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1 – 10 of over 9000This paper is aimed at describing and analysing what school organisers express when they network to expand the access and application of digital technologies in educational…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper is aimed at describing and analysing what school organisers express when they network to expand the access and application of digital technologies in educational systems. Digital technologies develop rapidly in society, creating challenges and opportunities in people’s lives. Schools have an important task: to prepare young people for a future permeated by digital technology.
Design/methodology/approach
Participant observations and semi-structured interviews were used to describe and analyse how school organisers describe digitalisation work in the educational system.
Findings
The findings show that school organisers describe digital competence and providing support to schools as being important for expanding the access and application of digital technologies in the educational system. They also talk about equality connected to digitalisation work, changes in organisations, the importance of a holistic perspective, and a gold thread. They furthermore explain that networks, a sharing culture, good relations, and good communication enable digitalisation work. In addition, they point out that the lack of time, attitudes towards digital technologies, the lack of digital competence, and resistance to change are some of the constraints for digital technologies in the educational system.
Practical implications
School organisers need to implement digitalisation policies, which can be problematic because they work strategically to support operational activities.
Originality/value
This paper contributes knowledge about school organisers’ work to expand the access and application of digital technologies in the educational system.
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Eva Lindell, Irina Popova and Anna Uhlin
The ongoing “digitalization of work” is one of the major phenomena shaping contemporary organizations. The aim of this study is to explore linguistic constructs of white-collar…
Abstract
Purpose
The ongoing “digitalization of work” is one of the major phenomena shaping contemporary organizations. The aim of this study is to explore linguistic constructs of white-collar workers (WCWs) related to their use of digital tools.
Design/methodology/approach
The framework of ideological dilemmas (Billig et al., 1988) is mobilized to investigate the conflicting demands WCW interviewees construct when describing the ongoing digitalization of their office work.
Findings
This study shows how “digitalization of work” is enforcing an organizational ideological dilemma of structure and flexibility for WCWs. In the digital workplace, this dilemma is linguistically expressed as the individual should be, or should want to be, both flexible and structured in her work.
Practical implications
The use of language exposes conflicting ideals in the use of digital tools that might increase work–life stress. Implications for managers include acknowledging the dilemmas WCWs face in digitalized organizations and supporting them before they embark upon a digitalization journey.
Originality/value
The study shows that the negotiation between competing organizational discourses is constructed irrespective of hierarchical positions; the organizations digital maturity; private or public sector; or country. The study confirms contradictory ideological claims as “natural” and unquestionable in digitalized officework.
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Engaged employees are an organization’s competitive advantage because the employees are willing to strive for organizational excellence. This paper examines employee engagement…
Abstract
Purpose
Engaged employees are an organization’s competitive advantage because the employees are willing to strive for organizational excellence. This paper examines employee engagement (EE), taking workplace digitalization as the mediator. The authors developed an integrated framework introducing transformational leadership and innovative culture as EE antecedents in workplace digitalization settings. Specifically, the authors argue that transformational leadership and innovative culture influence EE directly and indirectly through workplace digitalization.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 256 valid online-survey samples were used in the structural equation modeling (SEM) tests. The respondents were the management-level executives of Selangor/Kuala Lumpur-based Malaysian companies.
Findings
The authors' findings support that workplace digitalization positively influences EE. Unlike transformational leadership, innovative culture positively influences workplace digitalization. Further, innovative culture directly affects EE and indirectly through workplace digitalization, albeit partially. Transformational leadership directly influences EE but is insignificant through workplace digitalization.
Practical implications
The findings suggest that organizations that wish to fast-track EE can cultivate an innovative culture to facilitate employees' acceptance of workplace digitalization and enhance EE.
Originality/value
The authors' research expands the interdisciplinary theoretical foundation on how employees' perception and acceptance of workplace digitalization add to EE by highlighting the roles of transformational leaders and innovative culture. The authors' research is among the first few investigating how transformational leadership and innovative culture affect EE in the presence of workplace digitalization. The authors also discussed workplace digitalization as a mediator to innovative culture–EE relationships.
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Anne Asmyr Thorseng and Miria Grisot
E-health tools for patients aim to change current care practices. However the role of IT in transforming health care is not straightforward. The purpose of this paper is to…
Abstract
Purpose
E-health tools for patients aim to change current care practices. However the role of IT in transforming health care is not straightforward. The purpose of this paper is to understand how this change process unfolds and what characterizes the process by which visions of new care practices become inscribed into digital tools.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopted a qualitative research design and it is based on an interpretive case study on the digitalization of a tool for diabetes care used in a hospital in Norway. Data have been collected via interviews and observations. Digitalization activities are understood as institutional work in order to examine the relation between the decisions taken in the design process and the intended change of the practices of diabetes care.
Findings
The study identifies three types of activities of institutional work: inscription of self-reflection, inscription of legitimation and inscription of new usage. The analysis of these activities shows how the vision of patients’ more active, learning and reflection-oriented role is inscribed into digital technology; how institutional work strives both for change and for legitimation thus smoothing the transition to a new institutional arrangement; and how institutional work relates to digital materiality.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the institutional theory literature by conceptualizing digitalization as institutional work toward changing institutions. It also contributes to the IS literature on digitalization by providing an analysis of how the affordances of digital materials support the work toward new institutions.
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Jana Brockhaus, Alexander Buhmann and Ansgar Zerfass
This article studies the digitalization of corporate communications and the emergence of communication technology (CommTech). The authors show communicators' expectations…
Abstract
Purpose
This article studies the digitalization of corporate communications and the emergence of communication technology (CommTech). The authors show communicators' expectations regarding digitalization, gauge the current level of digitalization across communication departments and agencies and examine the effectiveness of strategic approaches to manage digitalization.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conceptualize the phenomenon of CommTech and propose a framework for studying CommTech's emergence and consequences by combining (1) recent theorizing on digitalization in corporate communications, (2) the concept of digital maturity from information systems research and (3) a socio-technical approach to analyze the development of work systems. The authors apply this framework in a quantitative study (n = 2,664) among communication practitioners from 46 countries.
Findings
While digitalization of both communication activities and the underlying support infrastructure is seen as critically important among communicators, a large fraction of communication departments and agencies are still assessed as digitally immature. Further, data reveal the relevance of different (technology, tasks, structure and people) dimensions of digitalization strategies and the influence of such strategies on the digital maturity of communications.
Practical implications
The framework and empirical instruments developed in this study help practitioners to uncover and evaluate the level of digital maturity of communication departments and agencies. This allows to identify current challenges and future opportunities for improvement.
Originality/value
The authors propose a concise definition for the much-debated concept of CommTech and develop a new theoretical framework for understanding CommTech's emergence and consequences in the profession. This empirical work constitutes the first large-scale study on the digital maturity of communication departments and agencies.
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Rikke Amalie Agergaard Jensen, Charlotte Jonasson, Martin Gartmeier and Jaana Parviainen
The purpose of this study is to investigate how professionals learn from varying experiences with errors in health-care digitalization and develop and use negative knowledge and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate how professionals learn from varying experiences with errors in health-care digitalization and develop and use negative knowledge and digital ignorance in efforts to improve digitalized health care.
Design/methodology/approach
A two-year qualitative field study was conducted in the context of a public health-care organization working with digital patient communication. The data consisted of participant observation, semistructured interviews and document data. Inductive coding and a theoretically informed generation of themes were applied.
Findings
The findings show that both health-care and digital communication professionals learn through experiences with digital “rule-” and “knowledge-based” errors in patient communication and develop negative knowledge and awareness of digital ignorance. In their joint efforts, they use negative knowledge to “bend the rules” and to explore digital ignorance in efforts to improve patient communication.
Originality/value
This study provides insight into the importance of collaboration between professionals with varying experience of errors in digitalizing patient communication. Such collaboration is required to acknowledge own shortcomings and create complementary negative knowledge to improve digital patient communication. This is particularly important when working with innovative digitalization in health care.
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This paper presents an exploratory case study on the impact of user-oriented digitalization on records management in the Norwegian public sector. The purpose of this study is to…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper presents an exploratory case study on the impact of user-oriented digitalization on records management in the Norwegian public sector. The purpose of this study is to identify some of the opportunities and issues that may arise for records management professionals, case workers and citizens.
Design/methodology/approach
The concept of administrative burdens and how user-oriented design can reduce or increase them is the main theoretical focus. A series of five interviews with records management professionals from five municipalities and three with IT staff members from two larger state institutions served as the primary source for this qualitative case study in conjunction with a literature review. The interviews were conducted in a semistructured format with a general interview guide.
Findings
Smaller municipalities lack the resources of larger state institutions, and they do not involve users in the same extent, even though their records management professionals strive for user-orientation. The work with directly involving users appears to vary in larger institutions, where resources must still be properly prioritized. Reducing administrative burdens is vital for user-oriented design, but digitizing services often increases them, so service delivery must consider the benefits of local, in-person guidance in relation to wholly digital services.
Originality/value
While much research has been conducted in Norway on digitalization, little has been done to examine the implications for records management work or the public’s use of records. By identifying some key concerns, this paper hopes to serve as a springboard for further research in these areas.
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Gülşen Kirpik and Berrin Filizöz
With the pandemic and digital developments, digital transformation has begun in Human Resources Management (HRM). Applications such as robotic applications, information…
Abstract
With the pandemic and digital developments, digital transformation has begun in Human Resources Management (HRM). Applications such as robotic applications, information technology, IIoT, Industry 4.0 have led to a decrease in the need for human resources (HR) and an increase in the need for skilled workers. Along with this need, new-collar, digital-collar, cyber-collar, and metal-collar employee types have been added to the distinction between blue-collar and white-collar. To adapt to Industry 4.0 and to survive the pandemic process, businesses have also met the digitalization process very quickly and almost unpreparedly. In this context, the HRM of the businesses has started to experience digital transformation. With the digitalization of HR processes, digital conflicts have also emerged. Conflict management problems arising from digital transformation and the pandemic process, health problems, and cyber-attacks due to remote working have become one of the most important problems of the digital age. In this chapter, the issue of digital conflicts in HRM is discussed. In this context, first of all, the concept of digital conflict is included. Then, Industry 4.0, information technology and HR, the impact of information systems on digitalization and HR, digital transformation in HRM, opportunities, and threats arising from digitalization, and HR conflict management problems in the COVID-19 pandemic, collar change of employees during the pandemic, possible problems that may arise after the pandemic, future predictions, and strategic principles are mentioned.
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Satu Pekkarinen, Mervi Hasu, Helinä Melkas and Eveliina Saari
The purpose of this paper is to examine and reinterpret information ecology in the context of the changing environment of services, which has been strongly affected by…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine and reinterpret information ecology in the context of the changing environment of services, which has been strongly affected by digitalisation and increasing citizen engagement. Here, information ecology refers to the interaction and co-evolution of technologies, human beings and the social environment.
Design/methodology/approach
The data consist of 25 thematic interviews conducted in a public Finnish organisation responsible for organising welfare services, and in its collaborating organisations. The interviews were analysed qualitatively. The analytical framework is based on Nardi and O'Day's five components of information ecology: system, diversity, co-evolution, keystone species and locality.
Findings
The analysis shows that these basic components still exist in the digitalisation era, but that they should be interpreted and highlighted differently, for example, stressing the openness of the information system instead of closed systems, as well as emphasising the increasing meaning of diversity amongst digitalisation, and the dynamic co-evolution between the elements of the system. New capabilities, such as the ability to combine various kinds of information and knowledge, are needed in this adaptation.
Research limitations/implications
The study illustrates a wider, updated information-ecology concept with the help of empirical research. Technology affects care organisations' information ecologies in numerous – often invisible – ways, which this study brings into light.
Originality/value
So far, information-ecology research has overlooked social and healthcare, but this study provides findings concerning this societally important sector.
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Timurs Umans, Martin Kockum, Elin Nilsson and Sofie Lindberg
The purpose of this paper is to explore how bankers perceive digitalisation relating to their subjective well-being. The paper seeks to further explore how this relation is…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how bankers perceive digitalisation relating to their subjective well-being. The paper seeks to further explore how this relation is contingent on the aspect of structural organisation represented by the concept of individualist/collectivist organisational culture.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on the survey distributed to employees of 18 bank offices in the south of Sweden, which 161 employees answered. The analysis of the data was performed by descriptive statistics, principle component analysis, Pearson correlations, multiple linear and moderating multiple linear regression analyses.
Findings
The study indicates that bankers’ experience digitalisation as a four-faceted construct: a tool for information management, and work optimisation, customer relation management and as a change agent. The study suggests that the use of digital tools for work optimisation has a positive relation to the work- related dimensions of subjective well-being as well as a spillover effect on the life balance and life satisfaction dimensions. It also indicates that the information management dimension has a positive relation to the life satisfaction aspect of subjective well-being. Finally, the study found that increasing the degree of collectivist organisation culture has a positive moderating effect on the relation between the use of digital tools for work optimisation and life balance and subjective well-being, respectively.
Originality/value
The study reveals a new way of operationalising digitalisation in banks and is the first study of its type to explore the relationship between digitalisation different facets and banker subjective well-being.
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