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The purpose of this paper is to identify the potential and the challenges for different firms in adopting an AI-first strategy. The study attempts to discern if any company can prioritize AI at the forefront of their strategic plans.

Drawing from illustrative examples from well-known AI-leaders like Netflix and Spotify, as well as from upcoming AI startups and industry incumbents, the paper explores the strategic role of AI in core business processes and customer value creation. It also discusses the advent and implications of generative AI tools since late 2022 to firms’ business strategies.

The authors identify three types of AI-first strategies, depending on firms’ starting points: digital tycoon, niche carver and asset augmenter. The authors discuss how each strategy can aim to achieve data, algorithmic and execution advantages, and what the strategic bottlenecks and risks are within each strategy.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to systematically describe how companies can form “AI-first” strategies from different starting points. This study includes actionable examples from known industry players to more emerging startups and industrial incumbents.

The success of SMEs' financial and market performance (MAP) depends on the firms' level of blockchain technology adoption (BCA) and identifying the crucial antecedents that influence SMEs' adoption. Therefore, this research attempts to develop an integrated model to understand and predict the determinants of BCA and its effect on SMEs' performance. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.

The theoretical foundations are the technology–organization –environment (TOE) framework and the resource-based view (RBV) perspective. The authors distributed a survey to SMEs in South Africa and received 311 responses. The covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) followed by the artificial neural network (ANN) technique was used for the data analysis.

The SEM results showed that SMEs' relative advantage, compatibility, top management support (TMS), organizational readiness (ORD), competitive pressures (COP), external support, regulations and legislation significantly influence SMEs' BCA. However, complexity negatively impacts SMEs' BCA. The analysis results also revealed that SMEs' BCA significantly influences the financial performance of the firms, followed by MAP. Furthermore, model determinants were input to an ANN modeling. The ANN results showed that TMS is the most critical predictor of SMEs' BCA, followed by ORD, COP, external support, and regulations and legislation.

The results provide valuable information for SMEs when maneuvering their adoption strategies in the scope of blockchain technology. Additionally, from the perspective of an emerging market, the study has successfully contributed the TOE framework and the RBV.

This study is the first work to explore the determinants of BCA in the context of SMEs from a developing country. This paper is also one pioneer in attempts to develop a causal and predictive statistical model for predicting the determinants of BCA in SMEs' performance.

Digital transformation (DT) harnessing the potential of emerging technology creates opportunities and challenges for organizations worldwide. Senior executives view DT as a key initiative for future competitiveness, a view shared by academic researchers. What may challenge the organization is that the vision may be present while preparedness may be lacking. Organizational preparedness depends on managers and employees charged with implementing DT and their perceptions on preparedness are often not aligned with senior executives.

In this research, the authors explore the perceptions of managers and employees on DT preparedness in an organization by gathering data from 579 participants. This study uses an innovative approach to qualitative data analysis using interactive topic modeling.

Findings in this qualitative study provide valuable insights on the perceptions of these individuals and helps understand (a) how they view DT preparedness and (b) may behave in this context. In general DT is well understood, however managers are not keen to change work processes to take advantage of the new digital tools and there appears that generational gap is a barrier to successful DT.

Senior executives play a central role communicating the DT vision necessary to inspire managers and employees. As organizations continue to invest large sums of money to explore value creation for customers and stakeholders by leveraging digital technologies, the information systems (IS) discipline can take the lead by asking the question, what can be done to improve the understanding of DT implementation in an organization?