PurposeCurrent research suggests culture as a driving force of successful digital innovation (DI) that may not only built an organization's capability to digitally innovate but also reduce impeding factors within the organization. Only few empirical accounts support this hypothesis so far. Details of how culture supports DI are yet under-researched. This article aims to investigate the relationship between culture, organizational DI capabilities and DI barriers.Design/methodology/approachThe authors address this issue by using survey data from German municipalities (n = 668), build a structural equation model (SEM) and analyze data using partial least squares SEM.FindingsResults indicate that the business process management (BPM) culture dimensions continuous improvement and process innovation support DI capabilities. Barriers exist that partially mediate the impact of culture on capabilities.Originality/valueThe results of this study show that BPM culture is not a uniform construct and that its dimensions have both positive and negative impact on the building of organizational digitalization capabilities.