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Strategic action fields of
digital transformation
An exploration of the strategic action fields of
Swiss SMEs and large enterprises
Marc K. Peter, Corin Kraft and Johan Lindeque
School of Business,
University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland FHNW,
Olten, Switzerland
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to capture the collective understanding of digital transformation (DT)
across Swiss businesses and establish a reference framework based on the strategic action field (SAF ) theory.
Design/methodology/approach –A number of Swiss associations provided their databases for an online
survey. The large sample includes 2,590 participants from 1,854 organisations and delivered over 4,200
descriptions of DT, categorised into seven SAFs. A cross tabulation of SAF combinations by firm size
identified 127 possible SAF combinations which constitute the common understanding of DT.
Findings –The data set allowed the identification of SAFs and the conceptualisation of DT based on a
shared understanding. Drivers of digital transformation are: process engineering, new technologies and
digital business development, supported by digital leadership and culture, the cloud and data, customer
centricity and digital marketing.
Research limitations/implications –For practitioners, the study provides the SAFs that should be
considered for DT strategies. For academic scholars, a unique data set has allowed the study of DT by
analysing action field combinations, revealing a nuanced constellation of SAFs. Limitations are the focus on
Swiss organisations and a convenience sample for collecting the analysed data.
Originality/value –For the first time, the shared understanding of DT in Swiss businesses –based on SAFs
–has allowed a conceptualisation of DT in order to provide guidance to businesses managers and employees.
Keywords Business strategy, Digital transformation, Digitalization, Digital strategy,
Digital business development, Strategic action fields
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Organisations across industries are responding to the emerging opportunities and challenges
presented by the digital age (Berman, 2012; Cascio and Montealegre, 2016; Rogers, 2016). It is
the responsibility of the management of commercial and government organisations to not
only understand and embrace the potential of digital technology, but also to transform their
organisations in the process of integrating digital technologies (Andersson et al., 2018;
Andriole, 2017; Berman and Marshall, 2014; Day-Yang et al., 2011; Gimpel et al., 2018;
Heavin and Power, 2018; Horlacher and Hess, 2016; Loonam et al., 2018; Matt et al., 2015;
McKeown and Philip, 2003; Moreno et al., 2015; Reddy and Reinartz, 2017). While the digital
transformation (DT) of businesses affects both large and small businesses, small- and
medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are of particular interest in this respect due to their
important role in the economy (Bharadwaj et al., 2013), representing over 99 per cent of
enterprises in Switzerland (BFS, 2017) and the European Union (European Commission, 2018).
Journal of Strategy and
Management
Vol. 13 No. 1, 2020
pp. 160-180
Emerald Publishing Limited
1755-425X
DOI 10.1108/JSMA-05-2019-0070
Received 11 May 2019
Revised 9 September 2019
6 December 2019
Accepted 7 December 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/1755-425X.htm
© Marc K. Peter, Corin Kraft and Johan Lindeque. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This
article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may
reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and
non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full
terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
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However, DT is too often addressed in a general manner for businesses, the economy and
society and can thus remain too abstract for business managers and employees. At the same
time, the DT of businesses is being realised by the decision of managers to strategically adopt
and integrate specific digital technologies with the concomitant changes in business processes
and working practices. Therefore, from an internal business perspective, the central actors in
the DT of business activities are the managers and employees making decisions about the
adoption of new technologies and changes in the way work is carried out and organised. From
an external business perspective, it is the DT of stakeholders such as suppliers, competitors
and customers. DT is thus simultaneously an organisational specific internal process and an
external shared endeavour of DT of the broader business system. This multi-faceted nature of
DT is recognised in Vial’s (2019) general definition of DT as described below.
This paper conceptualises the DT of businesses by drawing on and adapting the strategic
action field (SAF) theory of Fligstein and McAdam (2011, 2012) to a business focus. The DT of
business organisations is conceptualised as the participation of the business in one or more
SAF, each related to different understandings of the DT process. It can be argued that it is the
managers and employees –also collectively in their functional teams –who represent a
business organisation in a given DT SAF. Each SAF represents different parallel and
potentially related digital adoption processes and changes in working practices that are
simultaneously being implemented across many businesses. Adopting an SAF perspective
emphasises the potential for multiple, highly related and interconnected DT processes and the
importance of business actors, managers and employees, achieving shared understandings of
DT processes within and across businesses to realise their full potential.
Achieving such a shared understanding in support of business transformation is reliant on
strategic leadership to create and exploit dynamic capabilities and organisational learning
needed to sense and seize opportunities and threats. This enables organisations to innovate
and renew their products and business models (Naldi et al., 2014; Vera and Crossan, 2004), a
key dimension of DT (Vial, 2019). A central point of transformational leadership is the
stimulation of knowledge sharing and innovation behaviour, which requires the involvement
of both managers and employees (Bednall et al., 2018). Hence, SAFs represent critical spaces
for developing the shared understanding that managers and employees require for DT.
The data for this study were collected using an online survey with Swiss managers at
both large enterprises and SMEs. Participants were invited by e-mail and responses were
received during April and May 2017. In total, the realised sample includes 2,590
participating managers and employees from 1,854 organisations. The distribution of
respondents by business organisations’sizes based on the number of employees reflected
the national Swiss large enterprise and SME distribution.
The analysis of the data on concrete DT measures undertaken in the respondents’
businesses, using the theory of SAFs, allowed the development of an understanding of the
degree to which the DT of Swiss businesses is associated with participation in one or more
DT SAFs. The analysis also allows the comparison of the engagement of large enterprises
and SMEs as actors within and across the identified SAFs, an indicator of the complexity
and completeness of DT initiatives which different types of businesses are undertaking.
Finally, the analysis allows insights into the degree to which large enterprises and SMEs are
participating in outward or internally oriented SAFs.
The analysis of the participation of Swiss businesses within and across the identified
SAFs provides managers with a solid basis for assessing their understanding of the
different strategic DT options available to them for responding to the challenges of the
digital age. In drawing on the seven identified SAFs, which are the collective understanding
of respondents from large enterprises and SMEs in Switzerland about DT, managers can
also assess the completeness of their understanding about and the scope of DT strategies,
and therefore make more informed decisions about their defined strategic actions.
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2. Digital transformation
DT is a multidimensional phenomenon driven by technology that impacts society, politics
and the economy (Vial, 2019). It is often referred to as the fourth industrial revolution
(Lasi et al., 2014) and, therefore, it is no longer a question if DT will affect business
organisations, but how to take advantage of it (Hess et al., 2016; Kuusisto, 2017;
Van der Zande, 2018). DT is, however, challenging, especially for SMEs, because it
integrates people, systems and objects in a complex and sophisticated way (Bauernhansl
2014; Dröseln et al., 2017; Smolinski et al., 2017).
Conceptually, DT is now increasingly more clearly defined and delimited from related
concepts of digitisation and digitalisation (Gebayew et al., 2018; Maltaverne, 2017; Vial, 2019;
Warner and Wäger, 2019), having initially been defined and used loosely in relation
to such related terms and concepts (Bounfour, 2016; Hebbert, 2017; Unruh and Kiron, 2017).
Vial (2019, p. 118) recently reviewed 282 works to develop a general definition of DT, applicable
at different levels of analysis, as “a process that aims to improve an entity by triggering
significant changes to its properties through combinations of information, computing,
communication, and connectivity technologies”. Reflecting Maltaverne’s (2017) observation that
DT is a holistic approach that affects a business overall, drives innovation and takes advantage
of digital opportunities. This is different to the narrower concepts of digitisation (which refers to
the conversion from analogue to digital data) and digitalisation (which includes the utilisation of
digital technology to drive process improvements) (Maltaverne, 2017). At the organisational level
of analysis, Vial (2019) understands DT as a process where combinations of digital technologies
(information, computing, communication and connectivity technologies) create and reinforce
disruptions in society and industry, triggering the need for strategic responses from
organisations to use digital technologies to alter their value creation paths to remain competitive.
To effectively create these new value creation paths, organisations must implement structural
changes and overcome organisational barriers hindering the change needed to achieve intended
positive outcomes. At the same time, there is a potential for undesirable outcomes of this process.
While DT is now more clearly understood conceptually, managers continue to lack the
knowledge and know-how with regard to the development and implementation of digital
strategies (Bughin and Van Zeebroeck, 2017; Hebbert, 2017; Hess et al., 2016; Römer et al.,
2017). This lack of a digital strategy has been identified as one of the main reasons why only a
small number of organisations have been able to implement DT plans (Bughin and
Van Zeebroeck, 2017; Hess et al., 2016; Hyvönen, 2018; Ismail et al., 2017; Matt et al., 2015).
Views on how this should be addressed differ: Bharadwaj et al. (2013) argue that a fusion of
organisational strategy and information systems strategy is needed, while other scholars
emphasise the need for a dedicated DT strategy (Hess et al., 2016; Matt et al., 2015; McDonald,
2012; Ross et al., 2017; Singh and Hess, 2017). It is agreed that DT requires more than just a
chapter in an overarching corporate strategy. This strategic nature of DT has significant
implications for both managerial action (Loonam et al., 2018; Vial, 2019) and in terms of
(dynamic) capability development (Warner and Wäger, 2019; Vial, 2019).
From a managerial action perspective, both leadership and the roles and skills of
employees change due to DT (Vial, 2019) to reflect the changing nature of managerial action
required from DT. Loonam et al. (2018) argue that these managerial actions can be thought
of in terms of strategy (business model) centric actions seeking to reinvent industries,
substitute products or services and creating new digital businesses; customer centric
actions that emphasise customer experience, customer engagement and online communities,
and blend online and offline customer experiences; organisation centric actions to develop a
digital culture, understand success factors and focus on the organisation not just technology
in delivering change; and technology-centric actions focused on systems, insights from data
analytics and seamless technology integration over platforms. Leading employees through
transformational leadership is the most effective means to stimulate knowledge sharing and
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innovation behaviour (Bednall et al., 2018) required to realise DT. Therefore, leadership in
the digital age is an especially important area of managerial action.
Warner and Wäger (2019) emphasise the need for businesses to develop dynamic capabilities
for DT, and Vial (2019) identifies the contribution of dynamic capabilities and the building of
dynamic capabilities as two key streams of future DT research. Dynamic capabilities allow
organisations to create, extend and modify their resource base to remain competitive
(Helfat et al., 2007), which is essential given the need to integrate digital technologies and
take advantage of these digital technologies to alter value creation paths to remain competitive
(Vial, 2019). A business requires ordinary capabilities to complete tasks and dynamic
capabilities to innovate and adapt in pursuit of value creating endeavours (Teece, 2014); this
applies equally to the DT of businesses. Warner and Wäger (2019, p. 327) argue that DT is
“contingent on the strategic renewal of an organisation’s (1) business model, (2) collaborative
approach, and eventually the (3) culture”. Leadership fostering dynamic capabilities with the
goal to renew products and business models is an important component of the DT processes
seeking to increase the performance of businesses in the digital age (Naldi et al., 2014).
3. Lack of practical guidance for businesses and managers
Unfortunately, research insights and practical guidance for businesses in the field of DT are still
limited (Mette and Gsell, 2017). While commercial providers, including consulting businesses,
have published a series of whitepapers and frameworks, only a handful of DT models and
frameworks have emerged from academic research. Most of them are digital maturity models
which assess the digital readiness and progress of an organisation in the digital age.
Such maturity models are provided by Anderson and William (2018), Berghaus et al. (2017),
De Carolis et al. (2017), Gill and Vanboskirk (2016), Gunsberg et al. (2018), Isaev et al. (2018) and
Schumacher et al. (2016). On the other hand, frameworks with articulated dimensions or action
fields are provided by Kane et al. (2016), Newman (2017) and Westerman et al. (2011). However,
many of these frameworks lack empirical validation (Bumann and Peter, 2019).
In Switzerland, empirical evidence about the relevance of, and opportunities around, DT
was provided by Credit Suisse (2016), Deloitte (2016), FHS (2017), HWZ (2016), KPMG (2016),
PwC (2016), Switzerland Global Enterprise (2017), UBS (2017), Universität St Gallen (2017)
and ZHAW (2016). However, they primarily focus on the digital maturity of organisations
and/or their opportunities and threats, rather than the evaluation of strategic initiatives and
projects that might help to define SAFs in order to guide managers and employees.
Additionally, Becker et al. (2009) confirm that, although digital frameworks and models have
been developed in recent years, the procedures and methods that support the frameworks
and models have been only vaguely documented.
The DT of Swiss society and economic activity arguably represents a large-scale collective
effort to adopt new technologies, transform the way that work is carried out and economic
functions, similarly to preceding collective processes of computerisation, electrification, etc.
This paper adopts the theory of SAFs as an explanation of these transformation processes that
focuses on actors and their social skills for achieving collective action that is required for such a
comprehensive transformation of a socio-technical system (Fligstein and McAdam, 2011, 2012).
4. Digital transformation as collective action
Conceptualising the DT of businesses as a collective endeavour, to integrate digital
technologies and transform the way business is carried out, draws attention to the need for
actors to both directly and indirectly collaborate around shared understandings of DT
internally and externally to their business organisations.
The theory of SAFs has increasingly been adopted to understand business phenomena,
especially where incumbent and challenger firms have sought to exercise power in the
legitimisation of a specific business practice (Wassermann et al., 2015; Laamanen and
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SAFs of DT
Skålén, 2015). Seo (2017) highlighted the opportunity in adopting the theory of SAFs for
studying the DT of businesses. The approach emphasises the presence of identifiable SAFs,
the nature of the actors in the SAF, managers and/or employees of a given business, and the
nature of the SAF itself as captured by shared understandings of the actors of its purpose.
While governance units can be important to understanding an SAF, the focus of this paper
does not address this element of an SAF.
Institutional entrepreneurs are critical actors in an SAF for realising shared
understandings and subsequent legitimation of change processes (Fligstein and McAdam,
2011, 2012). In the process, institutional entrepreneurs successfully established shared
understandings for a given area of activity and collaboration, such as DT. Fligstein and
McAdam (2011, p. 3) define an SAF as:
[…] a meso-level social order where actors (who can be individual or collective) interact with
knowledge of one another under a set of common understandings about the purposes of the field,
the relationships in the field (including who has power and why), and the field’s rules.
The use of social skills by institutional entrepreneurs to shape shared understandings in an
SAF is called “strategic action”(Fligstein and McAdam, 2011, 2012). The consequence of
successful strategic action is a stable social world where actors have a shared
understanding of the nature and purpose of such a given domain of activities. Strategic
action is necessary as both individual and collective actors in an SAF have unique
interpretive frames through which they make sense of what other actors are doing. Critically
collective action by the actors in a field is only possible if there is sufficient consensus about
the nature of any transformation of the field.
SAFs are argued to be thegeneral building blocks of economic and political life, civil society
and the state, but do not have fixed and clearly defined boundaries. The specific characteristics
of an SAF may change according to the situation and issues at stake; they are nested in a
broader environment of multiple SAFs that can be more or less proximate, overlapping and
have different degrees of recurrent interactions (Fligstein and McAdam, 2011, 2012). As a
result, SAFs are mutually dependent and changes in one SAF can affect other SAFs.
Business organisations can also be conceptualised as a set of highly related and nested SAFs
in which managers and employees share understandings about the purpose of their units in the
business and the overall strategy of the business in order to create value. The strength of Vial’s
(2019) definition of DT is that it applies equally to business processes, teams, departments,
strategic business units, the business, its industry and broader economic and social systems.
For the purposes of this paper, the business is conceptualised as a single organisational SAF
(see Figure 1), and key managers and employees are argued to be the institutional entrepreneurs
that are instrumental in resisting, enabling and championing DT in this SAF. Swiss SMEs and
large enterprises are also likely to pursue DT to different degrees of intensity and scope. The
greater the scope, the more likely the business will be embedded in multiple and diverse external
SAFs through their managers and employees; and the greater the intensity, the more likely these
managers and employees will also champion DT through strategic action.
As the broader environment is unlikely to be conducive to supporting managers and
employees in achieving collective action for realising the DT of Swiss businesses across
organisations, the SAF theory suggests that it could reasonably be expected that those
SAFs which are more proximate to businesses should emerge around specific dimensions of
DT. These are conceptualised as SAFs that overlap with the organisation’s specific SAF,
creating an interdependency and potential for recurrent interaction between the actors
engaged in a given area of DT. This could result in divergent and diverse pressures on
individual actors in terms of compliance with internal and external field rules, including for
managers and employees and their efforts to undertake strategic actions related to a given
DT SAF.
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5. Research design
The empirical context for this paper was a DT study of Swiss businesses in 2017 through an
online survey of managers and employees. The subsequent data were then analysed using
both qualitative and quantitative methods.
5.1 Focal context
In 2016, the Swiss Government adopted the “Digital Switzerland”strategy (Der Bundesrat, 2016)
with the shared goal that Switzerland shall benefit from DT and increase its wealth. The
government shall create a framework for businesses around innovation so they can dynamically
develop and grow. A distinction can be made between SMEs and large enterprises, since the
potential and application of DT for these businesses may differ. This supports the collaborative
effort framing of this paper.
According to the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (BFS, 2016) data on corporate structure
(STATENT), Switzerland has 578,537 businesses with 4,367,967 employees. According to
STATENT, 68 per cent of 4.37m Swiss employees work in SMEs and 32 per cent in large
enterprises. SMEs accounted for 99.7 per cent of all businesses in Switzerland (BFS, 2017),
making the Swiss economy highly dependent on these businesses, reflecting the larger EU
economy (European Commission, 2018). Swiss SMEs are defined as organisations with fewer
than 250 employees, independent of their legal form or financial size (KMU Portal, 2017), with a
further distinction made between micro (less than 10 employees), small (10–49 employees) and
medium-sized SMEs (50–249 employees).
5.2 Data and sample
Data for the study were obtained via an online survey during April and May 2017,
distributed via an e-mail invitation to managers and employees of Swiss businesses,
Unorganised Space for Broader
Business Digital Transformation
Internal Governance Unit (GU)
Internal Governance Unit (GU)
Digital
Transformation
SAF 1
Internal Governance Unit (GU)
Digital
Transformation
SAF 2
Digital
Transformation
SAF …
Ext.
GU
Ext.
GU
Ext.
GU
Key:
Individual Actor
Governance Unit
Firm A
SAF
Firm B
SAF
Firm …
SAF
Source: Drawing on Fligstein and McAdam (2011, 2012)
Figure 1.
A strategic action
field (SAF)
conceptualisation of
Swiss business digital
transformation
165
SAFs of DT
reflecting the argument that it is the managers and employees of organisations that
represent their businesses in an SAF. E-mail addresses were identified using a number of
databases, including those of the Swiss SME association KMU Next[1], the Swiss branch of
the global standards association GS1[2] and subscribers of the largest Swiss trade magazine
(Schweizerische Gewerbezeitung[3]). The questionnaire included 56 questions, including
demographic data, definitions of DT and DT projects and tools[4].
The survey resulted in a realised sample of 2,590 participating managers and employees
from 1,854 organisations (including 1,593 participants from 1,143 SMEs). While it is a
convenience sample, the data collected as part of this study closely correspond to the
STATENT data set (BFS, 2016): a comparison of the realised sample and STATENT
(sample/STATENT) shows that micro enterprises (26 per cent/26 per cent) are represented in
equal proportion, small enterprises (20 per cent/22 per cent) are slightly under-represented in the
realised sample, while medium enterprises (16 per cent/20 per cent) are under-represented by
four percentage points and large enterprises (38 per cent/32 per cent) are over-represented by six
percentage points. The sample is, therefore, closely aligned to the STATENT data set of the
Swiss Federal Statistical Office (BFS, 2016).
5.3 Analytical approach
Theanalysisinthispaperfocusesonmanagers and employees of Swiss businesses’
understandings of DT in keeping with the argument that SAFs are socially constructed (Fligstein
and McAdam, 2011, 2012), seeking to understand the degree to which Swiss SMEs’and large
enterprises’managers and employees have a shared understanding of DT. Due to the nature of
the data collected, this paper proceeds by focusing on the degree to which there is evidence for a
set of common understandings about the nature of DT, suggesting nested, overlapping and
related SAFs and the degree to which the actors that share these understandings are similar or
different. The data do not allow the analysis of the preceding exercising of social skills by
institutional entrepreneurs in the emergence of these shared understandings.
The analysis was completed in two steps: first, an inductive thematic analysis of the written
descriptions of DT by survey respondents was completed, followed by a categorisation of
respondents into 1 of 127 possible combinations of the seven DT dimensions identified in the
first step. It is these 127 DT dimension combinations that represent distinct SAFs in this paper.
Finally, the frequency of the SAFs is analysed independently and in relation to firm size.
Inductive coding procedure. The 2,590 survey participants provided 4,286 descriptions of DT
and associated projects and activities. This data set was analysed in a three-step process to
inductively identify seven highly shared dimensions of DT. First, the code landscape technique
(Saldaña, 2016) was used to establish the most frequent words or phrases in the descriptions of
DT, establishing the most important themes (Krippendorf, 1980). In order to improve the analysis,
“filler”words and phrases were removed. This allowed an initial eight codes (Saldaña, 2016) for
themaindimensionsofDTtobeidentified(seeTableI).Thisanalysiscanbecarriedoutusing
qualitative data analysis software, including Atlas.ti (2019), and a content analysis tool, WordStat
(Provalis Research, 2019). In a second step, each respondents’understanding of DT was coded
(Saldaña, 2016) for the presence of each of the initial eight DT dimensions. This task was
completed manually in Excel, with the full description included in Column 1 and a column for
each of the eight codes representing the dimensions of DT, coded as a binary variable (0/1). The
coding process revealed that two dimensions (digital leadership and culture and employees and
modes of working) were highly aligned in content and should be recoded (Saldaña, 2016) under
digital leadership and culture (see Table I). This method of analysis represented a quantification
of the qualitative data (Hannah and Lautsch, 2011), contributing to the strengthening of the
analysis (Sutton, 1997), allowing to more clearly identify and establish the relevant significance of
individual SAFs (see Table II) and the nested nature of the SAFs (see Figure 2).
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In the third and final step, the complete coding of the responses was systematically
reviewed by the research team, adding further investigator triangulation (Archibald, 2016)
to strengthen the credibility of the analysis. This contributed to a refinement of the code
labels used in the subsequent SAF analysis (see Table I, Step 3), allowing them to more
closely reflect the respondents’understandings.
Categorisation analysis. The second analytical phase used the statistical analysis
software (SPSS, 2019) to analyse the frequency with which different combinations of the
seven focal DT dimensions were identified in the respondents’description of DT; each
combination representing the SAF membership for a respondent.
In order to complete this analysis, a new variable needed to be created by recoding the
separate binary variables for each DT dimension into a single new variable, representing
one of the 127 possible unique combinations of the seven codes for the DT dimensions. It is
these combinations that represent unique SAFs and each of the 127 values was labelled
according to the DT dimensions an SAF included, e.g. SAF 1, SAF 2, …, SAF 1 and 2, …,
SAF 1,3,5, …, etc. However, only 97 of the possible 127 SAFs were present in the data,
meaning that 30 of the possible SAFs were not identified in the respondent descriptions of
DT. This also means that every SAF with more than one dimension of DT is also a
combination (overlap or nesting) of one of the seven primary SAFs defined by a single DT
dimension, enabling the SAF constellation in Figure 2 to be created.
In the final step, the new SAF variable was combined with the variable firm size (large,
medium, small and micro) to generate a ranked cross tabulation in SPSS. This analysis
allowed the frequency of the seven primary SAFs (single DT dimension) and their most
important overlaps (multidimensional SAFs) to be identified. The results in Figure 2 and
Table II represent 80 per cent of respondents’descriptions of DT and the 19 most frequent
DT SAFs. Finally, the inclusion of the firm sizes allowed the degree of heterogeneity of the
SAF actors to be understood (see Table II). The analysis of the remaining 20 per cent of
respondents and 78 SAFs was excluded from this paper as the additional explanatory value
is limited and would require a substantially larger analysis.
Step 1: initial inductive primary
code generation
Step 2: manual coding of digital
transformation desc.
Step 3: final coding for SAF
analysis
Codes
FREQ
(%) Codes
FREQ
(%) Codes
FREQ
(%)
1. Customer Centricity –1. Customer Centricity 10.2 1. Customer Centricity 10.86
2. Strategies and
Business Models
–2. Digital Enterprise 15.6 2. Digital Business
Development
16.65
3a. Digital Leadership
and Culture
–3. Digital Leadership
and Culture
8.6 3. Digital Leadership
and Culture
9.09
3b. Employees and
Modes of Working
–– –– –
4. Process Automation –4. Process Automation 25.4 4. Process Engineering 26.93
5. Digital Marketing –5. Digital Marketing 6.4 5. Digital Marketing 6.81
6. IT, Industry 4.0 and
internet of Things
–6. IT, Industry 4.0 and Internet
of Things
19.6 6. New Technologies 20.82
7. Smart Data –7. Smart Data 8.3 7. Cloud and Data 8.84
––8. Other / Not Possible to Code 5.8 ––
Total na Total instances coded: 4’275 100 Total instances coded:
4’025
100
Note: The frequencies in this table are for all instances where a code was applied to a respondents’
understanding of digital transformation, individually and with other codes, and are comparable to the sum for
each SAF across all combinations of SAFs in Table II and Figure 2
Table I.
Overview of codebook
development
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SAFs of DT
Firm size
Strategic action field combinations Micro Small Medium Large Total
Hirschman–Herfindahl index SAFs for 80% of responses 0.1420 0.1084 0.0884 0.0700 0.0888
Hirschman–Herfindahl index SAFs for 91% of responses 0.1198 0.1094 0.0950 0.0736 0.0926
SAF 4: Process Engineering
Number of respondents 156 120 76 164 516
% within SAF coding 30.2 23.3 14.7 31.8 100.0
% within firm size categories 25.8 24.9 19.4 17.2 21.2
% of all responses 6.4 4.9 3.1 6.8 21.2
SAF 6: New Technologies
Number of respondents 85 51 49 88 273
% within SAF coding 31.1 18.7 17.9 32.2 100.0
% within firm size categories 14.1 10.6 12.5 9.2 11.2
% of all responses 3.5 2.1 2.0 3.6 11.2
SAF 2: Digital Business Development
Number of respondents 46 37 47 86 216
% within SAF coding 21.3 17.1 21.8 39.8 100.0
% within firm size categories 7.6 7.7 12.0 9.0 8.9
% of all responses 1.9 1.5 1.9 3.5 8.9
SAFs 4 and 6: Process Engineering and New Technologies
Number of respondents 32 23 19 41 115
% within SAF coding 27.8 20.0 16.5 35.7 100.0
% within firm size categories 5.3 4.8 4.9 4.3 4.7
% of all responses 1.3 0.9 0.8 1.7 4.7
SAFs 2 and 6: Digital Business Development and New Technologies
Number of respondents 21 18 12 46 97
% within SAF coding 21.6 18.6 12.4 47.4 100.0
% within firm size categories 3.5 3.7 3.1 4.8 4.0
% of all responses 0.9 0.7 0.5 1.9 4.0
SAF 3: Digital Leadership and Culture
Number of respondents 27 17 16 26 86
% within SAF coding 31.4 19.8 18.6 30.2 100.0
% within firm size categories 4.5 3.5 4.1 2.7 3.5
% of all responses 1.1 0.7 0.7 1.1 3.5
SAF 7: Cloud and Data
Number of respondents 17 14 12 28 71
% within SAF coding 23.9 19.7 16.9 39.4 100.0
% within firm size categories 2.8 2.9 3.1 2.9 2.9
% of all responses 0.7 0.6 0.5 1.2 2.9
SAFs 1 and 4: Customer Centricity and Process Engineering
Number of respondents 9 8 12 41 70
% within SAF coding 12.9 11.4 17.1 58.6 100.0
% within firm size categories 1.5 1.7 3.1 4.3 2.9
% of all responses 0.4 0.3 0.5 1.7 2.9
SAF 5: Digital Marketing
Number of respondents 24 15 3 16 58
% within SAF coding 41.4 25.9 5.2 27.6 100.0
% within firm size categories 4.0 3.1 0.8 1.7 2.4
% of all responses 1.0 0.6 0.1 0.7 2.4
SAFs 4 and 7: Process Engineering and Cloud and Data
Number of respondents 10 12 5 28 55
(continued )
Table II.
Ranked cross
tabulation of strategic
action field
combinations
and firm size
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Firm size
Strategic action field combinations Micro Small Medium Large Total
% within SAF coding 18.2 21.8 9.1 50.9 100.0
% within firm size categories 1.7 2.5 1.3 2.9 2.3
% of all responses 0.4 0.5 0.2 1.2 2.3
SAFs 2 and 4: Digital Business Development and Process Engineering
Number of respondents 11 10 3 29 53
% within SAF coding 20.8 18.9 5.7 54.7 100.0
% within firm size categories 1.8 2.1 0.8 3.0 2.2
% of all responses 0.5 0.4 0.1 1.2 2.2
SAFs 1 and 2: Customer Centricity and Digital Business Development
Number of respondents 9 9 6 28 52
% within SAF coding 17.3 17.3 11.5 53.8 100.0
% within firm size categories 1.5 1.9 1.5 2.9 2.1
% of all responses 0.4 0.4 0.2 1.2 2.1
SAFs 3 and 6: Digital Leadership and Culture and New Technologies
Number of respondents 13 10 8 21 52
% within SAF coding 25.0 19.2 15.4 40.4 100.0
% within firm size categories 2.2 2.1 2.0 2.2 2.1
% of all responses 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.9 2.1
SAF 1: Customer Centricity
Number of respondents 12 6 4 24 46
% within SAF coding 26.1 13.0 8.7 52.2 100.0
% within firm size categories 2.0 1.2 1.0 2.5 1.9
% of all responses 0.5 0.2 0.2 1.0 1.9
SAFs 1 and 6: Customer Centricity and New Technologies
Number of respondents 11 8 1 24 44
% within SAF coding 25.0 18.2 2.3 54.5 100.0
% within firm size categories 1.8 1.7 0.3 2.5 1.8
% of all responses 0.5 0.3 0.0 1.0 1.8
SAFs 3 and 4: Digital Leadership and Culture and Process Engineering
Number of respondents 10 11 13 8 42
% within SAF coding 23.8 26.2 31.0 19.0 100.0
% within firm size categories 1.7 2.3 3.3 0.8 1.7
% of all responses 0.4 0.5 0.5 0.3 1.7
SAFs 4 and 5: Process Engineering and Digital Marketing
Number of respondents 14 8 5 13 40
% within SAF coding 35.0 20.0 12.5 32.5 100.0
% within firm size categories 2.3 1.7 1.3 1.4 1.6
% of all responses 0.6 0.3 0.2 0.5 1.6
SAFs 6 and 7: New Technologies and Cloud and Data
Number of respondents 10 7 4 12 34
% within SAF coding 30.3 21.2 12.1 36.4 100.0
% within firm size categories 1.7 1.5 1.0 1.3 1.4
% of all responses 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.5 1.4
SAFs 2 and 3: Digital Business Development, and Digital Leadership and Culture
Number of respondents 4 5 6 18 33
% within SAF coding 12.1 15.2 18.2 54.5 100.0
% within firm size categories 0.7 1.0 1.5 1.9 1.4
% of all responses 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.7 1.4
Notes: Includes 80 per cent of respondents and the 19 most frequent SAF combinations; other SAF
combinations are not included due to significantly lower relevance. This table represents the SAFs included
in Figure 2 Table II.
169
SAFs of DT
0
100
200
300
400
500
SAF 4 Process Engineering
SAF 6 New Technologies
SAF 2 Digital Business Development
SAFs 4 & 6
SAFs 2 & 6
SAF 3 Digital Leadership and Culture
SAF 7 Cloud and Data
SAFs 1 & 4
SAF 5 Digital Marketing
SAFs 4 & 7
SAFs 2 & 4
SAFs 1 & 2
SAFs 3 & 6
SAF 1 Customer Centricity
SAFs 1 & 6
SAFs 3 & 4
SAFs 4 & 5
SAFs 2 & 3
SAFs 6 & 7
SAFs 5 & 6
SAFs 1, 2 & 4
SAF 2 & 7
SAFs 2 & 5
SAFs 4, 6 & 7
SAFs 1, 4 & 6
SAFs 1 & 5
SAFs 1, 2 & 6
SAFs 1 & 7
SAFs 3, 4 & 7
SAFs 2, 3 & 6
SAFs 2, 6 & 7
SAFs 3 & 7
SAFs 1, 4 & 5
SAFs 3, 4 & 6
SAFs 4, 5 & 6
SAFs 5 & 7
SAFs 1, 2 & 5
SAFs 1, 3 & 4
SAFs 2, 4 & 6
SAFs 2, 4 & 7
SAFs, 1, 2 & 3
SAFs 1, 3 & 6
SAFs 1, 4 & 7
SAFs 2, 3 & 4
SAFs 2, 5 & 6
SAFs 1, 2, 3 & 6
SAFs 1 & 3
SAFs 3, 6 & 7
SAFs 1, 2 & 7
SAFs 1, 6 & 7
SAFs 5, 6 & 7
SAFs 1, 3 & 7
SAFs 3 & 5
SAFs 1, 5 & 6
SAFs 2, 3 & 7
SAFs 1, 5 & 7
SAFs 2, 4 & 5
SAFs 3, 5 & 6
SAFs 4, 5 & 7
SAFs 1, 2, 3 & 5
SAFs 1, 2, 4 & 5
SAFs 1, 2, 4 & 6
SAFs 1, 2, 4 & 7
SAFs 1, 2, 6 & 7
SAFs 1, 3, 4 & 7
SAFs 1, 4, 5 & 6
SAFs 1, 4, 6 & 7
SAFs 2, 3, 4 & 6
SAFs 2, 5, 6 & 7
SAFs 3, 4, 6 & 7
SAFs 4, 5, 6 & 7
SAFs 3, 4 & 5
SAFs 3, 5 & 7
SAFs 1, 2, 5 & 6
SAFs 1, 3, 4 & 6
SAFs 1, 3, 6 & 7
SAFs 3, 5, 6 & 7
SAFs 1, 3 & 5
SAFs 1, 2, 3 & 4
SAFs 1, 2, 3 & 7
SAFs 1, 2, 5 & 7
SAFs 1, 3, 4 & 5
SAFs 1, 3, 5 & 6
SAFs 1, 4, 5 & 7
SAFs 1, 5, 6 & 7
SAFs 2, 3, 4 & 7
SAFs 2, 3, 5 & 6
SAFs 2, 3, 5 & 7
SAFs 2, 3, 6 & 7
SAFs 2, 4, 5 & 7
SAFs 3, 4, 5 & 7
SAFs 1, 2, 3, 5 & 7
SAFs 1, 2, 3, 6 & 7
SAFs 1, 2, 4, 6 & 7
SAFs 1, 2, 5, 6 & 7
SAFs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6
SAFs 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 & 7
Micro Firm
Small Firm
Medium Firm
Large Firm
80% of Respondents 91% of Respondents
50% of Respondents
Strategic Action Field Constellation
(80% of Respondents, ranked by unique SAF membership)
SAF 1: Customer Centricity
SAF 7
2.9%
C
D
SAF
4&6
4.7%
SAF
2&6
4.0%
SAF 4
21.2%
SAF 6
11.2%
SAF 3
3.5%
SAF 5
2.4%
Core SAF
Overlaps of Core SAFs
Overlaps of Core
SAFs with Other SAFs
SAF 1
1.9%
SAF 2
8.9%
SAF 4&2
2.2%
A
H
E
F
G
I
A SAF 5&4: 1.6%
B SAF 7&6: 1.4%
C SAF 7&4: 2.3%
D SAF 3&4: 1.7%
E SAF 3&6: 2.1%
F SAF 3&2: 1.4%
G SAF 1&2: 2.1%
H SAF 1&4: 2.9%
I SAF 1&6: 1.8%
B
SAF 2: Digital Business Development
SAF 3: Digital Leadership and Culture
SAF 4: Process Engineering
SAF 5: Digital Marketing
SAF 6: New Technologies
SAF 7: Cloud and Data
Figure 2.
Primary strategic
action field (SAF)
constellation
and membership by
firm size
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13,1
6. The action fields of digital transformation
There are three elements to the findings and analysis presented here, identified from the
shared understandings of respondent managers and employees at Swiss businesses:
the identification and description of the SAFs of DT; the nature (in terms of firms size) of the
actors (multiply) embedded in diverse SAFs; and the nature of the SAFs in terms of the
degree to which they are primarily externally or internally focused from the perspective of
the business organisation.
6.1 Seven primary strategic action fields for digital transformation of Swiss businesses
This paper identifies seven primary DT SAFs, partially overlapping and related, based on
the shared understandings of Swiss managers and employees at both SMEs and large
enterprises (see Figure 2). These are all featured by one of the seven dimensions of DT being
central to how they are, respectively, understood.
The first action field, Customer Centricity (SAF 1), is featured by a shared understanding
of DT as improving the experience of customers through a constant customer orientation, a
positive customer experience as well as personalised products and services, defined as an
external perspective. Swiss organisations in this SAF can be expected to invest into the
analysis of customer data and optimise their offerings accordingly. Great importance is also
placed towards the communication and interaction with customers.
The second action field, Digital Business Development (SAF 2), is concerned with new
business models as part of DT in light of emerging technologies, digital platforms and to
increase customer value. It has both internal and external dimensions. The adoption of a clear
digital strategy is an integral part of the shared understandings. In addition to the benefits of
new technologies, the development of innovative business ideas and a new market positioning
through the aid of digital platforms are high priorities in Swiss organisations. Survey
participants are aware that the digital orientation of a business model must be considered
comprehensively in order to exploit the full potential of DT.
The third action field, Digital Leadership and Culture (SAF 3), an internal perspective,
emphasises the adaptation of contemporary management principles, namely change
management and the implementation of new leadership methods, the digital and mobile
workplace and new organisational forms to collaborate. The project descriptions contain
statements about the need for reactive (as a starting point from digital disruptions) vs
proactive (as a digital leader) management efforts for change. It is worthwhile noting that
employees expect organisations to change and to introduce new forms of digital work, but
they themselves must also be prepared for new technologies and new working arrangements.
The fourth action field, Process Engineering (SAF 4), also an internal perspective, focuses
on process management, (re)engineering and workflow improvements, resulting in automation
and the digitisation of processes. As a result, businesses should be both more effective and
efficient. Processes should become more standardised and faster, and sub-processes/tasks
shall be connected without media breaks in order, among other reasons, to create a paperless
office and optimise the value chain. The digital, paperless office will enable employees to
collaborate independent of time and place, to access data and information, and the
organisation to create more transparency. In conjunction with agile methods (survey
participants regard agility as a key benefit of process engineering), this should increase
productivity and innovation.
The fifth action field, Digital Marketing (SAF 5), links internal and external perspectives in
a feedback loop, emphasising the provision of an integrated marketing approach where digital
and analogue channels are coordinated. The availability and analysis of customer, product
and sales data and the measurability of marketing and sales activities through digital
platforms, tools and channels create a system in which market activities can be continuously
monitored and optimised. Digital marketing (which also covers sales and customer service)
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SAFs of DT
includes aspects such as (mobile) online platforms, e-commerce, communication channels (e.g.
social media, online communities and search engine marketing), marketing automation and
video marketing.
The sixth action field, New Technologies (SAF 6), with internal and external dimensions,
has a shared understanding around new technologies that help to create opportunities
internally ( for instance, for process improvements through robotics and apps) and
externally ( for instance, for value creation and new business opportunities through Internet
of Things applications). The relevance of technologies differs by industry and is dependent
on employees to realise their potential. The main focus is enterprise resource planning
solutions for improving collaboration and communication with teams and customers. There
is an awareness that the introduction of new technologies alone is not enough, but that
employees must be introduced to the new solutions so that the potential of new technologies
can be exploited successfully and sustainably.
Finally, the seventh action field is Cloud and Data (SAF 7), with internal and external
elements, which emphasises smart data and new insights based on modern IT infrastructure.
At its core is the integrated and connected database (mainly enabled through the cloud), which
uses analytics to cultivate new knowledge in order to make strategic decisions and support
operations. Survey respondents believe that the development of new business models,
optimised processes as well as digital marketing require smart data and new insights. At the
same time, the need for a flexible technology infrastructure that is accessible from anywhere is
high: investments in the cloud and web-based solutions to leverage data are high on the
priority list of organisations. Therefore, this SAF is highly related to a number of the other
primary SAFs.
These seven SAFs are defined by a single DT dimension, with a further 90 SAFs being
identified were between two and six of the primary SAFs overlap, each with unique
businesses’managers or employees (the respondents) as actors. The identified 97 SAFs can
be analysed in three constellations: a core constellation of five SAFs representing 50 per cent
of respondents, an extended primary SAF constellation including 80 per cent of
respondents, and finally a large number of overlapping SAFs with very small numbers of
member businesses (see Figure 2).
6.2 Core strategic action field constellation
SAFs Process Engineering (SAF 4), New Technologies (SAF 6) and Digital Business
Development (SAF 2) and the SAFs combining Process Engineering and New Technologies
(SAF 4 and 6) and Digital Business Development and New Technologies (SAF 2 and 6)
represent the shared understandings of DT of 50 per cent of respondents in this study.
Together with the SAFs Digital Business Development and Process Engineering (SAF 2 and
4), 52.2 per cent of respondents share an understanding of DT that includes at least one of
these three DT dimensions. This excludes the overlapping of these five core SAFs with the
remaining four SAFs with a single DT dimension, as discussed below in the broader SAF
constellation. Most respondents (21.2 per cent) share an understanding of DT as primarily
an issue of Process Engineering, which has an internal focus. The second most shared
understanding of DT is that it is about New Technologies (11.2 per cent of respondents), and
the third that it is about Digital Business Development (8.9 per cent of respondents), both of
which have internal and external elements. These three SAFs overlap due to respondents
(actors) that link the SAFs, or are members of more than one SAF. The internally oriented
Process Engineering (SAF 4) is thus, likely, linked to the internal dimensions of New
Technologies (SAF 6) and Digital Business Development (SAF 2) by respondents, while
there are elements of the external foci of New Technologies (SAF 6) and Digital Business
Development (SAF 2) that would seem to be linked in the perception of some respondents.
While some organisations focus on specific SAFs as part of their DT (e.g. most dominantly
172
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13,1
Process Engineering and New Technologies), others combine relevant SAFs which point to
a more holistic approach, leveraging the benefits of individual SAFs especially in
combination with Digital Business Development. This provides evidence that organisations
embrace DT with both internal and external viewpoints, connecting market opportunities
and threats with optimised internal, IT-driven processes.
Interestingly, across SAF 4 (Process Engineering) and SAF 6 (New Technologies) and
their overlap, the equally most frequent business types are micro and large enterprises,
while large enterprises are the dominant business type in SAF 2 (Digital Business
Development) and its overlap with SAF 6 (New Technologies). Finally, SAF 2 and 4 (Digital
Business Development and Process Engineering) have large enterprises as the majority of
actors that share this understanding of combination of DT dimensions (see Table II). This
suggests that large businesses are more likely to have managers or employees that have an
understanding of DT as digital business development, while the actors in SAFs 4 (Process
Engineering) and SAF 6 (New Technologies) would seem to represent the full range of
businesses in terms of size.
6.3 Broader primary strategic action field constellation
DT as Digital Marketing (SAF 5) is an understanding shared by 2.4 per cent of
respondents, a further 1.6 per cent of respondents link Digital Marketing and Process
Engineering in their shared understandings. This association may suggest that some
respondents expect Process Engineering to be needed for realising the external elements
of Digital Marketing, but not all. Interestingly, while micro and small businesses
predominantly share an understanding of only Digital Marketing (SAF 5), the link to
Process Engineering (SAF 4) is equally shared by micro and large businesses (35 per cent/
32.5 per cent). An understanding of DT as Cloud and Data (SAF 7) is shared by 2.9 per cent
of respondents, while 1.4 per cent additionally link this understanding to the New
Technologies (SAF 6), and 2.3 per cent create a link to Process Engineering (SAF 4). Given
the nature of cloud and data solutions, the link between SAF 6 (New Technologies) and
SAF 7 (Cloud and Data) is understandable, while internal understandings are likely to
explain the overlap of SAF 4 (Process Engineering) and SAF 7 (Cloud and Data).
Respondents from large enterprises are more likely to only identify Cloud and Data, or
additionally create the link to Process Engineering. Linking Cloud and Data with New
Technologies can be seen equally for both micro and large enterprises. Linking Digital
Marketing and Process Engineering provides evidence for strategies optimising market
and customer interactions through process optimisation and automation, while linking
New Technologies with Cloud and Data provided evidence for the need of flexible, data-
driven IT infrastructure platforms in order to leverage investments into New
Technologies benefiting both internal processes and customers.
The SAFs Customer Centricity (SAF 1; externally focused) and Digital Leadership and
Culture (SAF 3; internally focused) overlap with all three main SAFs, but not each other. Both
these SAFs and their overlaps represent 8.7 per cent of respondents, with at least half of these
respondents also identifying one of the three primary SAFs 4, 6 and 2. Digital Leadership and
Culture (3.5 per cent) is identified independently more than Customer Centricity (1.9 per cent).
Respondents most frequently understand Digital Leadership and Culture (SAF 3) and
Customer Centricity (SAF 1) as linked to Process Engineering (SAF 3: 1.7 per cent/SAF
1: 2.9 per cent), Digital Business Development (1.4 per cent/2.1 per cent) and New Technologies
(2.1 per cent/1.8 per cent). In terms of internal and external orientations of the SAFs and their
overlaps, the only inconsistency would seem to be with the overlap of SAF 4 and SAF 1, but it
suggests that Customer Centricity is dependent in the perception of some respondents on a
degree of Process Engineering, if the external focus of the former is to be realised. There is
evidence that Customer Centricity, and Leadership and Culture are important enablers to
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SAFs of DT
succeed with investments into Process Engineering, New Technologies and Digital Business
Development. However, following the literature, these two SAFs should show a stronger link
in business practice than what the analysis has revealed.
Micro and large enterprises constitute 61.6 per cent of the membership of SAF 3
independently. Interestingly, 81 per cent of respondents linking digital leadership and
culture (SAF 3) to Process Engineering (SAF 4) are from SMEs. Respondents (40.4 per cent)
linking Digital Leadership and Culture (SAF 3) and New Technologies (SAF 6) are more
likely to be from large enterprises, while large enterprises (54.5 per cent) are also more likely
to share an understanding of a link between Digital Leadership and Culture (SAF 3) and
Digital Business Development (SAF 2).
Finally, the respondents sharing an understanding of DT only in terms of Customer
Centricity (SAF 1) were more likely to be from large (52.2 per cent) or micro (26.1 per cent)
enterprises. Large enterprises were more likely to link Customer Centricity to Process
Engineering (SAF 4: 58.6 per cent), Digital Business Development (SAF 2: 53.8 per cent) and
New Technologies (SAF 6: 54.5 per cent). Respondents from micro enterprises (25.0 per cent)
also seem to link Customer Centricity (SAF 1) and New Technologies (SAF 6).
6.4 Other strategic action field relationships
The remaining respondents (20 per cent) hold an understanding of DT that predominantly
combined the membership of SAFs with three or more DT dimensions. Due to the lower
frequency of reporting, the remainder of this paper does not address the remaining 78 SAFs.
Instead, the discussion focused on the observed business types associated with the seven
primary SAFs and their overlaps as depicted in Figure 2. This represents 19 SAFs from the
shared understandings of DT for 80 per cent of respondents in this study.
7. Discussion
SAFs play an important role in building a common understanding and enabling
collaboration within the context of that shared view (Fligstein and McAdam, 2011, 2012).
For business managers and employees, such a consensus is important to align an
organisation’s effort to transform a business in the digital age with the broader DT of the
economy. The findings for this paper suggest that there are seven highly related SAFs for
the DT in Swiss businesses (see Figure 3), which represent shared understandings of the DT
process and align with extant literature on DT (Vial, 2019).
STRATEGIC ACTION FIELDS
OF DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION
Customer Centricity
A constant customer focus
Digital Business Development
New strategies and
business models
Digital Leadership and Culture
New ways to lead organisa-
tions and teams
Process Engineering
Optimised workflows
and automation
Digital Marketing
New platforms, tools
and channels
New Technologies
Apps and the Internet
of Things
21.2%
11.2%
8.9%
4.7%
4.0%
3.5%
2.9%
2.9%
2.4%
Cloud and Data
Modern IT infrastructure and new
business insights
2.3%
1.9%
2.9%
Primary/single
DT SAF T%
Combination
DT SAF T%
2.2%
2.1%
2.1%
1.8%
1.7%
1.6%
1.4%
5.7%
4.4%9.6%
9.0%
5.6%
7.8%
5.9%
1.4%
Figure 3.
Strategic action
fields of digital
transformation
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13,1
The differences in actors, large enterprises and SMEs, across fields and field overlaps,
reflect the multiple embeddedness of businesses across SAFs. It, however, remains
unclear who the institutional entrepreneurs are in the Swiss DT processes; using
their social skills to undertake strategic action to achieve shared understandings on
the purpose of a given SAF. Indeed, it has not been addressed how these shared
understandings have been achieved.
The possibility for a business to be multiply embedded across diverse SAFs (Fligstein
and McAdam, 2011, 2012) creates the potential for a business to digitally transform in
different ways and at different speeds. Figure 2 suggests the main field overlaps leading to
such multiple embeddedness, but interestingly, the largest number of respondents seems to
participate in a single SAF and its understanding of the DT of their firm and the Swiss
economy. This raises the need to better understand how managers and employees come to
internalise a given understanding of DT and membership of a given SAF as a result. The
degree to which overlaps in the seven SAF are being driven by either internal and/or
external foci in the understandings of managers and employees has been suggested as a
possible explanation for why the seven fields overlap.
This research has also shown that single understandings and a diverse range of
combinations of SAF overlaps do exist, with no dominant confirmed understanding of DT.
In addition, while a number of identified similarities in various SAF combinations exist
between micro and large enterprises, there is no clear explanation for the observed
membership of firms of different sizes across SAFs.
While the primary SAFs Process Engineering, New Technologies and Digital Business
Development confirm the shared view about DT among scholars in most aspects
(e.g. Loonam et al., 2018; Vial, 2019; Warner and Wäger, 2019), the missing overlap between
SAFs Customer Centricity as well as Leadership and Culture (and to other SAF, e.g. Digital
Business Development) identifies a gap between the elaborated important link between
these SAFs (e.g. Bednall et al., 2018; Loonam et al., 2018; Naldi et al., 2014; Vera and Crossan,
2004) and business practice in Switzerland among the surveyed participants.
This highlights the importance for further research, as well as the potential and need for
educational programmes, and generic or industry best practice frameworks for managers
and employees. The data from Swiss businesses allowed a unique view into the setup and
configuration of SAFs.
8. Conclusion and implications
The identification of these SAFs provides an opportunity for organisations to master the
various dimensions and topics associated with DT. A distinction can be made between two
perspectives, external and internal. The external perspective covers the market and
organisational value creation. This includes the action fields of customer centricity, the
utilisation of data and the cloud, and identification and implementation of new technologies,
linked to digital business development. The internal perspective also includes the use of new
technologies, data and the cloud, but emphasises digital leadership and process engineering.
Finally, the action field of digital marketing provides the bridge between organisational
value creation and the market, providing a feedback loop into the organisation.
With regard to future research areas, further investigations are necessary in order to
identify and describe a possible connection between the relevance of projects surrounding
DT, innovation capabilities and the financial success of organisations, in addition to those
mentioned beforehand. Finally, further research shall determine to what degree the
identified action fields are applied in a holistic strategic initiative as opposed to individual,
stand-alone activities in businesses. Overall, strategy and DT go hand-in-hand, as many
of the topics covered by DT nowadays seem to be those of modern management topics
and strategy.
175
SAFs of DT
Notes
1. www.kmunext.ch
2. www.gs1.ch
3. www.gewerbezeitung.ch
4. Note: the data analysed in this paper have also been investigated in a research report issued by the
FHNW School of Business (Peter, 2017).
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Corresponding author
Marc K. Peter can be contacted at: marc.peter@fhnw.ch
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