Aligning with new digital strategy: A dynamic capabilities approach
TL;DR: A longitudinal analysis of a B2B company's journey to enact its B2C digital strategy, using the dynamic capabilities approach, results in an aligning process model that is comprised of three phases (exploratory, building, and extending) and generalizable organizational aligning actions that form the organization's sensing, seizing, and transforming capacities.
Abstract: Prior IS research has not fully addressed the aligning process in the highly dynamic context of digital strategy. To address this gap, we conduct a longitudinal analysis of a B2B company's journey to enact its B2C digital strategy, using the dynamic capabilities approach. We found that as an organization shifts towards a digital strategy, misalignments between the emergent strategy and resources give rise to tension. Our study resulted in the development of an aligning process model that is comprised of three phases (exploratory, building, and extending) and generalizable organizational aligning actions that form the organization's sensing, seizing, and transforming capacities. These aligning actions iteratively reconfigured organizational resources and refined strategy in order to respond to both changes in the environment and internal tensions. We also recognized that there are challenges to alignment, and conceptualized them as paradoxical tensions. This provided insights as to how such tensions are triggered and how they can be addressed. Finally, by applying the dynamic capabilities approach to aligning, we also show that alignment is not separate from such capabilities, but that aligning is enacted through the sensing, seizing and transforming capacities and their attendant aligning actions.
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TL;DR: A framework of digital transformation articulated across eight building blocks is built that 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.
Abstract: 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.
1,787 citations
TL;DR: This model theorizes an integrated process/activity model that characterizes DTS formulation and implementation in pre-digital organizations and shows that the crafting of a DTS is a highly dynamic process involving iterating between learning and doing.
Abstract: The formulation and implementation of a digital transformation strategy (DTS) has become a key concern for many pre-digital organizations across traditional industries, but how such a strategy can be developed remains an open question. We used interpretive in-depth case study research to study how a European financial services provider has formulated and implemented a DTS. By focusing on the underlying processes and strategizing activities, we show that digital strategy making not only represents a break with the conventions of upfront strategic information systems (IS) planning, but reveals a new extreme of emergent strategy making. Specifically, we conclude that a DTS is continuously in the making, with no foreseeable end. By building on theory from IS strategizing and strategy-as-practice literature, we theorize an integrated process/activity model that characterizes DTS formulation and implementation in pre-digital organizations. Our model shows that the crafting of a DTS is a highly dynamic process involving iterating between learning and doing.
295 citations
Cites methods or result from "Aligning with new digital strategy:..."
...While our findings confirm the relevance of the emergent strategy for explaining outcomes of IS-related strategy processes as unveiled in other recent studies (e.g., Henfridsson and Lind, 2014; Nolan, 2012; Yeow et al., 2018), we also find that digital strategy making has various particularities....
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...Digital strategy is equally business-centric and technology-inspired (Sebastian et al., 2017; Yeow et al., 2018), and therefore differs from the understanding of IS strategy as the organizational perspective on the investment in, deployment, use, and management of IS (Chen et al....
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...We have proposed an integrated process/activity perspective on DTS development in the context of pre-digital organizations (Bharadwaj et al., 2013; Yeow et al., 2018)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the effect of digital platform capability and network capability on entrepreneurial SMEs' financial performance was examined and how exploitation and exploration orientations moderate this relationship, and the results suggest that entrepreneurial SME can enhance their performance through digital platform capabilities by aligning this capability with their orientation.
279 citations
Cites background from "Aligning with new digital strategy:..."
...The literature stresses that alignment between a firm's organizational orientation and that firm's digital strategy is necessary for success (Li et al., 2016; Tiwana, 2014; Wan et al., 2017; Yeow et al., 2018)....
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...Digital platforms have grown in importance from the functional IT level to the strategic and management level (Yeow et al., 2018)....
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...Accordingly, adopting digital platforms has become a strategic decision involving core resources and routines within the organization (Yeow et al., 2018)....
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TL;DR: An empirically grounded conceptualization is developed that sets these two phenomena apart, finding that there are two distinctive differences: digital transformation activities leverage digital technology in (re)defining an organization’s value proposition, while IT-enabled organizational transformation activities Leverage digitalTechnology in supporting the value proposition.
Abstract: Although 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 in terms of 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: (1) 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 (2) digital transformation involves the emergence of a new organizational identity, whereas IT-enabled organizational transformation involves the enhancement of 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.
218 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors demonstrate how small manufacturing firms can leverage their Information Technology (IT) resources to develop the lean-digitized manufacturing system that offers sustained competitive advantages over traditional manufacturing systems.
Abstract: purpose– The study demonstrates how small manufacturing firms can leverage their Information Technology (IT) resources to develop the lean-digitized manufacturing system that offers sustained compe ...
207 citations
References
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Book•
01 Oct 1984
TL;DR: In this article, buku ini mencakup lebih dari 50 studi kasus, memberikan perhatian untuk analisis kuantitatif, membahas lebah lengkap penggunaan desain metode campuran penelitian, and termasuk wawasan metodologi baru.
Abstract: Buku ini menyediakan sebuah portal lengkap untuk dunia penelitian studi kasus, buku ini menawarkan cakupan yang luas dari desain dan penggunaan metode studi kasus sebagai alat penelitian yang valid. Dalam buku ini mencakup lebih dari 50 studi kasus, memberikan perhatian untuk analisis kuantitatif, membahas lebih lengkap penggunaan desain metode campuran penelitian, dan termasuk wawasan metodologi baru.
78,012 citations
TL;DR: The dynamic capabilities framework as mentioned in this paper analyzes the sources and methods of wealth creation and capture by private enterprise firms operating in environments of rapid technological change, and suggests that private wealth creation in regimes of rapid technology change depends in large measure on honing intemal technological, organizational, and managerial processes inside the firm.
Abstract: The dynamic capabilities framework analyzes the sources and methods of wealth creation and capture by private enterprise firms operating in environments of rapid technological change. The competitive advantage of firms is seen as resting on distinctive processes (ways of coordinating and combining), shaped by the firm's (specific) asset positions (such as the firm's portfolio of difftcult-to- trade knowledge assets and complementary assets), and the evolution path(s) it has aflopted or inherited. The importance of path dependencies is amplified where conditions of increasing retums exist. Whether and how a firm's competitive advantage is eroded depends on the stability of market demand, and the ease of replicability (expanding intemally) and imitatability (replication by competitors). If correct, the framework suggests that private wealth creation in regimes of rapid technological change depends in large measure on honing intemal technological, organizational, and managerial processes inside the firm. In short, identifying new opportunities and organizing effectively and efficiently to embrace them are generally more fundamental to private wealth creation than is strategizing, if by strategizing one means engaging in business conduct that keeps competitors off balance, raises rival's costs, and excludes new entrants. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
27,902 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a paradigm for managing the dynamic aspects of organizational knowledge creating processes, arguing that organizational knowledge is created through a continuous dialogue between tacit and explicit knowledge.
Abstract: This paper proposes a paradigm for managing the dynamic aspects of organizational knowledge creating processes. Its central theme is that organizational knowledge is created through a continuous dialogue between tacit and explicit knowledge. The nature of this dialogue is examined and four patterns of interaction involving tacit and explicit knowledge are identified. It is argued that while new knowledge is developed by individuals, organizations play a critical role in articulating and amplifying that knowledge. A theoretical framework is developed which provides an analytical perspective on the constituent dimensions of knowledge creation. This framework is then applied in two operational models for facilitating the dynamic creation of appropriate organizational knowledge.
17,196 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1995
TL;DR: The Nature of Sensemaking Seven properties of sensemaking Sensemaking in Organizations Occasions for Sensemaking The Substance of Sense-making Belief-Driven Processes of Sense Making Action-driven Processes on Sensemaking.
Abstract: The Nature of Sensemaking Seven Properties of Sensemaking Sensemaking in Organizations Occasions for Sensemaking The Substance of Sensemaking Belief-Driven Processes of Sensemaking Action-Driven Processes of Sensemaking The Future of Sensemaking
13,400 citations
TL;DR: Seeks to present a better understanding of dynamic capabilities and the resource-based view of the firm to help managers build using these dynamic capabilities.
Abstract: This paper focuses on dynamic capabilities and, more generally, the resource-based view of the firm. We argue that dynamic capabilities are a set of specific and identifiable processes such as product development, strategic decision making, and alliancing. They are neither vague nor tautological. Although dynamic capabilities are idiosyncratic in their details and path dependent in their emergence, they have significant commonalities across firms (popularly termed ‘best practice’). This suggests that they are more homogeneous, fungible, equifinal, and substitutable than is usually assumed. In moderately dynamic markets, dynamic capabilities resemble the traditional conception of routines. They are detailed, analytic, stable processes with predictable outcomes. In contrast, in high-velocity markets, they are simple, highly experiential and fragile processes with unpredictable outcomes. Finally, well-known learning mechanisms guide the evolution of dynamic capabilities. In moderately dynamic markets, the evolutionary emphasis is on variation. In high-velocity markets, it is on selection. At the level of RBV, we conclude that traditional RBV misidentifies the locus of long-term competitive advantage in dynamic markets, overemphasizes the strategic logic of leverage, and reaches a boundary condition in high-velocity markets. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
13,128 citations