector.