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This chapter shows how configurational approaches can be a valuable inquiring system for examining and understanding complex messy phenomena in the area of digital business strategy in turbulent environments such as digital ecodynamics. Digital ecodynamics is defined as the holistic confluence among environmental turbulence, dynamic capabilities, and IT systems – and their fused dynamic interactions unfolding as an ecosystem. With fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) we analyze firm-level field survey data and describe how IT systems, organizational dynamic capability and environmental turbulence simultaneously combine to result in multiple configurations, which have different causal structures to produce competitive firm performance. This equifinality shows how configurational approaches can create new practical insights in digital ecodynamics by suggesting multiple strategic options from which organizations can choose the best solution that fits their context.

In the landscape created by digital transformation, developing the ability to adapt and innovate by absorbing and generating new knowledge has become a strategic priority for organizations. The theory of dynamic capabilities, especially from a knowledge-based perspective, has proven particularly useful in studying the phenomena of transformation and change. Moving from this premise, this paper aims to map the state of research and to define guidelines for the actualization of dynamic capabilities theory in the digital transformation era.

A structured literature review of 75 papers, using descriptive, bibliographic and content analysis, was performed to analyze the evolution of dynamic capabilities in the context of digital transformation.

Studies concerning knowledge-based dynamic capabilities for digital transformation have been clustered into five main research areas: the micro-foundation of dynamic capabilities for digital transformation; dynamic capabilities for value creation in digital transformation; dynamic capabilities for digital transition in specific industries; dynamic capabilities for “data-driven organizations”; and dynamic capabilities for digital transformation in SMEs and family firms. A future research agenda for scholars in strategic management is presented.

A conceptual framework and a future research agenda are presented to highlight directions for this promising research field concerning the renewal of dynamic capabilities in the context of digital transformation.

The originality of the paper lies in the conceptual framework aiming to systematize current research on knowledge-based dynamic capabilities for digital transformation and to provide a new conceptualization of digital dynamic capabilities, clarifying how organizations create and share knowledge in the era of digitalization.

In this concluding chapter, we look ahead to future theoretical and methodological directions that emerge from the contributions in this volume and that carry the potential to enrich contemporary organizational research. We furthermore point to some issues that remain unsolved and need to be addressed in future research to further establish the configurational approach in the field of organizational studies, such as the growing need for homogeneity in how the analysis is conducted and results are presented. We argue that the momentum of the configurational approach in organizational research is strong, but that important challenges remain.

The notion of configuration – that the whole is best understood from a systemic perspective and should be viewed as a constellation of interconnected elements – is arguably one of the central ideas of organization studies. Yet, this idea also remains one of the field’s least understood aspects. In this volume and its introduction, we outline a new perspective for understanding configuration. Our starting point is the emergence of set theoretic configurational methods, and especially Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), which provides novel ways for analyzing configurations. Our volume goes beyond introducing a new method to the fields of management and organization, as these methods furthermore offer an opportunity to rethink our understanding of the field and to develop different ways of theorizing the rich complexity of relationships that characterize organizational life. In this introduction, we introduce some of the key themes that differentiate the approach taken here from previous work on organizational configurations and provide evidence for the emerging renaissance of the configurational approach in organizational theory and research.

I have always felt that one of the most important roles that a book chapter can fulfill is effectively setting the stage for future scholars to build on the content of the chapter. This is a particularly important task where doctoral students are concerned, given their status as newcomers to organizational research. Ideally a doctoral student can pick up tips in a book chapter that will facilitate her or him conducting better studies than if s/he had never read the chapter.

The purpose of this paper is to present a novel mnemonic, ACTIVE, inspired by Mason's 1985 PAPA mnemonic, which will help researchers and IT professionals develop an understanding of the major issues in information ethics.

Theoretical foundations are developed for each element of the mnemonic by reference to philosophical definitions of the terms used and to virtue ethics, particularly MacIntyrean virtue ethics. The paper starts with a critique of the elements of the PAPA mnemonic and then proceeds to develop an understanding of each of the elements of ACTIVE ethics, via a discussion of the underpinning virtue ethics.

This paper identifies six issues, described by the mnemonic, ACTIVE. ACTIVE stands for: autonomy, the ability of the individual to manage their own information and make choice; community, the ethical effect of an information systems on the community which it supports; transparency, the extent to which the derivation of content and process in an information system is made clear; identity, the social and ethical effect of an information system on the definition and maintenance of the distinctive characteristics of a person; value, the value or moral worth placed on information associated with an individual and hence on the relationship with the individual; and empathy, the ability of the information systems professional to emotionally connect with the user and the extent to which the information system distances or connects.

The paper applies virtue ethics to developing a tool to help information professionals reflect on their ethical practice in developing and supporting information systems.

Digital innovation requires organizations to reconfigure their information technology infrastructure (ITI) to cultivate creativity and implement fast experimentation. This research inquiries into ITI generativity, an emerging concept demoting a critical ITI capability for organizational digital innovation. More specifically, it conceptualizes ITI generativity across two dimensions—namely, systems and applications infrastructure (SAI) generativity and data analytics infrastructure (DAI) generativity—and examines their respective social and technical antecedents and their impact on digital innovation.

This research formulates a theoretical model to investigate the social and technical antecedents along with innovation outcomes of ITI generativity. To test this model and its associated hypotheses, a survey was administered to IT professionals possessing knowledge of their organization's IT architecture and digital innovation performance. The dataset, comprising responses from 140 organizations, was analyzed using the partial least squares technique.

Results reveal that both dimensions of ITI generativity contribute to digital innovation performance, with the effect of DAI generativity being more pronounced. In addition, SAI and DAI generativities are driven by social and technical factors within an organization. More specifically, SAI generativity is positively associated with the usage of a digital application services platform and IT human resources, whereas DAI generativity is positively linked to the usage of a data analytics services platform, data analytics services usability and data analytics human resources.

This research contributes to the literature on digital innovation by introducing ITI generativity as a crucial ITI capability and deciphering its role in digital innovation. It also offers useful insights and guidance for practitioners on how to build ITIs to achieve better digital innovation performance.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of a competitive action and its impact on the response of rivals in the digital market. Specifically, this paper introduces the concept of action complexity and action variation to delineate the configuration characteristics of each digital competitive action and empirically investigates how these action characteristics further affect rivals’ response speed.

This paper uses structural content analysis methods to code competitive actions based on the news of Chinese online travel agencies (OTAs) from 2010 to 2015. The cox proportional hazards regression models are employed to test the hypotheses.

The results indicate that action complexity of the focal firm is negatively associated with rivals’ response speed as it constrains their interpretation (awareness), motivation and capability to respond, while action variation of the focal firm is positively associated with rivals’ response speed as it enhances their attention (awareness) and motivation to respond. Furthermore, the negative relationship between action complexity and response speed is weaker when action variation is high.

Further to advancing competitive dynamics theory, this paper proposes an action-configuration perspective to explore the particular content and quality of each digital competitive action. The discussion of competitive rivalry between OTAs also enriches the application of competitive dynamics in the digital market. Meanwhile, this paper further clarifies the decision-making process of rivalry drawing on the awareness–motivation–capability (AMC) framework.

Prior research has highlighted the pervasive importance of digital technologies in business and societal settings, but their enabling role in digital transformation, and effective forms of organization to address tensions that arise during attempts to promote it, have been insufficiently explored. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how and why tensions affect clusters established to foster digital transformation.

Empirical data were acquired through a qualitative exploratory holistic single case study, focused on the Swedish Cluster of Forest Technology. This included interviews with informants, selected by homogeneous purposive sampling, and event observation to investigate the personal perspectives of representatives of every company engaged in the cluster, followed by a thematic analysis of their comments.

The case study revealed three major tensions, between knowledge flow, collaboration and competition, but also others that were interrelated with those major tensions, related to matters such as trust and protection of intellectual property, power equality and hierarchy, and networks that must be managed in digital transformation efforts.

The paper extends understanding of the tensions that arise, and their management, in digital transformation processes.

Emerging in recent years, digital transformation has become an effective approach for firms to remain competitive in the digital economy. Although this trend has received increasing interest in the business world, there remains a lack of empirical research on the organizational capacities that facilitate digital transformation. To fill this research gap, we investigate the relationship between adaptive capacity configuration and the performance of digital transformation.

We use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to identify the impact of adaptive capacity on the digital transformation performance of 38 firms in the household appliance manufacturing, light manufacturing and clothing manufacturing industries (HAMI, LMI, CMI).

Our analysis reveals a Technology-driven transformation configuration for the HAMI, a Market-driven transformation configuration for the LMI and a Market and Management-driven transformation configuration for the CMI, as well as identifies environment scanning capacity as a common basic adaptive capacity. The first configuration is rooted in the innovation mechanism, and the last two configurations are rooted in the integration mechanism.

Enterprises in different industries with unique technology levels require distinctive capacity configurations to implement digital transformation. Each dimension of adaptive capacity plays a particular role in each industry. Environmental scanning capacity requires firms to be agile in their interactions with the digital world and to collect information about the environment.

This study enriches and expands the dimensions of adaptive capacity, and we provide a perspective for researching the digital transformation of manufacturing enterprises through adaptive capability configuration.