Research on digital transformation has largely focused on strategic perspectives, necessary activities, and new technologies. The insights of these studies provide a good overview of the different aspects of digital transformation at the organizational level, although mainly in the private sector context. What is still not properly understood is the way the transformation evolves at lower levels of the organization. The grassroots perspective of digital transformation is missing.
To provide a better understanding of digital transformation at these lower levels, this dissertation reports an interpretive single case study conducted in the IT department of a large municipality in Finland. The study focuses on this IT department’s efforts to digitally transform to improve its ability to provide better services to the municipal business units and support the municipal digital transformation.
The findings show that the IT department’s efforts to digitally transform improved its ability to provide IT-related services to municipal business units, revealing that many suggested approaches for supporting digital transformation in the private sector also apply in the public sector context.
The findings also show that the activities with which the IT department began to advance its digital transformation were guided by an attempt to solve one tension after another instead of relying on a predefined transformation plan. While the initial transformation activities were designed to resolve tensions hindering the IT department’s service provision, the following transformation efforts were targeted to resolve tensions revealed and created by the previous transformations, resulting in a continuous tension-driven transformation process.
This rich and in-depth case study of a grassroots-level digital transformation provides new insights related to the evolution of digital transformation and the role of tensions in this evolution. Consequently, the key contribution of this dissertation is the discovery that while digital transformation is often depicted as a transformation process guided by strategy, in the lower levels of the organization, digital transformation appears as an organic transformation driven by tensions. The identified tensions, while case-specific, explain how tensions inherent in organizational operations drive change initiatives, which, in turn, reveal new tensions demanding attention, thus resulting in a continuous transformation.
Management research has long acknowledged that change creates tensions when new and old collide, and these tensions often need to be addressed again with change. The perspectives of this literature stream often see tensions as by-products of change processes, whereas the findings of this dissertation show that in continuous and iterative transformations, tensions can become the driving force behind the transformation.
Consequently, this dissertation expands our understanding of digital transformation by revealing that such transformation cannot be viewed only as a strategic initiative but also as an organic, tension-driven continuum. Therefore, more attention in digital transformation research and management should be placed on managing the tensions of this transformation.
The doctoral dissertation of M. Sc. (Technology) Maija Ylinen in the field of Information and Knowledge Management titled Digital Transformation in a Finnish Municipality—Tensions as Drivers of Continuous Change will be publicly examined at the Faculty of Management and Business of Tampere University at 12 o'clock on Friday 19 November, 2021. The venue is Festia building Pieni sali 1, address: Korkeakoulunkatu 8. Professor Ulf Melin from Linköping University will be the opponent while Professor Samuli Pekkola will act as the custos.
The event can be followed via remote connection
The dissertation is available online at
http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-03-2143-7
Photo: Pertti Ylinen