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This paper explores the orchestration of digital innovation in Industry 4.0 organisations.

The study applies the activity theory to explorative multiple case studies. Observations of innovation activities in five business cases take place at two large international organisations.

The results underline five logics of action that drive digital innovation: (1) digital transformation, (2) technology translation, (3) catalyst agents, (4) digital thread and (5) empowerment. Further, the case study organisations highlight the importance of developing a sustainable culture capable of continuously adopting new technologies, processes and infrastructure that will allow the management of digital innovations.

The study empirically shows the motivations and challenges in orchestrating digital innovation in Industry 4.0 organisations.

The current era of the fourth industrial revolution has attracted significant research on the use of digital technologies in improving construction project delivery. However, less emphasis has been placed on how these digital tools will influence the management of the construction workforce. To this end, using a review of existing works, this chapter explores the fourth industrial revolution and its associated technologies that can positively impact the management of the construction workforce when implemented. Also, the possible challenges that might truncate the successful deployment of digital technologies for effective workforce management were explored. The chapter submitted that implementing workforce management-specific digital platforms and other digital technologies designed for project delivery can aid effective workforce management within construction organisations. Technologies such as cloud computing, the Internet of Things, big data analytics, robotics and automation, and artificial intelligence, among others, offer significant benefits to the effective workforce management of construction organisations. However, several challenges, such as resistance to change due to fear of job loss, cost of investment in digital tools, organisational structure and culture, must be carefully considered as they might affect the successful use of digital tools and by extension, impact the success of workforce management in the organisations.

Digital uptake amongst construction organisations is described as slow and ineffective, undermining a fundamental transformation and limiting construction firms from exploiting the digital benefits. In this space, meaningful research that utilises a qualitative approach in pursuit for employees' insights towards digital transformation is lacking. Such limited focus from previous efforts presents an opportunity to illuminate the determinants of an effective digital transformation that are, arguably, responsible for the status quo of low digital uptake in the construction sector. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned idea.

This study adopts a qualitative approach to address the literature's digital discreetness in construction. The qualitative approach captures employees' perspectives through its unbounded characteristic of encouraging illustration and discussion.

This paper captures 35 digital transformation determinants under three clusters, namely, organisation related, i.e. hierarchy, size and management, people related, i.e. team orientation, training and knowledge and leadership related, i.e. awareness, attitude, approach and leaders' characteristics. Findings suggest a new set of arguments in relation to understudied factors and their influence on the digital uptake in construction organisations.

This paper offers empirical indication of the determinants believed to influence an effective digital transformation in construction organisations. Such conceptualisation is crucial and is depicted as perceived by construction employees and practitioners, which is a less biased approach than that of comparable studies that argue the viewpoints of industry leaders in isolation of other members of the hierarchy.

The effects of the spread of COVID-19 across the world are devastating, both from a health and an economic perspective. However, we also see encouraging examples of collaborative and innovative initiatives, in society and in organizations. The purpose of this paper is to focus on initiatives related to digital business model innovation. The authors explore how organizational characteristics provide a variety of opportunities for digital responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and discuss the potential consequences for the speed of digital transformation in organizations and society.

In this paper, the authors analyze how organizations attempt to mitigate the negative effects of fighting COVID-19 using digital business model responses. The authors draw on a qualitative study where they have collected data from the retail and service industries. They have analyzed the data in relation to theory to better understand this ongoing phenomenon.

The authors have identified four categories of organizations (crisispreneurs, accelerators, endurers and thrivers). Each category faces different challenges and shows a different intensity in their digital transformation. The authors propose that the rapid turn toward digital business models will have enduring effects, as organizations have gained transformational capabilities that will remain, and that the digital trajectory has, as a result, changed forever.

The findings in this paper point toward new challenges for leaders and policymakers in terms of how to support initiatives and meet the needs of different categories of organizations while simultaneously being conscious of the potential societal effects of this rapid digital shift. The authors hope that this paper can be of value for managing this shock and learning how to adapt for the future taking certain aspects of current business models as the departure point.

Talking about smart cities also entails talking about new ways of mobility. Various concepts compete for reimagining future mobility, most prominently connected cars, robo taxis, and other forms of shared mobility. New digital technologies, changing customer requirements, but also new competitors are dynamically affecting previous market logics. To stay future-proof in this new world of mobility, the automotive sector, which is an important nucleus for developing such mobility solutions, is currently undergoing fundamental digital transformation processes. Established car manufacturers have to find their path to choose out of the many possibilities on the rise. Against this backdrop, they face the major challenge to find an answer to the question: Who are we and who do we want to be in the future? Therefore, we argue that organizations’ digital transformation is highly entangled with questions on organizational identity and discuss digital transformation as a potential identity threat for established organizations.

We begin this chapter by introducing the concept of organizational identity. Afterward, we will continue with applying it to the practical context of car manufacturers: After depicting the major trends of digitalization in the mobility and automotive sector, we will focus on the digital transformation processes of established automotive companies and discuss their impact on organizational identity. Empirical illustrations of the Volkswagen case depict our theoretical considerations.

We provide theoretical ideas for better understanding the impact of digital transformation on organizational identity, as well as suggestions for practitioners concerned with organizations’ digital transformation processes.

This paper refines the Digital Media–Arena (DMA) framework to address the diversity of stakeholders contributing to the production, (re)appropriation and (re)distribution of organisational messages in digital environments. It also presents a case analysis for the purpose of demonstrating the applicability of the revised conceptual framework to a critical situation.

Grounded in key public relations, corporate communication and strategic communication research, this study first extends the DMA framework by introducing six new forms of media-arenas. Next, the study takes a public sector perspective to analyse the revised framework against a critical situation involving the Finnish prime minister in summer 2022.

The application of the revised DMA framework to analyse the critical situation shows the importance of mapping and understanding diverse discourses across multi-arenas and their communication role in a rapidly unfolding scandal surrounding the prime minister of Finland. Findings also reveal the diversity of stakeholder voices forming their own versions of organisational messages and sometimes converging organisational messages within and across DMAs.

The DMA framework can offer practical suggestions to guide communicators to make strategic choices in what, where, how and with whom they can communicate.

The revised DMA framework contributes expanding the field's knowledge of the strategic communicative use of the digital environment in typically highly volatile and multi-vocal situations by offering instrumental understanding of the conflicting challenge between subjugating and liberating organisational messages across the digital spectrum.

Improving digital work experience is critical for the job performance of individuals and the competitiveness of organizations due to their increasing use. This paper investigates how organization support affects the digital work experience of individuals differently depending on their levels of information technology (IT) identity.

Drawing upon the IT identity literature and the conservation of resources (COR) theory, a conceptual model is developed, tested and validated using the data collected in Australia through an experimental design in which IT identity is manipulated.

This study reveals a nuanced impact of organization support on shaping digital work experience. Specifically, it finds that technical support is more effective in improving the digital work experience of individuals with a high level of IT identity, whereas well-being support is more effective in enhancing the digital work experience of individuals with a low level of IT identity.

This research contributes to the IT identity literature by introducing a novel experimental design to manipulate IT identity in the digital work context. It also contributes to the digital work literature by introducing a resource perspective for identifying well-being support, technical support and IT identity as the key resources in shaping digital work experience and calling for attention to IT identity as a boundary condition on the effectiveness of organization support. The findings can help organizations formulate better strategies and policies to improve digital work experience by providing tailored support to individuals with different levels of IT identity.

The purpose of this paper is to present a strategic management framework for a successful digital transformation (DT) roll-out aimed at enabling organisational resilience. The study aims to identify the critical areas of consideration for management to strategically approach DT in order to build resilience.

The research study is based on the 3Ps framework: (1) people (culture, capabilities, engagement and well-being), (2) processes (systems) and (3) plant (technological infrastructure and tools). The research methodology is a qualitative study comprising semi-structured in-depth interviews, conducted with industry experts in different sectors undergoing major digital disruptions such as financial services, mining, oil and gas, energy and retail.

The research findings show that the successful roll-out of an organisation’s DT is largely driven by the people elements incorporating organisational culture, workforce skills and training and employee well-being. It also highlights that it is critical for organisations to invest in technological infrastructure, once the people elements have been addressed, as they are the drivers of technology implementation.

A bigger and broader sample size can validate the elements and structure of the DT framework in South Africa.

The study’s discussion unlocks understanding about: (1) what are the key enablers for successful DT; (2) what hinders organisations from realising the value of digital investments and (3) a strategic framework for the digital roll-out.

Technology is impacting employees at both a personal and professional levels. Ensuring that DT rollouts are strategical implemented lowers the impact on technostress and strengthens resilience.

The value and practical implication of this study is that the developed strategic framework can be used by managements to enable the smooth adoption of DT toward building organisational resilience in developing countries such as South Africa with low digital maturity.

Digitalisation, which involves the use of digital technologies in transforming an organisation’s activities, transcends just the acquiring of emerging digital tools. Having the right people to drive the implementation of these technologies and attaining strategic organisational goals is essential. While most studies have focused on the use of emerging technologies in the construction industry, less attention has been given to the ‘people’ dimension. Therefore, this study aims to assess the people-related features needed for construction digitalisation.

The study adopted pragmatic thinking using a mixed-method approach. A Delphi was used to achieve the qualitative aspect of the research, while a questionnaire survey conducted among 222 construction professionals was used to achieve the quantitative aspect. The data gathered were analysed using frequency, percentage, mean item score, Kruskal–Wallis H test, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis.

Based on acceptable reliability, validity and model fit indices, the study found that the people-related factors needed for construction digitalisation can be grouped into technical capability of personnel, attracting and retaining digital talent and organisation’s digital culture.

The findings offer valuable benefits to construction organisations as understanding these identified people features can help lead to better deployment of digital tools and the attainment of the digital transformation.

This study attempts to fill the gap in the shortage of literature exploring the people dimension of construction digitalisation. The study offers an excellent theoretical backdrop for future works on digital talent for construction digitalisation, which has gained less attention in the current construction digitalisation discourse.

The purpose of this study was threefold: to trace the extent to which digital transformation strategies are being implemented in organizations; to statistically measure, validate, predict and examine how digital leaders perceive a synthesized digital transformation model (DTM); and to explore whether leaders with different demographic characteristics perceive the DTM similarly.

The study authors surveyed 778 leaders/managers from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to assess the synthetized DTM consisting of four dimensions and nine perception constructs that represent how leaders manage employees in a digital environment. The survey questions were adapted from the 2014 Westerman leading digital book published in Harvard business press.

The general findings revealed that UAE organizations that were already in the digital transformation stage before COVID-19 reacted and responded extremely quickly to speed up the implementation of their respective digital transformation strategies. We concluded that our proposed and synthetized DTM is valid and predictable, and can be adapted to trace the stages of digital transformation by leaders. A positive relationship was found between the DTM’s four dimensions and their related constructs as perceived by the leaders, regardless of differences in their demographic characteristics.

The synthesized digital transformation model is unique in that the authors believe there is no other research that purports to synthesize, validate and correlate using the digital transformation campus dimensions and its related constructs, reflecting leaders' perceptions toward adopting this campus. As well, this is the first UAE study to explore and compare the perspectives of leaders on their digital practices after COVID-19 in a country that has an established IT infrastructure.