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Crisis-Driven Digital Transformation: Examining the Online University Triggered by COVID-19
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has major negative consequences for health and the economy. At the same time, the crisis paves the way for innovation. In the university sector, societal measures implemented to curb the spread of COVID-19 have made all teaching activities 100% digital, in effect creating the online university overnight. In this chapter, we present an empirical account of this extreme situation. Based on an explorative case study of how it was possible for the social science faculty at a Danish university to undergo accelerated digital transformation, we identify three salient themes that capture the immediate organizationals response: (1) leveraging existing resources, (2) intensified communication, and (3) re-organizing core activities. We contribute with preliminary empirical insights into the practicalities of accelerating digital transformation, especially the importance of mobilizing the organization’s existing resources and knowledge as well as the organizational actors’ helpfulness and willingness to share, learn, innovate, and self-organize. Theoretically, we propose and substantiate the concept of accelerated digital transformation and present a model that summarizes the identified themes.
... The first perspective emphasizes the strategies that organizations pursue as they react purposefully by exploring opportunities afforded by digital technologies (Vial, 2019), or as they react to technology as a source of digital threat (Ravasi & Schultz, 2006). Research has demonstrated the different ways that environmental change drives organizations to embark on digital transformation (Haslam et al., 2021;Sebastian et al., 2017;Wessel et al., 2021). This literature emphasizes how top management strategizes digital transformation (Bharadwaj et al., 2013;Hess et al., 2016;Singh & Hess, 2017;Weill & Woerner, 2013) by addressing complexities and uncertainties through careful planning at the different stages of transformation (Valdez-de-Leon, 2016). ...
Digital business transformation (DBT) is a significant trend in all industries, and affects all businesses, large and small. Companies that resist digitalisation and systemic transformation risk losing market share or even completely going out of business. Effective communication, both internal and external, and collaboration are vital for transformation success. This paper investigates executives’ perceptions of the disruptions leading to the need for DBT, whether such a transformation is considered a challenge or even a crisis by company executives, and the communication strategies that are implemented for DBT in various pipe extrusion companies in Germany. This research adopts a qualitative approach and semi-structured interviews were used in our research to gather data from experts in the companies. The research found that most companies in the pipe extrusion industry in Germany acknowledge and can articulate disruptions, both current and future. However, they but do not regard digital transformation of their business as a crisis and most companies have not prepared strategies for effectively communicating their response to digital transformation challenges.
The COVID-19 pandemic has offered an extraordinary opportunity to improve educational provision and consider alternatives to traditional teaching and learning. It has stimulated wide engagement in improving and evaluating educational practices. Bahrain Polytechnic moved to remote delivery during the pandemic, during which it also embraced piloting the quality matters (QM) standards of online teaching to ensure the suitability and quality of blended learning course content, assessment, and consequently delivery. The English team developed courses over three semesters to ensure robust online content was checked against the eight QM standards. The teaching and learning materials were redesigned to conform to the new online/blended delivery mode, including creating discipline-specific, contextualized content and assessments. The findings showcase staff and students' perceptions, which were gathered throughout the process to facilitate the application of best practices.
The digital transformation of work has long since arrived in our everyday lives. The crisis-driven digital transformation through COVID-19 undoubtedly accelerated many things and acted as a burning glass for processes that had not yet been digitally transformed. This dissertation is dedicated to the fundamental digital transformation of work and, with a total of fifteen research studies, to the framework of the crisis-driven digital transformation of work, among others. With reference to the framework concepts of "Transformation Governance", "Digital Leadership" and "Future Technology Management", approaches are identified on how to close the theoretical and practical gap regarding the digital transformation of work.
Organizational, individual, and technical approaches are identified as prerequisites for the successful digital transformation of work. The findings will enable future research to investigate current and emerging phenomena, such as issues of collaboration in virtual realities and fostering cohesion in purely virtual teams. Methodologically, established approaches such as interviews, case studies, surveys, experimental and mixed methods approaches are combined. Therefore, the dissertation can provide a starting point for discussion, but also for further research in the field of business informatics and in other disciplines. Furthermore, this work provides valuable insights and recommendations for action for experts, especially in SMEs, who want to face the digital transformation.
Kovid-19 aşıları hakkında komplo teorilerinin sosyal ağlarda dolaşıma girdiği bilinmektedir. Bu çalışmada kovid-19 bağlamında aşı karşıtı komplo teorilerini içeren tweetler analiz edilmiş ve tweetlerin biçimsel özellikleri ile yayılım düzeyleri arasındaki ilişki sorgulanmıştır. #SalgınYalanAşıOlmuyorum hashtaginden toplanan 1113 tweetin biçimsel özellikleri nicel içerik analizi ile çözümlenmiş ve hipotezleri test etmek üzere Ki-kare testi uygulanmıştır. Yüksek karakter sayısı kullanım düzeyi olan tweetlerin yüksek düzeyde yayılım gösteren tweetler arasındaki payının yüksek olduğu bulunmuştur. Ayrıca bulgular düşük hashtag kullanım düzeyi ve düşük kişi etiketi kullanım düzeyine sahip tweetlerin yüksek düzeyde yayılım gösteren tweetler arasındaki payının yüksek olduğuna işaret etmektedir. Aşı karşıtı tweetlerdeki bu biçimsel özellikleri anlamak aşı kabulünü artırabilecek nitelikli bilgilerin Tweetosphere’de çoğaltılabilmesi ve bu nitelikli içeriğin etkisinin artırılabilmesi için pratiğe yönelik bir önem taşımaktadır. Diğer yandan, içeriğin biçimsel boyutunun yayılımla ilişkisine ışık tutarak gelecek araştırmalarda göz önünde bulundurulabilecek yeni değişkenler sunmaktadır. Bu durum, aşı karşıtlığı ve komplo teorileri bağlamındaki araştırmaların derinleşebilmesi ve yeni çözüm önerileri sunabilmesi için bir potansiyel sunmaktadır.
In this paper, we describe how a Danish problem-based learning university adapted to the circumstances surrounding the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Our findings reveal that digital problem-based learning mitigated some negative consequences that appeared with the lockdown and resulting shift to 100 percent online teaching. While students prefer the traditional face-to-face teaching mode due to the energy, variation, and socialization associated with on-campus learning, we observed that students who have worked in project groups had a more positive experience with online learning, which indicates belonging to a project group can increase students' motivation to participate in online teaching activities. Our findings challenge the idea that problem-based learning revolves around face-to-face interaction on campus. We highlight lessons that we learned when we rapidly shifted to online distance teaching.
In this article, we propose the concept of accelerated digital transformation. The Covid-19 pandemic constitutes an appealing case for this endeavor since it has caused organizations to undergo unexpected, fast-paced transformation to cope with the extraordinary situation. While current literature tends to illustrate the digital transformation journey based on high-profile cases such as Netflix and Amazon, we turn to more mundane organizational settings with an empirical focus on higher education. Based on a qualitative case study of how a social science faculty at a Danish university changed from analog to full digital teaching overnight, we identify three salient themes that capture how accelerated digital transformation became possible. We observed how the faculty (1) leveraged existing resources rather than disruptive technologies, (2) intensified informal knowledge sharing in combination with supportive top-down communication, and (3) re-organized core activities through experimentation rather than based on strategic plans. Major changes enabled by digital technologies are typically associated with a long-term change process through certain stages. Our conceptualization focuses on how the initial stage of the digital transformation process can be accelerated.
While digital transformation offers a number of opportunities for today's organizations, information systems scholars and practitioners struggle to grasp what digital transformation really is, particularly how it differs from the well-established concept of information technology (IT)-enabled organizational transformation. By integrating literature from organization science and information systems research with two longitudinal case studies-one on digital transformation, the other on IT-enabled organizational transformation-we develop an empirically grounded conceptualization that sets these two phenomena apart. We find that there are two distinctive differences: (a) digital transformation activities leverage digital technology in (re)defining an organization's value proposition, while IT-enabled organizational transformation activities leverage digital technology in supporting the value proposition and (b) digital transformation involves a new organizational identity compared with IT-enabled organizational transformation that enhances an existing organizational identity. We synthesize these arguments in a process model to distinguish the different types of transformations and propose directions for future research.
Business process management (BPM) research emphasizes three important logics-modelling (process), infrastructural alignment (infrastructure) and procedural actor (agency) logics. These logics capture the dominant ways of thinking in BPM, reflected in its assumptions, practices and values. While the three logics have proven useful in prior contexts, we argue that the applicability of these underlying assumptions in theorising BPM needs to be reexamined in the context of digital transformation. Based on an ethnographic study of BPM in a company undergoing digital transformation, we uncover tensions related to applying these prior logics that point to the need to update the underlying assumptions. Consequently, we propose new logics that we conceptualise as light touch processes (process), infrastructural flexibility (infrastructure) and mindful actors (agency). Our observations contribute to a rethinking of the dominant BPM logics by unpacking their dynamics in the context of digital transformation. Our study further highlight salient differences between digital transformation and IT-enabled organisational transformation contexts. We conclude by proposing new managerial approaches for BPM in digital transformation contexts.
Business process management (BPM) research emphasises three important logics – modelling (process), infrastructural alignment (infrastructure) and procedural actor (agency) logics. These logics capture the dominant ways of thinking in BPM, reflected in its assumptions, practices and values. While the three logics have proven useful in prior contexts, we argue that the applicability of these underlying assumptions in theorising BPM needs to be re-examined in the context of digital transformation. Based on an ethnographic study of BPM in a company undergoing digital transformation, we uncover tensions related to applying these prior logics that point to the need to update the underlying assumptions. Consequently, we propose new logics that we conceptualise as light touch processes (process), infrastructural flexibility (infrastructure) and mindful actors (agency). Our observations contribute to a rethinking of the dominant BPM logics by unpacking their dynamics in the context of digital transformation. Our study further highlight salient differences between digital transformation and IT-enabled organisational transformation contexts. We conclude by proposing new managerial approaches for BPM in digital transformation contexts.
New digital technologies present both game-changing opportunities for-and existential threats to-companies whose success was built in the pre-digital economy. This article describes our findings from a study of 25 companies that were embarking on digital transformation journeys. We identified two digital strategies-customer engagement and digitized solutions-that provide direction for a digital transformation. Two technology-enabled assets are essential for executing those strategies: an operational backbone and a digital services platform. We describe how a big old company can combine these elements to navigate its digital transformation.
Past research provides instructive yet incomplete answers as to how incumbent firms can address competing concerns as they embrace digital innovation. In particular, it offers only partial explanations of why different concerns emerge, how they manifest, and how firms can manage them. In response, we present a longitudinal case study of Volvo Cars’connected car initiative. Combining extant literature with insights from the case, we argue that incumbent firms face four competing concerns—capability (existing versus requisite), focus (product versus process), collaboration (internal versus external), and governance (control versus flexibility)—and that these concerns are systemically interrelated. Firms must therefore manage these concerns cohesively by continuously balancing new opportunities and established practices.
The digital era is changing consistently the previous marketing scenarios and actual issues have to be addressed in order to close the capabilities gap created by digital innovations. Different authors call for theoretical and empirical contributions that cope with the issues brought out by the digitalization of marketing channels and the consequent ever increasing volume of digital data. This study develops a theoretical framework and propositions through a reframing and reconceptualization of previous theoretical constructs from managerial and marketing literature. The resulting model offers insights about organizational processes and capabilities needed to cope with the actual fast changing, but at the same time, data-rich environment.
This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (1) Theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (2) One cannot generalize from a single case, therefore the single case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (3) The case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, while other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (4) The case study contains a bias toward verification; and (5) It is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. The article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and that a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of more good case studies.
CIOs and other senior executives face the challenge of how to handle the opportunities and risks of digital transformation. To help managers address this challenge more systematically, we describe how three German media companies successfully approached digital transformation. Based on their experiences, we provide a list of 11 strategic questions and possible answers managers can use as guidelines when formulating a digital transformation strategy.
Over the last three decades, the prevailing view of information technology strategy has been that it is a functional-level strategy that must be aligned with the firm's chosen business strategy. Even within this socalled alignment view, business strategy directed IT strategy. During the last decade, the business infrastructure has become digital with increased interconnections among products, processes, and services. Across many firms spanning different industries and sectors, digital technologies (viewed as combinations of information, computing, communication, and connectivity technologies) are fundamentally transforming business strategies, business processes, firm capabilities, products and services, and key interfirm relationships in extended business networks. Accordingly, we argue that the time is right to rethink the role of IT strategy, from that of a functional-level strategy-aligned but essentially always subordinate to business strategy-to one that reflects a fusion between IT strategy and business strategy. This fusion is herein termed digital business strategy. We identify four key themes to guide our thinking on digital business strategy and help provide a framework to define the next generation of insights. The four themes are (1) the scope of digital business strategy, (2) the scale of digital business strategy, (3) the speed of digital business strategy, and (4) the sources of business value creation and capture in digital business strategy. After elaborating on each of these four themes, we discuss the success metrics and potential performance implications from pursuing a digital business strategy. We also show how the papers in the special issue shed light on digital strategies and offer directions to advance insights and shape future research.
Internet and digitization are fundamentally changing and disrupting newspaper companies' traditional operating models. Disruptive innovation theory offers explanations for why companies succeed or fail to respond to disruptive innovations. This study builds on disruptive innovation theory by ascertaining the role of dynamic capabilities in the performance of response to digital disruption. Empirical results suggest that first-order dynamic capabilities that are created by changing, extending, or adapting a firm's existing resources, processes, and values are positively associated with building digital platform capabilities, and that these capabilities impact the performance of response to digital disruption. For information
Although crisis management has evolved rapidly over the past decade, the symbolic aspect of crisis management has been ignored. More specifically, little research has examined crisis-response strategies (public statements made after a crisis) to see how these messages can be used to shape public perceptions of the crisis and the organization in crisis. This article synthesizes existing literature to create a list of crisis-response strategies and develops a set of guidelines for appropriate use of a given strategy. The guidelines are based upon Attribution Theory and use the crisis situation and the publics as the factors that help to determine when a crisis-response strategy is appropriate.
Thematic analysis is a poorly demarcated, rarely acknowledged, yet widely used qualitative analytic method within psychology. In this paper, we argue that it offers an accessible and theoretically flexible approach to analysing qualitative data. We outline what thematic analysis is, locating it in relation to other qualitative analytic methods that search for themes or patterns, and in relation to different epistemological and ontological positions. We then provide clear guidelines to those wanting to start thematic analysis, or conduct it in a more deliberate and rigorous way, and consider potential pitfalls in conducting thematic analysis. Finally, we outline the disadvantages and advantages of thematic analysis. We conclude by advocating thematic analysis as a useful and flexible method for qualitative research in and beyond psychology.
Extant literature has increased our understanding of specific aspects of digital transformation, however we lack a comprehensive portrait of its nature and implications. Through a review of 282 works, we inductively build a framework of digital transformation articulated across eight building blocks. Our framework foregrounds digital transformation as a process where digital technologies create disruptions triggering strategic responses from organizations that seek to alter their value creation paths while managing the structural changes and organizational barriers that affect the positive and negative outcomes of this process. Building on this framework, we elaborate a research agenda that proposes [1] examining the role of dynamic capabilities, and [2] accounting for ethical issues as important avenues for future strategic IS research on digital transformation.
Chief Digital Officers (CDOs) are establishing themselves as new executives at the top
management level of companies that go through a digital transformation. We present
six case studies of CDOs and describe how they fulfill their positions. From these cases,
we identify the main factors that drive the employment of CDOs, the three role types
that CDOs primarily play and the skills and competencies they should have for each
role type.
Indonesia television industry is unique; free-to-air and advertising has better opportunities than pay TV. Dozens of national private TV companies dominate advertising revenue until more than 95%, while more than 300 local TVs get 2,5%. Local TV is an important media that represent the culture and local wisdom. Indonesian migrants always hope can watch their region TVs. Unfortunately, they cannot reach their audience outside the region because of limitation broadcasting coverage by law. The limitation also makes the market hampered and difficult to grow. The study is to find out the solution of limited broadcasting coverage problem through digital transformation and define new business models of local TV in the future digital television industry. The research methodology is a descriptive survey. The data survey was collected through in-depth interviews and focus group discussion. Respondents are the audience, local TV companies, and local TV associations. The case of study is useetv.com as a streaming aggregator in Indonesia. Digital streaming is the way of digital transformation to provide a solution to break the limitation of conventional radio broadcasting coverage problems and all at once expand to global market. In today's digital business model, TV company must focus on creating content. Distribution content to the audience will be performed efficiently by streaming aggregator.
CIO activities are expanding from providing IT services to including external customer responsibilities, working with non-IT colleagues and managing enterprise processes. We identify key activities for four types of CIOs and how CIOs spend their time across these activities, as well as their most important governance mechanisms. We also provide case examples of top-performing CIOs and ideas for how CIOs can migrate to more non-traditional activities.
Communication is increasingly recognized as an important process in organizational crisis and crisis management. The Three Mile Island incident, the Bhopal Union Carbide accident, the crash of Northwest Airlines Flight 255, and the Exxon Valdez oil spill can all be described as specific, unexpected, and nonroutine events or series of events that created high levels of uncertainty and threat or perceived threat to an organization’s high-priority goals. Crises disrupt employees and communities, damage corporate reputations, and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Crises also serve as the impetus for investigations and organizational change. This review organizes a dynamic and growing body of communication and organizational literature dealing with crisis, including various developmental approaches used to describe crisis, decision making, public relations, rhetorical approaches, organizational legitimacy, and methodologies for crisis communication research. Research themes and new directions are identified. Weick’s concept of enactment, stakeholder theory, and chaos theory are discussed as frameworks for emerging research directions.
Using a qualitative design, we develop a model of discrimination lawsuit resolution identifying type of discrimination, firms' verbal and behavioral responses, and stake-holder mobilization as key. Data from media accounts of lawsuits reveal four paths to resolution, distinguishable largely by the type of discrimination they represent. Findings also highlight aspects of race discrimination and sexual harassment that invite different organizational responses than other forms of discrimination. In addition, analysis of the response paths suggests that external stakeholders with and without formal authority critically influence firms' responses. We discuss findings in the context of organizational responses to threat, and institutional theory.
The impact of organizational crises has never been stronger. Yet previous research on crisis management lacks adequate integration. In this article we attempt to integrate and build upon current knowledge to create a multidisciplinary approach to crisis management research, using psychological, social-political, and technological-structural research perspectives. We offer definitions of organizational crisis and crisis management, as well as a framework that depicts the crisis management process and researchable propositions for the integration of these perspectives. We also suggest implications for research and practice.
Twenty years after the promise of Information Systems enabling Organizational Transformation (IS-enabled OT), what have we learned? This paper reviews the literature in order to better understand this phenomenon. As specialists in IS, strategy and organizational studies, we analyze the discourse on OT found in the strategy, organizational theory and IS literature, and identify four structuring themes: organizational inertia, process, agency and performance. We apply the coding derived from these themes to a set of 62 empirical papers and discuss the results. Ten research avenues are then identified to show that IS-enabled OT is still a new frontier for strategic information systems research.
Purpose
The implementation of e‐banking projects highlights the importance of digital transformation for contemporary organizations in order to survive and achieve competitive advantage in a digital economy. This paper aims to explore the development process of digital transformation through an e‐banking project based on the resource fit concept.
Design/methodology/approach
The qualitative method of case study is applied. In total, 17 in‐depth interviews and secondary data were collected and analyzed.
Findings
Numerous researches related to e‐banking have focused on either the resource‐based theory or strategic fit perspective, but not on both. This paper makes a unique contribution by constructing a resource fit framework that integrates these two theories. This framework offers a theoretical advancement in the resource fit literature. It includes four dimensions: external resource fit, internal resource fit, external capability fit, and internal capability fit. Through an actual empirical case examination of the resource fit framework, this study explored eight critical factors necessary for successful e‐banking project implementation.
Research limitations/implications
This study fills a theoretical gap by developing an integrative framework and evaluating it via an empirical case study. Hence, examining this framework for organizational digital transformation in different industries and multiple case studies with cross‐cases comparison will be valuable for future research.
Practical implications
The study demonstrated that managing digital transformation can be challenging, but awareness of, and preparedness for, analysis of both the resources/capability and external demands through the resource fit perspective are necessary.
Originality/value
This paper offers a pioneer framework in the resource fit field and makes a practical case examination that can be useful for researchers and practitioners by taking a more detailed view of digital transformation development.
Whereas it has long been noted that crises may be sources of opportunity for organizations and their constituents, relatively little is known about the conditions under which executives come to perceive crises as opportunity. The authors delineate some factors that affect the tendency of executives to adopt a “crisis as opportunity” mindset as well as the behavioral concomitants of their having done so. The analysis also includes a future research agenda, a consideration of some of the challenges in enacting that agenda, and a few suggested ways to overcome those challenges.
A study of property developers in Singapore showed that their crisis management capabilities are influenced by their size and opinion. Developers generally concentrate on preparing formal procedures to deal with crises pertaining to breakdowns. Explicit procedures to deal with crises in the areas of psychopathology and human resource factors were often found lacking. Few developers implement damage containment mechanisms for external information attack and human resource factors, much less effect the same for psychopathic attacks. Developers have identified the key personnel, tasks, services and products necessary to conduct business operations. However, the ability of developers to recover from crisis situations is hampered by the lack of alternative sites for their critical operations and backups to crucial business function. Although it is the requirement of the developers to discuss the lessons learned for those involved in accidents and crisis, the ability to learn from past mistakes is often impeded by the assignment of blame.
The problem and the solution. Most executives are aware of the negative consequences associated with an organizational crisis and focus on communications and public relations as a reactive strategy. However, many neglect the other leadership responsibilities associated with organizational crises.This may result from lack of formal training and on-the-job experiences that prepare executives to lead crises. Executives who enable their organizations to recover from a crisis exhibit a complex set of competencies in each of the five phases of a crisis—signal detection, preparation and prevention, damage control and containment, business recovery, and reflection and learning. In this article, through the use of qualitative research design and the analysis of firms in crises, we examine leadership competencies during each phase of a crisis. In addition, this article links the important role of human resource development to building organizational capabilities through crisis management activities.
A company's digital business model describes how the enterprise interacts digitally with its customers to generate value. The authors argue that it's time for companies to create a great digital business model before their customers leave them behind. A great digital business model will often challenge the status quo in the company: It can cause an organization to change how work gets done, who does the work and where it invests to best serve customers online. A digital business model often cannibalizes or changes the company's physical channels. And that is true whether the company is a born-on-the-Web company like Amazon, a large oil company or a local business just starting to focus on the best way to connect with customers online. The authors have created a framework to help enterprises compete digitally with three capabilities: their content, customer experience and platform. They illustrate the framework with case studies of top performers like Amazon, Apple, LexisNexis and USAA and results from an effective practices survey. They also include a self-assessment tool to help with next steps.
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