Enterprises often exhibit substantial volatility when pursuing digital transformation. Many firms make substantial upfront investments， but gradually lose momentum， or even abandon digital transformation midway. Existing research has primarily examined this phenomenon from the capability perspective. However， organizational capabilities are relatively stable and difficult to change rapidly， which limits their ability to explain the pronounced volatility observed in digital transformation efforts. It adopted a performance feedback perspective to examine how performance feedback， including performance shortfalls and performance above aspiration， shapes firms’ engagement in digital transformation， thereby uncovering the motivational mechanisms driving such behavior. It made an empirical analysis using an unbalanced panel of 3 694 firm-year observations from 592 listed manufacturing firms in China between 2007 and 2021. The result finds that under the joint influence of problemistic search and survival threat， performance shortfalls exhibit an inverted U-shaped relationship with firms’ digital transformation； performance above aspirations negatively affects firms’ digital transformation， driven by risk aversion and cannibalization mechanisms. Moreover， ownership type has a moderating effect. Compared with private firms， state-owned enterprises（SOEs）display a weaker inverted U-shaped relationship between performance shortfalls and digital transformation， but a stronger negative relationship between performance above aspirations and digital transformation. By adopting the short-term variable performance feedback from a motivation-based perspective， it explains why digital transformation exhibits high volatility and identifies four motivational mechanisms through which performance feedback shapes digital transformation， and contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the antecedents of firms’ digital transformation.