Digitalization and firm financial performance in healthcare: the mediating role of intellectual capital efficiency

The digitalization of processes in healthcare sector firms is expected to reduce costs, improve the quality of healthcare service, customer care experience, and patient safety, and attain efficiency and efficacy in project implementation. This research investigates the impact of digitalization on the financial performance of healthcare-sector firms in the European Union. The study also examines whether a firm’s intellectual capital efficiency mediates the process of digitalization’s impact on a firm’s financial performance. Using a sample of 965 firm observations from 2017 to 2021, we find that digitalization positively affects financial performance. Further analysis suggests that capital-employed efficiency fully mediates the relationship between digitalization and firm performance. Partial mediation is also reported for intellectual capital efficiency, human capital efficiency, and structural capital efficiency in the process of digitalization impacting firm performance. These findings provide fresh insight into how digitalization impacts a firm’s financial performance, establishing intellectual capital efficiency as a mediating mechanism that may explain this impact.