Digital Transformation

Course Structure

Lecture 1:A framework with 4 elements of smart work

Summary
Due to the advance technologies and some macroeconomics factors, the organisation needs to react rapid changes in a

timely manner. Therefore, the organisation has transformed from hierarchical structure to a flatter structure.(Using

project team and agile way) Additionally, compared with using permanent employees, the organisation also has higher

possibility to do the outsourcing. Although the repetitive works will be automated, the knowledge and expertise

position will be enhanced rather than replace by the technology.

The paradox brings from the digitalise: the balance between exploration and exploitation, the ambiguous of work -life

boundary when the work has more flexibility, empowerment to the employee and organisation level decision making,

and the result orientated, and the process orientated. ( The process might be the key to improve the result)

Smart work
The smart work covers all fundamental aspect that determine the work. E.G, How the work be done, how to motivate

the employees and what guarantee the output. The smart work use digitalise technology to transform the work place so

that the work can actually be performed independently of time and place.
Four Smart Work Elements:

 Digital Technologies-“refer to a range of digital services that enable work within organizations”

Digital technology serves as a vital trigger for, and enabler of, smart work practices: digital technology is used to

support communication and collaboration, social networks, telework, VR, file sharing, real-time data, mobile

work, etc.

 New way of Working (NWW)

New ways of working cover the extent to which employees can manage their working conditions in a flexible

way: this includes cultural change, organizational development, agility, flexibility, etc (incl. training program,

new communication plan and the goal management)

 Four principles:

1. Leader should give autonomy to the employee and trust employees.

2. Employees should have unlimited access and connectivity; hence the workplace should offer an easy

and accessible digital experience.

3. Employee should have flexible working relationship; they should regulate their pattern of work

4. Employees should be goal driven

The leader should help employee collaborate to avoid the project be relied on the very few people and let all the

employee feel engage in the project.

 Workforce- “people working for particular organisation”

Workforce characteristics, qualifications, and competencies: these include level of education, IT literacy, skills

(upskilling and reskilling), autonomy, motivation, satisfaction, flexibility, readiness, etc

 Nowadays employee hope their work can be meaningful, has higher autonomy and be flexibility.

Alternative work arrangement: Classified in three dimensions- employment, scheduling, and location.

 Employment: refers the flexibility of relationship between employee and employer. Short-term work

contract provides the on-demand service via online platform.

 Schedule: refers to the flexibility in how the work has been scheduled. The work can be scheduled by

the companies’ internal needs, clients’ demand and the employees’ personal time management.

 Location: the flexibility of where the work is accomplished

 Readiness dimension:

 Mental readiness: if the employees is ready for work in the new way.
 E.g., if the employee can find the balance between work and life when work from home?

 Technology readiness: if there is enough technical support for the new working way.

 Relationship readiness: create a common identity and foster the mutual trust team members need in

order to accomplish highly complex tasks as efficiently and effectively as possible.

E.G., give employee autonomy, and the relationship between employee and employer is trust not

control.

 Leadership

Leadership styles and leaders’ ability to influence others: these provide a vision, create consensus, demonstrate

emotional intelligence or common sense, etc

 Commanding style- “Do as I said”

Useful to create the fast result, but might decrease employee’s motivation and organisation’s creativity.

 Visionary style- “show the way”

Motivate the employee and show the way and direction that the project wants to go through.

 Affiliate style- “people first”

The leader will focus on creating harmony and emotional bonds but may encounter the underperformance

issue.

 Democratic leadership style- “What do you think”

Give employee a chance to express their opinion in the decision-making process but the downside is this

approach might be time consuming.

 Pacesetting leadership style-“ do as I do, now”

Can create the standard performance but influence the self-motivated and competent employee negatively.

 Coaching leadership- “try this”

Let the employee experiment new solution

These four elements are not independent, they interact in various and unexpected ways.

Test the independency of different environment

The interaction between two or more force might have the bigger influence than the sum of its individual effects.

Although the complementary might be the essential to for a successful transformation, but it can also be the reason for

why wild spread for the digital transformation is difficult. Because the factors might influence each other, therefore,

the change in one or two element might influence much more wild aspect.
The process to design the digital workplace.

Think why the digital transformation is needed in the workplace and if the goal is realistic. If so, then decision maker

can breakdown the goal into four aspects.

1. Consider the digital technologies available:

What kind of technology is available in the market and the how much computation power need to allocate to

achieve the goal.

2. What the workforce solution is needed: - Analysis employees demand

identify their readiness for digital workplace transformation along the three dimensions of mental, technology,

and

relationship readiness. For example, mental readiness reflects whether an employee is mentally ready to work in

new ways. Actions for achieving mental readiness include hiring people with the right skills and attributes, or

reskilling or upskilling the existing workforce.

3. What new ways of working practices are needed at an individual, team, and organizational level

what levers are in place to help establish new behavioural norms in the organization. Here, it is important to

provide training in the new ways of working, as well as supporting workers in their time management and in their

interactions with others.

4. which concerns the type of leadership in place to ensure the necessary changes (commanding, visionary,

democratic, etc.)

Establish a culture that facilitates guided organizational sensemaking.

Discussion Question
What is the overall message about the digital transformation of work?
Due to the technology advance, the workplace has been forced to change in a more flat and flexible way. The

organisation needs to conduct a certain change in the structures, working and governance way to keep themselves with

the trend.

 DTOW is a holistic organisation configuration.(Social construction, and interpretive)

 Interdependencies within different elements

 The polities of the organisation matter

 Paradox: Call for the complexity and insist on systemic

 Not only the technologies transformation but a organisation and culture transformation

How does the article conceptualize digital transformation of work? Do you agree? What would you
like to change if you were one of the authors? Why?
The design of the smart workplace needs to consider 4 elements: digital technology, workforce, new way to work and

leadership in sequence. The framework can provide the categories need to consider when design the smart workplace.

But the categories are still open; therefore, it still need the further research to come up with the more conceptual

theory.

Why, according to the authors, should we concern ourselves with digital transformation of work?
Technology advance is an invertible process; therefore, most of the industry will be forced to apply the digital

transformation.

 Digitalisation is more cost efficiency and earns organisation a competitive advantage in the market

 Talents: how to make a better job environment

 Branding: give clients more trendy and advance impression of the brand impression

The article has been writing in 2021 - when covid 19, was everywhere. Do you think this has shaped or
affected the main structure of the idea in the article? If the article where to written today, what might
have been different?
Yes, since the covid-19 forces the abrupt changes in the working environment to almost 100% on-line, the aspect of

this article is more extremely. However, in the reality, the digital transformation can be more graduality and might not

necessary to applied to all the organisation.

*When see the text, first think about where it comes from.

Lecture 2: