[AISWorld] Call for Papers for the Topical Collection in the 'Journal of Knowledge Economy' on 'Digital Transfomation and Disruption'

[Loukis Euripides]

Dear Colleagues

Please forward to all members of the AIS list the following message concerning the Call for Papers our the Topical Collection in the 'Journal of Knowledge Economy' on 'Digital Transfomation and Disruption':


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


We are are sending you in the following paragraphs the Call for Papers of the Topical Collection in the 'Journal of Knowledge Economy' (Social Sciences Citation Index) on 'Digital Transformation and Disruption', which we are editing (Prof. Dr Euripidis Loukis, Prof. Dr Marijn Janssen, Dr. Nitesh Bharosa) - the deadline for submitting the first papers of this Topical Collection is May 1st 2021


Firms have initially used digital technologies in order to develop information systems to automate or support their existing business processes for producing their established products and services, aiming mainly to reduce cost and increase efficiency. However, gradually it was realized that much more benefits could be generated by exploiting the digital technologies for making valuable innovations in firms’ business processes, products and services, and even in their business models. Firms have started exploiting these innovative features and capabilities of the digital technologies, initially in a smaller scale and later in a larger scale, and this leads to substantial ‘digital transformation’ of them (Matt et al., 2015; Vial, 2019). Digital transformation can be defined as a substantial change of firm’s processes, sales channels, customer experience generation, marketing, products, services, business models as well as supply chains’ operations, by leveraging digital technologies, usually in combination with other firm’s resources and capabilities. Organizational transformation often results in important digital transformations at the market level in many sectors, changing the main axes of competition and the business models, as well as the structure of these sectors. The organizational transformations can result in market-level disruptions, which drive disruptions in other markets connected to them, and finally disruptions at the societal level. Digital disruption means that the digital technologies drive changes in traditional market in such a way that traditional, often large and powerful players’ roles are diminished, and taken over by new players who often do not have the legacy, but do have considerable financial resources, ICT-capabilities and the ability to collaborate with other players to create attractive value proposition.



The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) (Nord et al., 2019), combined with big data (Chong and Shi, 2015) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) (Duan et al., 2019), offer new opportunities for digital transformation and disruption in many sectors. Whereas IoT offers the sensors to collect data and to intervene in the system, advances in processing power, memory and analysis techniques have enabled the opportunity to process the data, and generate innovations and business value from them (enabling unique applications, such as automatic driving, identifying fraud, and predicting selling). Especially AI enables leveraging firm’s data, both from the ‘traditional’ sources (such as internal enterprise and e-commerce systems) and the ‘new’ ones (such as social media and IoT), in order to support decision making, and introduce innovations in internal operations, increasing their efficiency, as well as in firm’s products, services and sales channels, resulting in extensive digital transformations (Duan et al., 2019; Loureiro et al., 2020). In general, the continuous emergence and evolution of new digital technologies (e.g., social, mobile, cloud, IoT, business analytics, AI, blockchain, etc.) provides new opportunities for significant digital transformations and disruptions.

Although the idea is simple, digital transformation is a complex undertaking, as it requires extensive co-operation between firm’s ICT unit and business units of all functions, significant changes in skills, mindsets and culture, as well as leadership and strategy, and very often faces resistances to the big changes it gives rise to. Furthermore, transformation is also a risky undertaking, as there have been significant failures of such transformation efforts with severe consequences. There are many examples of successful innovators who failed to sustain their innovations, such as Polaroid, Netscape, Xerox, Nokia, Blockbuster, and MCI WorldCom. Pisano (2015) suggests that digital innovation strategy (or the lack of it) determines the success or failure, and identifies four strategies: routine innovation, disruptive innovation, radical innovation and architectural innovation.

While digital transformation initially was attempted in private sector firms, government organizations have started as well taking advantage of the digital technologies for making transformations of important functions of them, concerning their internal operations, their interaction and collaboration with the society, and the provision of services to citizens and firms (Mergel et al., 2019).

Digital transformation efforts of bigger and smaller firms of various sectors and government organizations in different national contexts need to be analyzed to create a knowledge base in this area, which can be useful for improving the effectiveness of future efforts and projects in this direction. A stage-wise approach and different dynamic capabilities might be needed for realizing digital transformations (Klievink & Janssen, 2009; Vial, 2019). Firms in order to be successful in their long digital transformation journey (as environmental changes and new digital technologies continuously drive new digital transformations) might have to develop ‘ambidexterity’ (O’Reilly III and Tushman, 2013) capabilities: become capable i) on one hand ‘exploring’ new opportunities of using digital technologies (both traditional and emerging ones) in order to make valuable transformations of important elements of them (such as their processes, products, services and sales channels); and ii) on the other hand ‘exploiting’ (assimilating and continuously improving the maturity and efficiency of) previous digital transformations. Which paths result in successful digital transformation and disruption is yet not known, so it is necessary to analyze both success and failure stories in order to gain a deeper understanding and knowledge on this.

Furthermore, the recent spread of COVID-19 necessitated extensive social distancing, which gave rise to ICT-based tele-working and changes in firms’ internal business processes, as well as the development of electronic sales’ changes, so it became an important driver or accelerator of firms’ digital transformation (Papagiannidis et al., 2020).

At the same time digital technologies drive in many sectors significant ‘digital disruptions’ (Bower and Christensen, 1995; Christensen, 1997; Christensen, 2006; Christensen, Raynor and McDonald, 2015). They usually start with the entry of new firms in the sector, which initially offer simpler and lower-cost products and services, and target the ‘lower end’ of the market, making extensive use of digital technologies (such as Internet, e-business, social media, work-flow and decision making automation, etc.). However, these new simpler and lower cost offerings are gradually improved in many aspects. Maintaining their initial advantages (simplicity and low-cost), they might be able to gain increasing market share, posing substantial threats to existing players (taking significant market shares from incumbents, reducing their sales and profitability). Digital disruption refers to a process whereby a smaller company with fewer resources is able to successfully challenge established incumbent firms, leveraging digital technologies extensively (Christensen, Raynor and McDonald, 2015). As incumbents focus on improving their products and services for their most demanding and usually most profitable customers (the ‘higher end’ and the ‘mainstream’ of the market), they satisfy the needs of some segments, but at the same time, they ignore the needs of other segments (usually the most price-sensitive ones). This allows new entrants to successfully target those overlooked segments, gaining a small market share initially by delivering simpler offerings, with more-suitable capabilities and lower price. Incumbents, chasing higher profitability in more-demanding market segments, tend not to respond vigorously, as lower-end segments are less profitable. Then the above new entrants (capitalizing on the experience and the profits they have gained) tend to improve their offerings and move upmarket, delivering a higher-level performance acceptable by incumbents’ mainstream customers, while preserving the advantages that drove their early success, as well as the lower prices. The mainstream customers gradually adopt the entrants’ offerings in volume, and this causes extensive disruption in the sector, reducing incumbents’ sales and market shares.

In other sectors, another pattern of digital disruption appears, initiated by larger firms, which are entering and disrupting other sectors different from their initial ones, based on their large size and R&D budgets that give them the investment capabilities needed to succeed. For instance, entrants, like Tesla, have caused big digital disruption in the automotive industry. The transformation here is not only the introduction of fully electric cars, but also the introduction of self-driving/auto pilot cars. Tesla started out by targeting the high-end sports cars segment (most profitable/high margins), and later, they focused on executive/business drivers (still high-end market segment). Then with a new model, they hope to gain market share in the mainstream segment of the market. Therefore, it is interesting and useful to analyze such digital disruptions in various sectors and national contexts, from the perspectives of the initiating firms, as well as the other already established firms, the sector and the society in general.

This Topical Collection aims to publish high quality papers investigating different aspects of digital transformation and digital disruption, which improve our understanding of these high highly important phenomena for our economies and societies. We promote a diversity of research methods, including case studies, quantitative and qualitative research, literature reviews, theoretical contributions, etc. The deadline for submitting the first papers of this Topical Collection is May 1st 2021. An indicative list of topics of interest for this Topical Collection appears below (but it is by no means exhaustive):

-  Description and analysis of firms’ and government agencies’ digital transformation initiatives and projects (both successful and failed)

-  Digital transformation content, focus, drivers, motivations, challenges and problems

- Enablers for digital transformation: ICT based innovations that allow for partial or full business process reengineering.

-   Needs for new skills, mindsets and cultural changes – analysis of resistances to change

- Digital transformation impact at firm level (e.g. on efficiency, performance, value proposition, employment) as well as at sectoral level (e.g. on the axes of competition, on the structure of sectors, on the degree of market consolidation/fragmentation)

-  COVID-19-driven digital transformation

-  Dynamic capabilities, ambidexterity and digital transformation

-  Cross sectoral digital transformation: innovations that spill over the traditional borders of sectors (e.g. health, banking, insurance), and allow service/product providers from one sector to offer services/products in other sectors.

-   Information-based, user-generated content and social media disrupting sectors

-   Theoretical frameworks for studying digital transformation

-   Analysis of digital disruption in various sectoral and national contexts, from the perspectives of the initiating firms, and the incumbents, as well as from sectoral and societal perspectives

-   Digital disruptors’ differentiation and business models’ innovations.

-   Initiation, evolution and stages of digital disruptions

-   Incumbents reaction strategies, directions and frameworks

-  Impact of digital disruptions at firm level (on firms’ value propositions, processes, technologies and personnel)

-   Impact of digital disruption at sectoral level (structural changes of existing sectors, changes in the distribution of sales and power, blurring of sectors’ boundaries, creation of new sectors

-    Impact of digital disruption at society level (e.g. on employment as well as unemployment, on demand for various types of skills)

-   Digital disruption success and failure factors

-   Theoretical frameworks for studying digital disruption

-   Comparative case studies at sectoral and organizational level

-   ΙοΤ, big data, AI and digital transformation and disruption



References

Bower, J. L., and Christensen, C. M. (1995). Disruptive technologies: Catching the wave. Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb, 43–53.

Chong, D. and Shi, H. (2015). Big data analytics: a literature review. Journal of Management Analytics, 2(3), 175-201.

Christensen, C. M. (1997). The innovator’s dilemma: When new technologies cause great firms to fail. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Christensen, C. M. (2006). The ongoing process of building a theory of disruption. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 23(1), 39–55.

Christensen, C. M., Raynor, M., and McDonald, R. (2015). What is Disruptive Innovation. Harvard Business Review, Dec., 44–53.

Duan, Y., Edwards, J. S., Dwivedi, Y. K. (2019). Artificial intelligence for decision making in the era of Big Data – evolution, challenges and research agenda. International Journal of Information Management 48, 63–71.

Klievink, B., & Janssen, M. (2009). Realizing joined-up government—Dynamic capabilities and stage models for transformation. Government Information Quarterly, 26(2), 275-284.

Loureiro, S. M. C., Guerreiro, j. and Tussyadiah, I. (2020). Artificial intelligence in business: State of the art and future research agenda. Journal of Business Research (in-press)

Matt, C., Hess, T., and Benlian, A. (2015). Digital Transformation Strategies. Business Information Systems Engineering, 57(5), 339–343.

Mergel, I., Edelmann, N., Haug, N. (2019). Defining digital transformation: Results from expert interviews. Government Information Quarterly, 36(4), Article 101385.

Nord, J. H., Koohang, A. and Paliszkiewicz, J. (2019). The Internet of Things: Review and theoretical framework. Expert Systems with Applications, 133(1), 97-108.

O'Reilly III, C. A. and Tushman, M. L. (2013). Organizational Ambidexterity: Past, Present, and Future. Academy of Management Perspectives, 27(4), 324-338.

Papagiannidis, S., Harris, J. and Morton, D. (2020). Who led the digital transformation of your company? A reflection of IT related challenges during the pandemic. International Journal of Information Management, .

Pisano, G. P. (2015, Jun). You need an Innovation Strategy. Harvard Business Review, 93(6), 44-54.

Vial, G. (2019). Understanding digital transformation: A review and a research agenda.  Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 28, 118-144.

Guest Editors’ CVs

Prof. Dr. Euripidis Loukis is Full Professor of Information Systems and Decision Support Systems at the Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering, University of the Aegean, Greece. Previously he has taught at the Postgraduate Program’ Athens MBA’ of the National Technical University of Athens and the Athens University of Economics and Business, at the postgraduate program of the National Academy of Public Administration, and at the University of Thessaly. Also, he has been Information Systems Advisor at the Ministry to the Presidency of the Government of Greece, and National Representative of Greece in the programs ‘Telematics’ and ‘IDA’ (Interchange of Data between Administrations) of the European Union. He has conducted extensive research in the areas of ICT adoption, business value and impact, decision support systems, e-government and e-participation, and participated in numerous European and national research programs in these areas. He is the author of more than 200 papers in international journals and conferences in the above areas. His papers have been honored with prestigious international awards, such as the ‘International Award’ of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) - Controls and Diagnostics, the ‘Best Paper Award’ of the European and Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems, and the ‘Most Innovative Research Contribution Award’ of the IFIP EGOV-EPART Conference. More information:

www.icsd.aegean.gr/icsd_en/prosopiko/members.php?category=dep&member=46<http://www.icsd.aegean.gr/icsd_en/prosopiko/members.php?category=dep&member=46>



Prof. Dr Marijn Janssen is a Full Professor in ICT & Governance in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) research group of the Technology, Policy and Management Faculty of Delft University of Technology. His research is focused on ICT-architecting in situations in which multiple public and private organizations need to collaborate, in which ICT plays an enabling role, there are various ways to proceed, and socio-technical solutions are constrained by organizational realities and political wishes.  ICT-architecting provides principles, patterns and other instruments to guide organizations to design their infrastructure, applications, information, processes and organizations. He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Government Information Quarterly, conference chair of IFIP EGOV series and is chairing mini-tracks at several conferences. He was ranked as one of the leading e-government researchers in surveys in 2009, 2014 and 2016, and has published over 500 refereed publications. More information: www.tbm.tudelft.nl/marijnj<http://www.tbm.tudelft.nl/marijnj>.



Dr. Nitesh Bharosa is Head of Research & Development of Smart Data Company. He leads multidisciplinary teams seeking to transform organisations and sectors in order to provide better (more efficient, effective and tailored) services and products. He has helped various public and private organizations with mapping out requirements and implementing ICT enabled solutions. Nitesh is also visiting scholar at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management of Delft University of Technology. He has published over 40 papers on public-private information exchange, data quality, ICT platforms and digital transformation. Nitesh has served as session chair during multiple international conferences including DgO, ISCRAM and HICSS and was special issue co-editor for the Information Systems Frontiers Journal.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you
Kind regards
Best wishes for the new year


Dr Euripidis N. Loukis

Professor
Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering
University of the Aegean
Karlovassi, Samos, GR-83200, Greece
Tel.: +30-22730-82221
Fax: +30-22730-82009
Email: eloukis at aegean.gr