Extending the process frontier of digital transformation: A flow-oriented perspective

Abstract

Strong interest in digital transformation to increase business value calls for new and improved theorising of the digital transformation process. Traditional perspectives fail to address the complex socio-technological challenges and entanglement of actions at multiple levels that characterise the process. This research adopts a flow-oriented perspective to extend the process frontier of digital transformation. This entails analysing the lines of action that intertwine to form storylines of digital transformation. Drawing on a multilevel longitudinal qualitative study, the research offers three valuable contributions: First, the paper advances the discourse on digital transformation by introducing the heretofore unrecognised phenomenon of transitional moments. Second, by introducing a novel taxonomy for lines of action, the paper demonstrates the evolving nature of the digital transformation process, surpassing conventional rational-system model interpretations. These two contributions broaden the process frontier of digital transformation by underscoring the dynamic and continuous nature of digital transformation, emphasising its non-linear progression, and rejecting the notion of an idealised direct path to a predefined goal. These two additions to the digital transformation discourse lay the foundations for our third contribution, which is a set of proposed research approaches for future investigations into digital transformation, regardless of research focus, phenomena, or domain.