Digital Governance and Managerial Competence in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: Evidence from Albania and Implications for Managerial Education

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) increasingly interact with the state through digital platforms, yet little is known about how this interaction relates to the managerial competence of owner-managers. This study examines how the use and perceived quality of digital public services are associated with managerial quality, perceived institutional transparency, interaction efficiency and organisational performance in a sample of Albanian SMEs, and draws implications for managerial education. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire administered online and face-to-face between March and May 2026 to 110 firms in four Albanian cities (Tirana, Fier, Shkodër and Elbasan), selected through convenience and snowball sampling. Hypotheses were tested with heteroskedasticity-corrected regression models. Technical and institutional barriers were positively associated with use of digital public services, which most plausibly reflects greater exposure to platform problems among frequent users rather than barriers driving use; organisational and cultural barriers were negatively associated with use only in the fuller model, and digital-skills barriers were not significant. Use of digital public services was modestly but positively associated with managerial quality, whereas e-service quality was strongly associated with perceived transparency and efficiency of interactions. Self-reported managerial quality was the strongest correlate of perceived organisational performance, and the positive association between digital maturity and perceived performance was slightly stronger at higher levels of managerial quality, while digital maturity alone was only weakly associated with performance. The findings suggest that the quality of e-government services and firms’ managerial capacity matter more than frequency of use alone. The paper contributes by linking e-government research with managerial competence and workplace learning, and recommends applied, task-embedded training that combines platform use with core management practices. Because learning was not measured directly, these educational implications are inferential. Owing to the cross-sectional design and small sample, results indicate associations rather than causal effects.