Businesses that can develop an appropriate response to the turbulence created by change and diversified customer expectations retain their sustainable competitive advantage. Especially with Covid19, Digital Transformation has emerged as an important element of pressure and necessity on the competitive advantage of businesses. Digital transformation refers to a radical change process from the way of doing business in the industry and the market to the nature of the interaction with internal and external customers. Digital transformation allows for meeting new expectations with new business processes and customer experiences with the opportunities offered by digital technologies. Although Digital transformation offers important competencies for businesses, it seems that SMEs, especially as important actors in the economy, lag behind large enterprises in the digital transformation process. This situation necessitates a detailed consideration of SMEs in the digital transformation process. This study aims to examine Digital Transformation in SMEs in detail. To achieve this, studies investigating digital transformation in SMEs and presenting empirical results were identified from various indexes (Ulakbim, Scopus, Web of Science, and Proquest). The studies were classified according to "author," "date of publication," "type of research," "sample," and "variables." The empirical evidence regarding the digital transformation process of SMEs is presented. The findings of the study are expected to contribute to the literature by presenting empirical studies on Digital Transformation in SMEs comprehensively. Additionally, it will increase awareness of the findings regarding the digital transformation process of SMEs, which are important actors in the economy.
MULTIFILE
Expectations are high for digital technologies to address sustainability related challenges. While research into such applications and the twin transformation is growing rapidly, insights in the actual daily practices of digital sustainability within organizations is lacking. This is problematic as the contributions of digital tools to sustainability goals gain shape in organizational practices. To bridge this gap, we develop a theoretical perspective on digital sustainability practices based on practice theory, with an emphasis on the concept of sociomateriality. We argue that connecting meanings related to sustainability with digital technologies is essential to establish beneficial practices. Next, we contend that the meaning of sustainability is contextspecific, which calls for a local meaning making process. Based on our theoretical exploration we develop an empirical research agenda.
MULTIFILE
Introduction This study aims to advance theoretical development on digital transformation (DT) skills that are essential for sustainable employment. Rapid and continuous advancements of digital technology, such as increased automation, artificial intelligence (AI), big data, cloud computing, robotics and internet of things (IoT), lead to huge transformations for society, economy, and its organizations (Ivaldi et al., 2022; Trenerry et al., 2021). For organizations to successfully transform, it is important to strongly invest in an organizational learning climate, while for employees, investment in the sustainability of their employment is key. Therefore, one of the greatest challenges is to identify and develop essential skills that contribute to both the collective learning climate and employment sustainability (Ivaldi et al., 2022). Because previous scientific literature has focused predominantly on mapping general 21st century skills, digital competences of citizens, or essential skills for specific professions, it remains largely unclear which employee skills are essential in the context of DT. Hence, the contribution of this study lies in identifying these essential skills and developing a comprehensive DT skills framework. The following research question is central: Which DT skills are essential for sustainable employment and how can these skills be synthesized into a DT skills framework?
Digital transformation has been recognized for its potential to contribute to sustainability goals. It requires companies to develop their Data Analytic Capability (DAC), defined as their ability to collect, manage and analyze data effectively. Despite the governmental efforts to promote digitalization, there seems to be a knowledge gap on how to proceed, with 37% of Dutch SMEs reporting a lack of knowledge, and 33% reporting a lack of support in developing DAC. Participants in the interviews that we organized preparing this proposal indicated a need for guidance on how to develop DAC within their organization given their unique context (e.g. age and experience of the workforce, presence of legacy systems, high daily workload, lack of knowledge of digitalization). While a lot of attention has been given to the technological aspects of DAC, the people, process, and organizational culture aspects are as important, requiring a comprehensive approach and thus a bundling of knowledge from different expertise. Therefore, the objective of this KIEM proposal is to identify organizational enablers and inhibitors of DAC through a series of interviews and case studies, and use these to formulate a preliminary roadmap to DAC. From a structure perspective, the objective of the KIEM proposal will be to explore and solidify the partnership between Breda University of Applied Sciences (BUas), Avans University of Applied Sciences (Avans), Logistics Community Brabant (LCB), van Berkel Logistics BV, Smink Group BV, and iValueImprovement BV. This partnership will be used to develop the preliminary roadmap and pre-test it using action methodology. The action research protocol and preliminary roadmap thereby developed in this KIEM project will form the basis for a subsequent RAAK proposal.
Digital transformation has been recognized for its potential to contribute to sustainability goals. It requires companies to develop their Data Analytic Capability (DAC), defined as their ability to manage and analyze data effectively. Despite the governmental efforts to promote digitalization, there seems to be a knowledge gap on how to proceed, with 37% of Dutch SMEs reporting a lack of knowledge, and 33% reporting a lack of support in developing DAC. While extensive attention has been given to the technological aspects of DAC, the people, process, and organizational culture aspects are as important, requiring a comprehensive approach and thus a bundling of knowledge from different expertise. Therefore, the objective of this KIEM proposal is to identify organizational enablers and inhibitors of DAC through a series of interviews and case studies, and use these to formulate a preliminary roadmap to DAC.
In the past decades, we have faced an increase in the digitization, digitalization, and digital transformation of our work and daily life. Breakthroughs of digital technologies in fields such as artificial intelligence, telecommunications, and data science bring solutions for large societal questions but also pose a new challenge: how to equip our (future)workforce with the necessary digital skills, knowledge, and mindset to respond to and drive digital transformation?Developing and supporting our human capital is paramount and failure to do so may leave us behind on individual (digital divide), organizational (economic disadvantages), and societal level (failure in addressing grand societal challenges). Digital transformation necessitates continuous learning approaches and scaffolding of interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation practices that match complex real-world problems. Research and industry have advocated for setting up learning communities as a space in which (future) professionals of different backgrounds can work, learn, and innovate together. However, insights into how and under which circumstances learning communities contribute to accelerated learning and innovation for digital transformation are lacking. In this project, we will study 13 existing and developing learning communities that work on challenges related to digital transformation to understand their working mechanisms. We will develop a wide variety of methods and tools to support learning communities and integrate these in a Learning Communities Incubator. These insights, methods and tools will result in more effective learning communities that will eventually (a) increase the potential of human capital to innovate and (b) accelerate the innovation for digital transformation
