Making Digital Transformation Real
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ItemA Cognitive Perspective on Digital Transformation: Literature Review and Research Framework( 2023-01-03)Managing Digital Transformation (DT) has become a top priority for executives as technological advancements and increasing decision-making complexity accelerate challenges in navigating through DT. Acknowledging that cognition (e.g., in the form of thoughts, beliefs, and emotions) is fundamentally relevant during organizational transformation processes, we address the maturing body of DT research from a cognitive perspective. While the study of cognition in management and strategy can look back to decades of investigation, research on the role of cognition in DT is fragmented and still in its infancy. Addressing this gap, we systematically review existing research from information systems, management, and psychology on the role of cognition in DT. Based on identified antecedents, contextual factors, and consequences, and a conceptualization of cognition, we provide an integrative framework for cognitive DT research and derive four promising research avenues. We thereby provide guidelines to develop strategies for successful DT and organizational action.
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ItemFrom Accountant to Software Developer – Transforming Employees with Robotic Process Automation (RPA)( 2023-01-03)Constantly changing technologies affect not only the value types that companies generate but also their processes and their most important resource: employees. Such transitions referred to as digital transformation, mean that employees must tailor their skills and ways of working to stay considered a long-term asset for their company. Intelligent information systems, such as robotic process automation (RPA), are gradually taking over employees' work efforts, and thus replacing part of the human workforce. In the paper, we investigate whether non-technical employees (in this case, accountants) can be retrained to work as entry-level RPA software developers. In our case study (observations blended with interviews), we show how retraining transforms employees’ identity, addresses their anxiety and skepticism, and impacts the organization. Further, we show the relevance of domain knowledge, digital literacy, and the cornerstones of a training program transforming accountants into RPA developers.
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ItemDigital Innovation Management and Path Dependence: An Integrated Perspective of Manufacturing Incumbents( 2023-01-03)Is digital innovation a big chance or a big threat for physical product-centric incumbents? Building on the unique characteristics of digital innovation, new market players can break the dominance of incumbents by providing digitally enabled products with distinct characteristics. Therefore, this paper empirically explores the dynamics within incumbents related to digital innovation management. Qualitative methods are used to systematically and inductively gain insights into how digital innovation is considered in the context of incumbents with physical product-driven business models. We use path dependence theory to explain the findings and support theoretical generalization of our results. The study contributes to the literature on digital innovation, how incumbents manage digital innovation under certain circumstances, and the related impacts on their business model. Further, we suggest three stages of digital innovation management in the context of path dependence.
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ItemDigital Transformation Capabilities in Manufacturing SMEs: Gaining Agility through IT Capability Configurations( 2023-01-03)Adopting a capability-based view of digital transformation as a 2nd-order ‘dynamic’ capability, this paper investigates how 1st-order dynamic and operational IT capabilities are strategically configured and aligned by manufacturing SMEs in order to gain organizational agility. Resulting from a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) of 67 Canadian SMEs, our results show that a high level of organizational agility is concretized when these firms align at least three dynamic IT capabilities and one operational IT capability. Through three high-performing configurations composed of the sensing, learning, coordinating and integrating dynamic IT capabilities along with the IT management capability and e-business capability, we demonstrate which capabilities are present to achieve a high level of organizational agility, and under what environmental condition they manifest themselves. Providing a richer description and deeper understanding of the interrelationships between the IT capabilities required by manufacturing SMEs’ digital transformation, our contributions are both practical and theoretical.
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ItemDigital Transformation – A Flow Perspective( 2023-01-03)As we move along the ever-transforming world of digital technology and organizations, the perspective of how we view digital transformation (DT) also transforms. The episodic and continuous nature of changes requires an in-depth, nuanced temporal perspective. Through a case study on an incumbent maritime organization chasing new digital value propositions, we explore the flows of actions within DT. We discuss 1) DT as flows of action, 2) the challenges of planning and measuring DT, and 3) how resistance can spur action. Moving further, we argue that this view will enable future research on how to perform DT in a way that considers the convergence of flows of action.
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ItemDigitally Transforming in a Traditional Industry: A Senior Management Perspective( 2023-01-03)Digital transformation (DT) continuously reshapes and disrupts established industries. While DT has become a buzzworthy trend, many firms still struggle to advance their DT journeys. As such, we explore the drivers of DT, and the challenges managers encounter as DT is manifested in practice in traditional industries. By adopting a qualitative approach, we gain insight into senior managers’ perspectives on DT in the context of the Swedish forestry industry. Our results reveal that the drivers of DT in traditional industries hinge on organizational structures, innovation direction, and organizational identity being changed to prevail. Our study extends research on DT in traditional industries and highlights probable areas of concern that industry practitioners can probe during their organizations’ transformation journeys.
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ItemManagement of Digital Transformation: A Literature Review of Dynamic and Operational Capabilities( 2023-01-03)Within the last years, many digital-born companies entered and outperformed their market. In literature, this phenomenon is often discussed under the term of digital transformation and digitalization. Researchers agree that capabilities play a decisive role in this context. Nevertheless, most literature focus on a specific field of corporate capabilities. Our literature review aims to systematize the current state of knowledge and identify fruitful avenues for future research on dynamic and operational capabilities for successful digital transformation in an enterprise environment. As a result, a model of their interplay is presented, discussing the most relevant capabilities and illustrating them with examples from the literature.
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ItemThe Interdependencies between Customer Journey, Business Model, and Technology in Creating Digital Customer Experiences – A Configurational Analysis at the Example of Brick-and-Mortar Retail( 2023-01-03)As brick-and-mortar retail increasingly disappears while online retail flourishes, the customer experience (CX) becomes a critical source of competitive advantage. Customers expect the same information, personalization, and availability in a brick-and-mortar store as they do online. While digital technology enables such CXs and enhances the advantage of the physical experience, brick-and-mortar retailers struggle with the complexity of these digital transformations. We analyze 38 cases of retailers implementing digital transformations to create digital CXs by conducting a qualitative comparative analysis. In eight expert interviews, we refine our understanding of CX in retail and discuss the validity and generalizability of the three resulting configurations: value chain innovation, seamless purchase experience, and personal experience. They provide actionable pathways to digital CX representing individual transformation initiatives. Since the configurations overlap strongly, we discuss the necessity to combine the three configurations to implement digital CX across all phases of the customer journey and business model.
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ItemExploring Digital Transformation’s Impact on Organizational Identity with an Archetype Framework( 2023-01-03)Recently, IS scholars draw attention on the inter-relation between digital transformation and organiza-tional identity. However, little is known about how digital transformation processes affect organizations’ identity change. We assume to grasp this complex phenomenon by distinguishing different manifesta-tions of digital transformation related to organiza-tional structures and modes of value creation, expect-ing each to have distinctive effects on changing or-ganizational identity. We capture these differing ef-fects in an archetype framework as a heuristic for future research.