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Today, businesses, organizations and governments attach great importance to digital transformation to meet the needs of their customers, business partners, and employees to adapt to the developing technology in recent years. Digital transformation, which is a challenging and mandatory process, has been and continues to be passed by institutions today. However, the successful management of this transformation without conflict can be realized by accurately detecting new communication technologies and examining, understanding, and implementing the transformation process in detail. This process will be painful, where radical changes will take place in the structure, processes, functions, and business models of the organization. Different challenges may be encountered in each of the startup, execution, and governance subprocesses examined in the digital transformation process. Many conflicts such as time and budget shortages, inadequate digital skills and lack of vision for digital customer processes, cybersecurity threats, human resource shortages, difficulty in managing technology, failure to achieve cloud structure integration, vision, and culture differences are the reasons why this process cannot be managed fluently and accurately. For businesses that focus on this goal, regardless of scale, digital transformation has become a necessity, not an alternative to choose. In this study, the digital transformation process and maturity model were discussed, and technological and digital conflicts were emphasized. It seeks to shed light on the work they will do by making recommendations for institutions to manage this process in the best way.

During the Coronavirus crisis (COVID-19) that started in 2019 and at the extensive quarantine regulations, educational institutions, companies, and individuals have reacted by shifting their teaching and learning activities to virtual spaces. Yet, although the use of online learning has increased, it has not been able to achieve the long-promised transformative effect. The COVID-19 crisis has the potential to boost online education overall or at least enable better preparation of the system for the next crisis. Ultimately, to make a digital transformation sustainable, appropriate skills are required. In this study, we adapt the dynamic capabilities foundations creating a theoretical approach to explain how educational institutions have responded to the changing environmental conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Global mass communications and advances in new information and telecommunication technology present a new challenge to the traditional way of conducting international relations. While the mode of conducting diplomacy is changing, diplomats are forced to communicate with many new actors in the international stage through new means of communication. The chapter overviews the existing digital diplomacy research reports. Against this backdrop it presents the outcomes of a 2017–2018 study of communication strategies employed by six countries of the Western Balkans, including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia. The findings of the study give a first-hand data from the practical point of view on how, which, and to which extent digital tools are utilized as a tool of digital tools are utilized as a tool of digital diplomacy by the official communicators of ministries of foreign affairs (MFA) in the researched region.

This chapter presents a structural model à la Leland (1994) that is, at the same time, novel, simple, and able to explain the quotes of credit default swaps (CDS), equity, and equity options. The model gives a closed-form formula for the term structure of default probabilities and can be calibrated to fit the CDS spreads. It also offers closed-form formulas for equity, equity volatility, and equity options. Differently from other structural models, debt has been modeled as a perpetual fixed-rate bond, instead of a zero-coupon bond with finite maturity. Therefore, default can happen at any time, and not only at the bond's maturity. The model (which belongs to the class of first-passage models) specifies default as the first time the firm's asset value hits a lower barrier. The barrier is endogenously determined as a solution of an optimal stopping problem (stockholders’ equity maximization). Equity is seen as a portfolio that contains a perpetual American option to default and can be valuated by using the results of Rubinstein-Reiner (1991) for barrier options. Equity options are valued by a closed-form formula that requires only an extra parameter (leverage) with respect to the standard input list of Black–Scholes–Merton equation. The formula is consistent with the volatility skew that is generally observed in the equity options markets and can be used to estimate the firms’ implied leverage, as it is perceived by traders. The chapter concludes with an application of the model to the case of Goldman Sachs.

The change in Malaysian financial environment can be attributed to digitalization as banks are racing to digital maturity by 2020. Historically in Malaysia, the use of credit card was a Fintech development in the 1950s to help Malaysians minimize the burden in carrying cash all the time. The aim of financial technology in the 1990s was to encourage bank customers to use the online banking system instead of only automated teller machine. Fintech services are swiftly interrupting banks' services globally. Similarly, Malaysia's banking sector is experiencing the interruption since as more Fintech organizations are innovating new Fintech service to improve convenience for clienteles. Numerous regulatory agencies in Malaysia and the Malaysian government have set up several initiatives to encourage and provide a vigorous growth in the Malaysian Fintech and digital asset regulatory environment. Expectation Confirmation Model, Technology Acceptance Model, and Cognitive Model are viewed as the most popular frameworks that discuss the continuous intention to use information system. The combination of these three models has led to the creation of Technology Continuance Theory (TCT). TCT postulates that five prominent constructs or antecedents are depicted as key indicators in explaining the users' intentions for continuous use: (1) confirmation, (2) perceived usefulness, (3) perceived ease of use, (4) satisfaction, and (5) attitude. Furthermore, TCT adds to the argument on the consumers' continuance adoptions by assimilating satisfaction and attitude into a single construct.

Recently, a new concept “digital sustainability” has emerged concerning the sustainability of businesses. Digital sustainability in the business world is related to the existence of businesses that are compatible with rapidly developing technologies. Digital sustainability depends on the ability to businesses to adapt digitally to business environment and successfully transform their internal processes by digitizing their managerial processes. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, the deficiencies, glitches, gaps, and weaknesses in various internal and external organizational systems and digital mechanisms of enterprises have become more visible. This section reveals how important digital technologies are for adding social and environmental value to sustainable businesses. Besides, this section discusses how digital business models affect sustainability. For this purpose, in this section, sustainable business models and the sustainable business model components of digital technologies are discussed from a corporate perspective.

In this section, respectively, digitalization and digitalization in businesses under the light of sustainability, and digital sustainability in businesses are discussed. Then, basic concepts of digital sustainability in businesses, the relationship between digital sustainability and e-commerce, the positive impacts of digital sustainability on businesses, digital sustainability by countries and digital sustainability in various sectors are discussed accordingly. Many of the businesses with sustainable business models and strategies use digital technologies to design innovative business models and to provide a relatively unique competitive advantage among their rivals. Thus, by optimizing at every digital stage of business, companies can achieve digital sustainability. Companies could add unique value that cannot be imitated from any other businesses by only maintaining digital sustainability.

The recent pandemic of Covid-19 has substantially changed people’s daily lives. They work and interact even more based on information and communication technologies (ICT). The use of new technologies and the interconnectivity specific to smart cities have intensified in the context of the pandemic. A significant part of the population works from home, participates in concerts and other remote social activities, organizes online parties, communicates virtually with friends and family, etc. These transformations required an extended and more stable infrastructure, significant investments in the development of software applications dedicated to remote activities (streaming, contact tracing, security, online ordering and delivery, telemedicine, etc.), in specific services (data storage and applications, electronic signature services, etc.) and the integration of subsystems used in smart cities. This chapter examines the role of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in the acceleration of digital transformations in smart cities due to the need and desire to digitize communities and public administrations. It has become a top priority for both private and public companies from smart cities in the context created by the pandemic.

This chapter aims at bringing a sport-centric approach to the study of digital marketing. This is important as most of the existing research on digital marketing takes an industry-neutral perspective that generalises theory to all contexts. The sport industry has been a major recipient of digital marketing so it is important to recognise its impact on the evolution of digital marketing practices. To do so requires an analysis of what digital marketing is and how it has changed as a result of technological innovations. This enables a better understanding about the growth trajectory of digital sport marketing that integrates a sport-specific theory to digital marketing practices.