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The purpose and theoretical contributions of this paper are to improve current knowledge on culture's role in firms' digital transformation, as well as to identify and add a cultural “digital maturity” lens to well-known, already actionable frameworks for the digital transformation of firms.

To increase current knowledge on culture's role in firms' digital transformation, as well as to identify and add a cultural “digital maturity” lens to well-known and actionable frameworks for the digital transformation of firms, a multi-step approach was chosen, including both literature reviews as well as a qualitative study of one company case.

Early generations of digital transformation frameworks, mainly from the field of information systems (IS), did not take into consideration firms' culture. More recent research in the fields of management and organization, however, emphasizes the role of culture and key cultural attributes favorable for a digital transformation. By integrating key findings on digital transformation from these research fields, a multi-disciplinary framework could be presented, allowing any organization to plan, organize and monitor a digital transformation from three essential lenses: technical (processes and actions for transforming), social (transformation of norms and behavior) and macro (transformation of the perception of the outside world).

Only one case study was included in this study. The developed multi-disciplinary framework needs to be tested in more cases.

Practitioners can use the new integrated framework above for evaluating the conditions for, and the progression of a digital transformation, by using the developed framework and by applying the three lenses.

The paper contributes a new multi-disciplinary integrated framework for the digital transformation of enterprises and a further understanding of the impact of culture in the transformation of the firm.

The digitization process has increased the pressure on large firms to transform. However, current frameworks on digital transformation are not well explaining what factors contribute to, or hinder, a firm's digital transformation. Innovation diffusion theories could complement existing frameworks, and for this reason, the purpose of this paper is to expand the existing body of knowledge on what contributes to, or hinders, an industrial firm's digital transformation by applying a validated framework based on innovation diffusion theories on two pioneer cases: General Electric and Siemens EHR/Health Services.

The framework used in this paper is based on several years' empirical studies and iterative literature reviews on innovation diffusion theories. Further, each use case is based on literature reviews and unique empirical data, collected by the authors of this paper as a result of taking active part of respective company's multi-years transformation.

Common drivers of, and clear inhibitors to the two firms' transformation, were identified. The innovation diffusion framework was found to work very well in identifying those factors.

The implications are that researchers better can analyze/explain a digital transformation of a firm, and business managers can better plan or improve their firms' transformation processes.

The theoretical contributions of this paper are two: first, complement existing frameworks with a validated framework for innovation diffusion; second, provide an extension of our body of knowledge on factors that contributes to, or hinders, industrial firm's digital transformation.

Digital transformation continues to rapidly progress in higher education globally, spanning all aspects of higher education operations, values and culture. Despite expanding literature, guidance remains focussed on emergency application during pandemic lockdowns and/or on single organisational case studies. Digital transformation frameworks that move beyond these foci are heavily criticised for being commercially contextualised (outside of higher education) and are often too narrowly conceptualised. The purpose of this paper is to review the most common framework currently used in the UK, which takes a strategic and organisational perspective on digital transformation.

This is a technical review article that summarises key guidance for organisational digital capability and then reflects on its application in the UK (a developed economy and higher education system) and in Vietnam (one of the fastest-growing economies with a developing higher education committed to digital transformation) as an initial attempt to explore its applicability beyond the UK context. Vietnam has been chosen as a reference context, given its significant current digital transformation policy reform at the national level and as a collaboration partner with the UK in its digital transformation.

The guidance highlights six core areas to consider for digital capability: information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure, content and information, research and innovation, communication, learning, teaching and assessment and organisational digital culture. Although the framework is normative, findings suggest it is sufficiently open-ended to enable its users to determine practical steps to drive digital transformation. However, complementary tools are suggested to deal with the rapidly developing digital transformation policy context of Vietnam.

This is the first time a review has been conducted from the perspective of different countries, with a view to supporting leaders, managers and policymakers in the UK, Vietnam and other Association of South Eastern Nations (ASEAN) networks in their own digital transformation transitions.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the latest digital transformation (DT) technological trends the university library can use to provide library users with alternative educational services. AI can foster intelligent decisions for retrieving and sharing information for learning and research. However, extant literature confirms a low adoption rate by the university libraries in using AI to provide innovative alternative services, as this is missing in their strategic plan. The research develops (AI-LSICF) an artificial intelligence library services innovative conceptual framework to provide new insight into how AI technology can be used to deliver value-added innovative library services to achieve digital transformation. It will also encourage library and information professionals to adopt AI to complement effective service delivery.

This study adopts a qualitative content analysis to investigate extant literature on how AI adoption fosters innovative services in various organisations. The study also used content analysis to generate possible solutions to aid AI service innovation and delivery in university libraries.

This study uses its findings to develop an Artificial Intelligence Library Services Innovative Conceptual Framework (AI-LSICF) by integrating AI applications and functions into the digital transformation framework elements and discussed using a service innovation framework.

In research, AI-LSICF helps increase an understanding of AI by presenting new insights into how the university library can leverage technology to actualise innovation in service provision to foster DT. This trail will be valuable to scholars and academics interested in addressing the application pathways of AI library service innovation, which is still under-explored in digital transformation.

In practice, AI-LSICF could reform the information industry from its traditional brands into a more applied and resolutely customer-driven organisation. This reformation will awaken awareness of how librarians and information professionals can leverage technology to catch up with digital transformation in this age of the fourth industrial revolution.

The enlightenment of AI-LSICF will motivate library professionals to take advantage of AI's potential to enhance their current business model and achieve a unique competitive advantage within their community.

AI-LSICF development serves as a revelation, motivating university libraries and information professionals to consider AI in their strategic plan to enable technology to support university education. This act will enable alternative service delivery in the face of unforeseen circumstances like technological disruption and the present global COVID-19 pandemic that requires non-physical interaction.

The research aims to investigate how firms can develop their sensing capabilities for Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technology adoption through reframing their opportunity perceptions related to learnings from I4.0 initiatives.

The research follows a design science research approach. Following the case of I4.0 technology introduction at a large food manufacturer, the paper develops a theoretical framework (artefact) and validates the applicability and efficacy of the framework within the case study.

The theoretical framework highlights the different temporal (short-term/long-term) and locational (direct/indirect) value dimensions of I4.0 opportunities. The findings show that the use of the framework can shift managers’ perception regarding the business value of an I4.0 technology implementation. Specifically, the framework reversed initially negative perceptions around a narrowly scoped business case towards an opportunity-oriented attitude exploring further potentials of the technology.

The research adds to the debate when and why firms engage in, and sustain their I4.0 initiatives by providing a novel perspective on firms’ sensing capabilities. As a single-case study, the framework requires further validation in practice.

The proposed framework provides practitioners with an extended view concerning the potential value of digital transformation projects and serves as a conversational tool.

The presented wider frame for evaluating digital transformation projects, taking into account the more “intangible” value of their learnings, tackles the fundamental issue of translating explorative innovation efforts into exploitative value – a key challenge when dealing with innovation and one of the main barriers for the digital transformation.

Business has a critical part to play in transforming the global economy and society to achieve sustainable development. Many granular sustainability accounting and management tools have been offered. To systematize these piecemeal developments, this paper aims to develop a framework for analysis of the potential role of sustainability management accounting (SMA). The key challenge addressed is how SMA could be extended to support future-oriented, long-term, pro-active management of multiple issues to contribute towards strong sustainable development at the macro-economy level.

This conceptual paper examines SMA within a multi-level, context-action-transformation framework which can move organizations and society towards sustainability. Based on normative stakeholder theory, including concern for mainstreaming marginalized stakeholders, the paper discusses the role of SMA and how it can contribute necessary information to sustainable development of the company and beyond its boundaries.

Guided by a SMA framework linking context, action and transformation and normative stakeholder theory, which considers all stakeholders, the paper shows how the present lack of progress towards macro-level sustainable development can be addressed. This requires a focus on measuring and assessing positive impacts and forward-looking, long-term and proactive management of multiple sustainability issues as typified by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The paper distinguishes between two aspects of SMA – a focus on reducing unsustainability and a focus on transformations towards sustainability. It is observed that there is insufficient emphasis on the latter at present if SMA is to provide comprehensive support to achieving the SDGs. A set of supportive tools is presented as a guide to practice and future developments.

The paper considers how SMA can enable and support transformations towards sustainability at the macro- and meso-level. Different transformational challenges and opportunities are discussed. In particular, the need to balance consideration of time, proactivity and multiplicity, as highlighted in the SDGs, is identified as the central way forward for SMA.

Increasing global competition, free trade agreements, low cost foreign labor, and customer expectations are causing manufacturing enterprises to implement aggressive transformation plans. Should these transformations be incremental or enterprise‐wide? This paper aims to address the question by developing a Lean Enterprise Architecture (LEA) concept for an enterprise‐wide transformation.

The LEA is an architectural framework for enterprise reengineering in the design, construction, integration, and implementation of a lean enterprise using systems engineering methods. The architecture uses a multiphase approach structured on the transformation life cycle phases.

Viewing lean implementation across the entire enterprise minimizes the possibility of overlooking opportunities for further performance improvement. A silo view of lean implementation may allow gaps in performance to persist, with no one assuming responsibility for the entire enterprise. Employing the principles of the LEA will help improve enterprise‐wide quality, on‐time delivery, and customer satisfaction by eliminating waste in the entire organization and supply chain.

Applications and benefits are cited in the paper, but additional case studies are needed to benchmark the performance of the LEA against incremental lean implementations.

The LEA was created for the US military aerospace industry, but it is now being adopted in other commercial sectors for major transformation designs.

The LEA is the first known integration of lean thinking, enterprise architectures, and systems engineering principles in a design framework for the transformation of an enterprise.

Digitalization denotes an on-going transformation of great importance for the retail sector. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the phenomenon of the digitalization of retailing by developing a conceptual framework that can be used to further delineate current transformations of the retailer-consumer interface.

This paper develops a framework for digitalization in the retail-consumer interface that consists of four elements: exchanges, actors, offerings, and settings. Drawing on the previous literature, it describes and exemplifies how digitalization transforms each of these elements and identifies implications and proposals for future research.

Digitalization transforms the following: retailing exchanges (in a number of ways and in various facets of exchange, including communications, transactions, and distribution); the nature of retail offerings (blurred distinctions between products and services, what constitutes the actual offering and how it is priced); retail settings (i.e. where and when retailing takes place); and the actors who participate in retailing (i.e. retailers and consumers, among other parties).

The framework developed can be used to further delineate current transformations of retailing due to digitalization. The current transformation has created challenges for research, as it demands sensitivity to development over time and insists that categories that have been taken for granted are becoming increasingly blurred due to greater hybridity.

This paper addresses a significant and on-going transformation in retailing and develops a framework that can both guide future research and aid retail practitioners in analysing retailing’s current transformation due to digitalization.

Failure in engaging shop floor employees (including supervisory staff) in lean, lacking of supervisory skills in leading workers and lacking of lean technical knowhow among the shop floor employees are some of the major obstacles in lean transformation. One of the reasons of inefficient lean transformation is the shortages in frameworks or plans in implementing lean. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the shortfalls in the current lean implementation frameworks.

The frameworks were analysed according to the following criteria: first, “What” is the approach of lean implementation, i.e. top-down or bottom-up; second, “How” to implement lean (description of steps or sequences of lean implementation along the lean journey); third, “Why” – the reason of adoption of the proposed lean tools, techniques or practices (thereafter TTPs) in each phase of lean implementation; and fourth, “Who” are the targeted internal stakeholders to use or apply the lean TTPs that were proposed in the frameworks.

Most of the current available lean frameworks were prone to top-down approach but not bottom-up. Improvement initiatives from the shop floor employees were often overlooked by researchers. In proposing their frameworks, most of the researchers have neglected the importance of “Why” aspect in the adoption of TTPs or the framework itself without giving the “reason” for each of the elements in lean implementation. Besides the aspects of “What” and “How”, the mentioned “Why” aspect is important in contributing to capability building among the shop floor employees in carrying out improvement, problem-solving or waste elimination activities. The aspect of “Who should carry out which lean TTP” was somewhat not emphasised by most of the lean researchers. In addition, the current frameworks were prone to “one-best-way” approach with lacking of contingency sense, which is one of the common criticisms against Lean Production System.

This paper provides a critical view on the shortfalls of current lean implementation frameworks, and proposes an insight of new criteria for future research in analysing and proposing new lean implementation framework towards lean transformation.

Customer transformation is currently overlooked in service research. This article aims to conceptualize customer transformation and develop a research agenda to encourage more exploration in this area.

This conceptual article builds on the literature on transformation and related topics in psychology, sociology, education and anthropology.

The presented definition of customer transformation distinguishes itself from other related concepts such as minor change. The research agenda, structured around five themes, reveals four distinctive attributes of customer transformation that warrant academic investigation. These include the inability of businesses to guarantee transformations, the potential tension between transformational aspirations and immediate needs and well-being, the imperative of cultivating long-term engagement and the likelihood of encountering customer resistance. This highlights the criticality of embracing a customer-centric approach in transformational services.

Given the vastness of the topic, the literature review is limited and the research agenda could be widened. Furthermore, the dynamic nature of the subject introduces the possibility that the conceptual framework and research agenda may become outdated. Lastly, the universal applicability of the findings and the proposed conceptual framework are uncertain, necessitating potential validation across diverse contexts. The practical implications may also fall short of addressing the specific challenges encountered by different industries or businesses.

The article provides insights on customer transformation and strategies for businesses to support ongoing transformations, emphasizing personalized engagement and co-creating value to meet evolving customer aspirations.

The need for development and growth is more pressing and decisive than ever. This need is often not well understood and, as a result, is not addressed by either scholars or companies. This paper helps address that social need.

The research enriches the service literature by paving the way for a crucial subfield in service research. Additionally, it establishes a shared understanding of customer transformation by highlighting its distinct characteristics and analyzing their implications for service management, proposing a conceptual framework and research agenda.