How to Excel at Digital Transformation: Development of
Digitalization Dashboard
Master Thesis by Ekaterina Udilina
MSc Business Administration – Digital Business
Full name of the author: Ekaterina Udilina Student number: 11416564
Date of submission: June 23, 2017 Version submitted: Final
2
Statement of originality
This document is written by Student Ekaterina Udilina who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
3
ABSTRACT
With the use of technology and digitalization companies nowadays are transforming their business models and achieving impressive results. The recent research shows that digital transformation can be a source of competitive advantage and have an impact on organization success. However, there is lack of understanding by companies how to perform the digital transformation. One of tools to track and facilitate progress for organizations is a dashboard – a single-screen “snapshot” of metrics, operational processes, and key performance indicators. Numerous research works were already conducted in the areas of digital transformation or dashboard development. Nevertheless, there is limited research on identifying specific factors or KPIs and developing a dashboard for digital transformation – the vast majority of works focus on either digitalization or dashboard development. The current study will address this gap and shed the light on the development of digitalization dashboard. The main focus of my research is to identify the key performance indicators that must be included into performance dashboard to enable digital transformation and ways to measure them. To achieve that tree-stages research is conducted, including “Exploration” stage where the conceptual framework is developed; “Case studies” stage in which five cases of digital-oriented companies are examined with the use of interviews to create the digitalization dashboard prototype; and “Validation” stage to test the prototype and create the final version of the dashboard, consisting of 7 blocks: “Digital-oriented strategy”, “Digital capable organization”, “Employees”, “Products & Services development”, “Customer experience”, “Technology”, and “Partners management”. Academically, this research closes the existing gap on digitalization performance measurement; and from managerial point of view, the developed tool will help companies to excel at digital transformation.
4
Table of Contents
ABSTRACT ... 3 INTRODUCTION ... 6 LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ... 9 DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION ... 9 DASHBOARD DEVELOPMENT ... 14 RESEARCH GAP AND RESEARCH QUESTION ... 18 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ON DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION ... 19 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 44 STAGE 1. EXPLORATION ... 46 STAGE 2. CASE STUDIES ... 47 STAGE 3. VALIDATION ... 51 CASES DESCRIPTION ... 52 RESULTS ... 58 RESULTS OF CASE STUDIES STAGE ... 58 RESULTS OF VALIDATION STAGE ... 74 DISCUSSION ... 84 PROPOSITIONS TESTING ... 84 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FINDINGS ... 94 THEORETICAL AND MANAGERIAL CONTRIBUTIONS ... 95 LIMITATIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ... 97 CONCLUSION ... 99 BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 102 APPENDIXES ... 1105
APPENDIX 2. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK – THE LIST OF POTENTIAL KPIS FOR DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION ... 117
APPENDIX 3. STAGE 2 – FIRST-ROUND INTERVIEWS STRUCTURE ... 125
APPENDIX 4. STAGE 2 – NODES STRUCTURE ... 131
APPENDIX 5. STAGE 3 – SECOND-ROUND INTERVIEWS STRUCTURE ... 133
APPENDIX 6. STAGE 3 – NODES STRUCTURE ... 134
APPENDIX 7. STAGE 2 – SUMMARY OF NODES ... 135
APPENDIX 8. STAGE 2 – RESULTING DASHBOARD PROTOTYPE ... 145
APPENDIX 9. STAGE 3 – SUMMARY OF NODES ... 151
6
INTRODUCTION
Digital technologies increasingly determine our everyday life, especially in the business arena (Collin, 2015). There is no shortage of examples of companies that create great innovations with the use of digitalization. By making use of big data, social media analytics, mobile devices, agile way of working and cloud computing companies are successfully transforming their business – they are achieving exciting goals and getting impressive benefits through the digital transformation (Westerman, Bonnet, 2015). Researchers have reached an agreement that the use of technology and digitalization can deliver sustainable competitive advantage that has a considerable impact on the success of organization (Kahre, et al., 2017).
According to the survey, performed globally, 76% of employees and managers state that digital technologies are important for their organizations today, while 92% claim that they will gain importance in coming three years (Kane, et al., 2015). Nevertheless, only 5% of companies believe that they have mastered at digital transformation to stand away from their competitors (“Digital Transformation In The Age Of The Customer”, 2015). Hence, employees and executives understand the need and importance of digital transformation, however there is lack of understanding how to develop digitally.
Dashboard is proven to be the powerful tool to achieve organizational goals with the use of data (Sol, 2010). While giving executives and managers aggregated information from different perspectives dashboards minimize information overload, assist performance tracking, and support effective decision-making (Kaplan, Norton, 2005). Moreover, dashboards are effective at achieving the organizational change, being able not only tracking the performance of change programs, but also directing
7
the transformation process and reorienting steps in accordance with the change in the environment (Vaccarezza, Rizzi, 2014). Furthermore, dashboards help companies linking their transformation and long-term strategy with short-term actions (Kaplan and Norton, 2007). Therefore, the performance dashboards have proven to foster organizational change and transformation, so why not to implement this promising tool in the purpose of digital transformation?
The large amount of studies was conducted in the areas of digitalization or dashboard development; however, very limited research addresses the two topics simultaneously by developing a set of performance indicators for digital transformation or digitalization dashboard. The reason behind is that the digital transformation is a novel phenomenon, and research on that is still in the initial stage.
Therefore, in keeping with the importance of the topic and the limited attention assigned to it, this study addresses the phenomenon of digitalization by developing the performance dashboard for digital transformation, introducing the set of key performance indicators (KPIs) and the ways to measure them. Thus, the purpose of this research is to determine the set of KPIs and develop the dashboard to enable digital transformation for companies in different industries globally, and the research question is: Which KPIs should be included into performance dashboard to enable digital transformation, and how should they be measured?
In order to answer the research question, the three-stages research, including “Exploration”, “Case studies”, and “Validation” stages, is conducted. The main research strategy employed is multiple case studies with the use of interviews and secondary data; moreover in-depth literature analysis is performed in first stage of the study to build the conceptual framework. The companies included in the “Case
8
studies”, and “Validation” stages represent different industries, including telecommunications, online business-to-business services, retail, and consulting services, are of different size and from different counties, including the Netherlands, Russia, and Germany, what helps to develop the dashboard that is suitable for diverse companies. The cases were selected on the criteria of importance of digital transformation for company, and for each case two to four employees and managers were interviewed, so in total 14 interviews were held.
The current study will be of great importance for both managerial and academic communities. From academic point of view, this research will address the gap existing in research on digital transformation and dashboard development, as limited efforts exist to face these two phenomena simultaneously. From managerial point of view, this work will help executives and managers to use an effective performance dashboard to empower the digital transformation of their organizations.
This paper is structured as follows: first, the literature on digital transformation and dashboard development will be reviewed what will lead to the research gap. After that, the conceptual framework consisting of constructs of KPIs for digital transformation will be developed together with the set of propositions that will be tested in the consequent research stages. Then the research methodology for the three stages will be presented and its relevance will be explained. Following that, the results are explained, including the final deliverable of this project – the validated dashboard for digital transformation, including definitions and measurement for each KPI. The “Discussion” chapter will discusses the outcomes on propositions, significance of findings, theoretical and managerial implications, limitations, and directions for future research. And finally, the last chapter will present the conclusion of this study.
9
LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL
FRAMEWORK
Digital transformation
Digital technology and innovation are increasing in importance to achieve business goals, and their tremendous impact has resulted in radical restructuration of entire industries. Firms nowadays need dynamic tools that support digitalization and manage digital processes that emerge (Nylen, Holmstrom, 2015).
Digital transformation includes realigning and investing in new technology and business models with a big emphasis on customer experience (“Digital Transformation In The Age Of The Customer”, 2015).
Berghaus and Back (2016) define digital transformation in the following way: Digital transformation is “technology-induced change on many levels in the organization that includes both the exploitation of digital technologies to improve existing processes, and the exploration of digital innovation, which can potentially transform the business model.”
According to Burton-Jones and Gallivan (2007) digitization is defined as the penetration of IT in the company, what is more complicated than the traditional concept of IT investment as digitization involves not only investment in IT but also employees training and IT usage. Therefore, digitalization is a complex process that contains changes not only in IT but in overall organizational strategy due to the changes in business processes, organizational knowledge, new IT implementation, what influences organizational performance (Park, Saraf, 2016).
10
The growing importance of digital transformation reflects in aligning IT and business, so that IT-strategy and business strategy are becoming integrated (Bharadwaj et al., 2013). As the result, digitalization simultaneously affects multiple areas within organization, such as marketing, product development, IT, human resources (Berghaus, Back, 2016). Research shows that successful alignment of IT and business strategy leads to considerably better performance (Chan, Reich, 2007). In the most of research on IT-business alignment subordinate role of IT strategy is emphasized, so business strategy is shaping IT strategy (Chan, Reich, 2007; Coltman et al., 2015).
However, only 5% of organizations believe that they have mastered at digitalization to the point to stand away from their competitors (“Digital Transformation In The Age Of The Customer”, 2015). Moreover, many companies face the problem of so-called “IT-paradox” – the complex relationship between IT investment and business performance what means that investment in IT does not always lead to proportional increase in performance results (Tafti et al., 2013).
Furthermore, literature review emphasizes the increasing importance of digital transformation for both theory and practice: more than 80% of studies on digitalization were published between 2010 and 2016, what points out the importance of this phenomenon and growing attention from scientific community in past years (Kahre, et al., 2017).
Key trends of digital transformation
In the survey conducted by Deloitte and MIT, 76% of respondents tell that digital technologies are of great importance for their organizations today, and 92% say that they will be important in three years (Kane, et al., 2015). These findings emphasize the importance of digitalization for nowadays companies.
11
Accenture Interactive together with Forrester Consulting provides an overview of key trends in digital transformation field (“Digital Transformation In The Age Of The Customer”, 2015). They claim that the past five years were marked as the “age of the customer”, where customer is the central focus for technology, economic forces, and company management; and discover the following findings. Firstly, customer experience is at heart of the digitalization, where companies must aim to create positive customer experiences across various channels. Secondly, companies still have a long way to go towards the digital transformation – the vast majority of organizations are only in initial stage. And finally, third-party providers tend to shorten the gaps for digital transformation supplying companies with their solutions to reduce time-to-market, preserve internal resources, and overcome the gap in capabilities.
Gerald Kane et al. (2015) conducted the survey among employees of nowadays organizations and point out the key trends for the maturing organizations in digital transformation. According to the authors, employees are willing to work for digital leaders – the vast majority of respondents want to be part of digitally enabled organizations. Another trend – taking risks becomes a norm in the leading organizations, so business leaders embrace failures as a prerequisite for success. Furthermore, the authors state that digital agenda comes from the top, so that digitally mature organizations tend to have a single person or a group responsible for digital transformation at executive level. In addition, they point out that digitally developed organizations facilitate collaborative environment in their workplaces, as many new ideas arise through collaboration of people with different background and experience. Moreover, storytelling becomes important for companies – it helps in gaining employees buy-in and creating positive customer experience. Besides, Gerald and
12
colleagues find that online and offline experiences are becoming more interactive, so distinction between them is blurring. And finally, data becomes deeply infused in organizational processes and decision-making (Gerald et al., 2015).
Digitalization: Is it always the best course?
Digitalization can bring extraordinary performance results, however, digital transformation can also create highly complex innovation challenges, and if firm fails to address them properly it may suffer from major consequences (Lucas, Goh, 2009). When engaging in digital transformation new entrants and incumbents face both challenges and opportunities. One of aspects of this complexity is an extremely rapid pace of digital innovation (Yoo et al., 2010). This fast pace exists because of the ease with which digital technologies may be reconfigured (Tiwana, et al., 2010). Innovation pace becomes particularly challenging when firms engage in the design of “smart” products, embedding digital components in traditional products (Nylen, Holmstrom, 2015). Moreover, digital technologies constantly evolve towards lower cost and higher processing capacity (Yoo et al., 2010).
Westerman (2016) in his article shows that companies should not overdo with digitalization: “The right amounts, applied under the right conditions, can yield fabulous results.” Over-relying on automation can hamper employees’ loyalty that is so important for further innovation and development. In ideal state of the balanced digital transformation according to the author computers help employees to collaborate effectively, make right decisions, and manage better with automation.
Zhu, et al. (2006) point out that digital transformation also has significant “post-adoption gap” – when the rate of technology use lags behind the rate of “post-adoption. Moreover, companies may confront substantial barriers to digitalization, such as lack
13
of partner support and technical capabilities (Chircu, Kauffman, 2000). On the other hand, the companies that succeed demonstrate great potential to successfully embed technology in value-chain activities, significantly increasing profitability (Zhu, et al., 2006).
The main areas of digitalization
Accenture Interactive and Forrester Consulting state that one of the most important areas of digital transformation is customer experience, so business technology, organizational structure, and company culture must be aligned with customer needs – more and more firms make a shift to customer-cantered approach (“Digital Transformation In The Age Of The Customer”, 2015). The authors state that digital transformation also includes online and cross-channel customer experience. Furthermore, Westerman and Bonnet (2015) claim that for many services customers find it more convenient to interact with machines rather than humans. Another important driver provided by Accenture and Forrester is increased time-to-market – being ahead of competitors is the new source of competitive advantage (“Digital Transformation In The Age Of The Customer”, 2015).
Westerman (2016) identifies three main technology driven forces: automation helps companies to work without humans involved; data-driven management supplements experience and intuition with data for better decision-making; and resource fluidity matches tasks with people who can perform them in the most effective and efficient way from both inside and outside the organization.
Various studies on digitalization emphasize the importance of the impact of three main aspects of IT: IT spending, IT usage, and IT training (Sharma, Yetton, 2007; Burton-Jones, Gallivan, 2007). For IT spending, how much is spent is certainly
14
important; however, how IT is used plays the critical role in defining organizational productivity (Park, Saraf, 2016). To increase IT usage, IT training has the important role, representing the critical success factor in post-implementation phase to achieve positive impact on firm’s performance.
Overview of digital transformation indicators
Appendix 1 provides an overview of key measures or indicators identified by researchers in past 10 years. All factors that are related to digitalization are highlighted in blue colour. These KPIs will be used as the foundation to create the Conceptual framework, consisting of the long list of performance indicators to be included in the digitalization dashboard.
Dashboard development
Nowadays companies and managers encounter data everywhere, what leads to data overload. This overload often blocks out strategic vision, and blurs focus, so that strategic focus becomes lost (Sol, 2010). Simply relying on one performance indicator also does not pay off, as in this case important context is lost. Competent utilization of performance dashboards helps companies to address these issues.
“What you measure is what you get” (Kaplan, Norton, 2005) – top-managers and executives nowadays understand that organizational measurement systems have a great effect on behaviour of both managers and employees. Joel Shapiro (2017) defines dashboards as single-screen “snapshots” of marketing metrics, operational processes, and key performance indicators. Balanced scorecard for executives is like dials and indicators in an airplane cockpit for pilots, who need detailed information about many aspects of the flight to perform their job well, while reliance on one indicator many be fatal (Kaplan, Norton, 2005).
15
Dashboard includes the set of key performance indicators – measures that provide critical feedback to ensure that actions and results are well aligned with the strategy. KPIs include result, behaviour, and process measures; and each of these metrics should contain accepted, or “green” performance range (Sol, 2010).
Implementing dashboards can give executives numerous advantages. Firstly, it brings together many of disparate elements into a single management report, helping managers to focus on important agenda, such as becoming more customer oriented, facilitating teamwork, improving quality, etc. (Kaplan, Norton, 2005). Secondly, dashboards help to deal with suboptimization, giving an opportunity to observe if gains in one area were achieved at expense in another (Kaplan, Norton, 2005). Moreover, dashboards allow managers to make optimal decisions more efficiently and quickly (Lehman, et al., 2011).
However, fully relying on dashboards also has several risks and disadvantages. Shapiro (2017) describes three key disadvantages of data dashboards. First, in the majority of cases dashboards are created by data specialists, IT experts, and consultants, what leads to “official-looking” view into data that does not align with the strategy and business priorities. Secondly, many managers perceive dashboards as unbiased truth without taking into account any contextual information. And the third drawback is causality trap – the danger of misattributing causality among elements of the dashboards. Kaplan and Norton (2005) also claim that traditional financial measures do not work well anymore – they were only suitable for industrial era, so the new appropriate set of indicators must be developed. So, performance dashboards are not always effective at providing context and specific nuances that are important for decision-making.
16 How to develop an effective dashboard?
Orlando Sol (2010) suggests the following principles to create an effective performance dashboard. Divisional performance dashboards should be integrated and widely communicated throughout organization and be constructed in a generally parallel manner. Furthermore, it is important to effectively manage performance dashboard, reviewing and adjusting it periodically.
Vaccarezza and Rizzi (2014) claim that companies need to change continuously to adapt to changing social and economic environment. According to the authors, dashboards should not only monitor the impact of undertaken initiatives, but also provide information that is forward-looking, systematic, and two-dimensional (related both to the company’s technical and human resources). In the sense of monitoring, dashboards must provide constant monitoring of the processes; clear information about undertaken actions; and the ability to predict future results based on effectiveness of current ones.
Froese and Tory (2016) present their lessons learned from creating dashboards for specific organizations from designer’s point of view. Firstly, dashboard should be customizable for specific needs of exact user by adding and removing KPIs, changing layout and charts, drilling down into the data. Secondly, prototyping plays an important role – the best practice is to achieve visualization as early as possible in the design process, because it allows reducing the risk of going the wrong direction and investing in the product that does not meet stakeholders’ needs.
17 Effectiveness of dashboards for transformation
Even through the dashboards have not been implemented so much in the digital sphere yet due to its novelty, they have proven the great performance in other areas helping to achieve positive changes in organizations.
In their work Vaccarezza and Rizzi (2014) claim that companies need to change or transform continuously in order to adapt to changing social and economic environment, and nowadays this environment is changing faster than ever before. Moreover, the authors state that to perform an effective and successful change management program, companies need to have high level of flexibility and ability to react, which are not embedded in organizations themselves. The change dashboards are capable of not only monitoring and tracking the goals change programs, but also directing the transformation process and reorienting steps when any changes in context environment appear (Vaccarezza, Rizzi, 2014).
Sol (2010) shows that dashboards help to achieve the change in performance and even in competitive positioning of companies in wide range of areas; and he points out the importance to review and adjust dashboards regularly to adapt to changing environment and developing strategic plan of a company.
Kaplan and Norton (2007) state that companies around the world transform themselves constantly, and balanced scorecards help them to link company’s transformation and long-term strategy with short-term actions. Balanced scorecards allow companies to translate the vision, building consensus around company’s vision and strategy; to communicate strategy up and down the organization, linking it to departmental and individual goals; and to perform business planning, integrating business and financial plans (Kaplan and Norton, 2007).
18
To conclude, dashboard is an effective tool to achieve change and transformation within organization, and this study aims to develop the performance dashboard that will help companies to transform digitally.
Research gap and research question
As presented in previous parts, a large amount of research was conducted in areas of digital transformation or dashboard development. However, there is limited research on identifying specific factors or KPIs and developing a dashboard for digital transformation – the vast majority of works focus on one: either digitalization or dashboard development. The reason behind this gap is perhaps the fact that digital transformation is a novel innovative phenomenon, and the research on it is still in the initial stage among scientific community.
The current work will address this issue and shed the light on development of digitalization dashboard for nowadays companies. The key focus of my research is to identify the main key performance indicators that should be included into dashboard to foster digital transformation. As the result the set of the most effective metrics and their measurement guidelines will be created and integrated into digitalization dashboard. This dashboard will help executives to transform digitally, getting ahead of competitors and satisfying customer needs.
Therefore, the research question of the current study is: Which KPIs should be included into performance dashboard to enable digital transformation, and how should they be measured?
19
Conceptual framework on digital transformation
Taking inspiration from previously discussed areas of digitalization, analysis of key performance indicators suggested by other researchers, literature on digitalization and digital trends considered earlier the current model on digital transformation is proposed (Table 1). The “Overview of KPIs for digital transformation” provided in the Appendix 1 was used as the basis for the design of the conceptual framework.
The conceptual framework consists of two levels of categories for KPIs that will become the foundation and building blocks for digitalization dashboard in the consequent stages of this research. This framework is the outcome of the first stage of the research – “Exploration”, and it will play an important role to create the long list of key performance indicators during the second stage of the research “Case studies”, when the interviews with managers and employees will be conducted and secondary sources will be analysed. The conceptual framework, consisting of the list of potential KPIs and groups of KPIs is provided in the Table 1, and the definitions of KPIs – in the Appendix 2. This list will be enriched and verified during the consequent research stages.
The key constructs of this conceptual framework are seventeen groups of KPIs (second level of the model) that are considered in more details below.
Table 1. Conceptual framework
Groups of KPIs (Level 1)
Groups of KPIs
(Level 2) Groups of KPIs / KPIs (Level 3)
Overall company digitalization
1. Digital strategy
Business & IT alignment Strategic innovation Digital commitment Customer-centric 2. Digital-oriented organization New skills Improvisation
20
Groups of KPIs (Level 1)
Groups of KPIs
(Level 2) Groups of KPIs / KPIs (Level 3)
HR flexibility
Organizational agility Agile project management 3. Processes and
operations digitalization
Automation
Business models time-to-market 4. Data-driven
management
Integration of data in processes Analytics 5. Transformation management Governance Performance measurement Management support 6. Digital-oriented culture Collaborative environment Risk tolerance Digital affinity IT function transformation OR IT & Technology 7. IT architecture Technology capability Social media analytics
Mobile technology and analytics Cloud computing services 8. IT infrastructure
9. IT spending
10. IT training Number of employees trained Total duration of training
11. IT usage
Number of employee categories for which IT was standardized
Number of employee categories that use the new IT
Number of employees using new IT
Product & customer experience digitalization 12. Digital value proposition Segmentation Bundling Channels
Interaction of online and offline experiences
Customer-perceived service quality
13. User / customer experience Usability Aesthetics Engagement Personalization Storytelling practice
Integration of customers into service creation and delivery
14. Customer satisfaction
Referral rates
Retention percentages Support via social media 15. Product innovation Disruptive Potential
21
Groups of KPIs (Level 1)
Groups of KPIs
(Level 2) Groups of KPIs / KPIs (Level 3)
Business segment extension Innovation capability Customer integration Time-to-market
New products development
Partners management
16. Inter-firm collaboration
Reliance on external suppliers of products or services
Inter-firm collaboration in research and development, production or marketing
17. Partner readiness
1. Digital strategy
This construct was previously introduced by Berghaus and Back, 2016; Valdez-de-Leon, 2016; and McKinsey, 2015 who claim that digital strategy is a highly important determinant for digital transformation. Digital-oriented strategy represents the vision, goals, governance, planning and implementation of the change process that are in place to meet digital business aspirations (Berghaus and Back, 2016; “Digital Quotient”, 2015). The aim of such a strategy is to align and consolidate business and IT strategies (Matt et al., 2015).
So, the fist proposition is as follows:
Proposition 1. Digital strategy enables digital transformation of a company.
Based on the previous research, the potential measurement areas to be included in digital-oriented strategy group are:
• Business & IT alignment has been in top-three business trends for 15 consecutive years (Stewart et al., 2015). Henderson and Venkatraman (1999)
22
prove that aligning business and IT strategies is vital for company’s success, outstanding performance, and digitalization. Depending on the business purposes either business strategy can drive IT, or IT strategy can drive overall business strategy.
• Strategic innovation means that business strategy favours digital innovation and promotes systematic evaluation of new technologies (Berghaus, Back, 2016).
• Digital commitment: digital-oriented strategy encourages the digital commitment and affinity among employees (Berghaus, Back, 2016).
• Customer-centric indicates that strategy aims at becoming more customer-centric, delivering a consistent digital experience through all channels and across all aspects of business ("Digitalization: Driving Business Model Transformation", 2015).
Based on these finding, the propositions 2A, 2B, and 2C are:
Proposition 2A. Business & IT alignment constitutes digital strategy. Proposition 2B. Digital commitment constitutes digital strategy. Proposition 2C. Customer-centric approach constitutes digital strategy.
2. Digital-oriented organization
Such authors as Nylen, Holmstrom, 2015; Berghaus, Back, 2016; Valdez-de-Leon, 2016; and McKinsey, 2015 suggest that company’s organization and structure are important for the digital transformation. Digital-oriented organization includes the organizational structure, processes, talent training, and knowledge management that support the execution of digital strategy and enable company to become a digital
23
player (Valdez-de-Leon, 2016; McKinsey, 2015). Digitally developed organization is flexible and able to react to changes in the environment and customer requirements quickly (Berghaus, Back, 2016).
Consequently, the third proposition is:
Proposition 3. Digital-oriented organization enables digital transformation of a company.
Considering components and measurements of digital-oriented organization, researchers suggest the following ones:
• New skills: in order to excel at digitalization and fully realize the benefits of digital innovation companies need to acquire new skills by promoting continuous learning (Nylen, Holmstrom, 2015).
• Improvisation: managers should ensure that they provide improvisation space to their employees and balance structure with flexibility in a way to maximize creativity (Nylen, Holmstrom, 2015).
• HR flexibility includes such indicators as adoption of flexible working hours; reliance on multiskilling and job rotation; and employment of part-time working (Park, Saraf, 2016).
• Organizational agility: organization is able to pursue digital innovation alongside its business operations to identify potential technologies early (Berghaus, Back, 2016).
• Agile project management: employing agile project management techniques in relevant project teams, including IT projects; and spreading agile practice from the top of organization (Rigby et al., 2016; Berghaus, Back, 2016).
24
Proposition 4A. New skills constitute digital-oriented organization. Proposition 4B. Improvisation constitutes digital-oriented organization.
Proposition 4C. HR flexibility constitutes digital-oriented organization. Proposition 4D. Organizational agility constitutes digital-oriented organization. Proposition 4E. Agile project management constitutes digital-oriented organization.
3. Processes and operations digitalization
Processes and operations digitalization stands for more digital, automated, and flexible processes and operations (Valdez-de-Leon, 2016). Moreover, it is important to clearly define the role and responsibilities for all the processes related to digital transformation (Berghaus, Back, 2016). Processes and operations digitalization is an essential factor contributing to digital transformation (Valdez-de-Leon, 2016; Berghaus, Back, 2016), so the fifth proposition is:
Proposition 5. Processes and operations digitalization enables digital transformation of a company.
Elaborating on components of processes and operations digitalization, researchers have suggested the subsequent ones:
• Automation means atomizing routine processes, what is making it more and more possible for companies to perform certain tasks without humans been involved (Westerman, 2016; Berghaus, Back, 2016; Demirkan, et al., 2016). • Business models time-to-market decreases what means that new business
models will reach their sell-by dates considerably more quickly than before (Kane, et al., 2015). The recent examples of “quick” business models are Uber, mobile ride-services company, or Airbnb, online market place for
25
accommodation. Considering separate processes within a given organization, the process time-to-maturity is also decreasing in digitalizing organizations (Kaplan, Norton, 2005).
• Storytelling practice is getting popular for organizational traction of digital transformation. In general words, user story describes functionality that will be valuable to a user or another stakeholder (Cohn, 2004). Previously storytelling was only applied in software and systems development, however it has proven to bring value in various parts of organization, for example, telling digital stories can boost pride inside and outside the organization of its digital efforts (Kane, et al., 2015).
The propositions 6A, 6B, and 6C are:
Proposition 6A. Automation constitutes processes and operations digitalization. Proposition 6B. Business models time-to-market constitutes processes and operations
digitalization.
Proposition 6C. Storytelling practice constitutes processes and operations digitalization.
4. Data-driven management
Data-driven management means reliance on data in company’s operations and decision-making, supplementing experience and intuition of managers and executives with data and experimentation (Westerman, 2016). Relying on data helps companies to personalize customer experiences and processes based on actual data, guide possible actions and strategic decisions, perform real-time analysis and optimization, and collect and manage customer data across multiple channels what leads to digital development (Berghaus, Back, 2016). Kane, et al. (2015) prove that tightly infusing
26
data into processes brings significant advantages to companies and fosters digitalization. Therefore, the seventh proposition is:
Proposition 7. Data-driven management enables digital transformation of a company.
The following elements are included into data-driven management construct by researchers:
• Integration of data in processes means that data tightly infused into the processes of an organization (Kane, et. al., 2015).
• Analytics denote that organizational cultures are primed to embrace the analytics in company’s operations and the use of data in decision-making and processes (Berghaus, Back, 2016).
So, the propositions 8A and 8B are:
Proposition 8A. Integration of data in processes constitutes data-driven management. Proposition 8B. Analytics constitutes data-driven management.
5. Transformation management
Transformation management means that top- and middle-level managers recognize the importance of digital transformation, take full responsibility for it, promote digitalization, and commit to transform (Berghaus, Back, 2016). Berghaus and Back (2016) claim that effective management of transformation is essential for companies to transform digitally. Transformation management also includes combining projects, services and products into new offerings, often including extended partner network ("Digitalization: Driving Business Model Transformation", 2015). Moreover, this
27
concept involves the investment in the leadership capabilities needed to create digital transformation within a company (Demirkan, et al., 2016). As the result, the ninth proposition is:
Proposition 9. Transformation management enables digital transformation of a company.
Transformation management contains the following components:
• Governance means continuous monitoring and proper implementation of digital transformation (Berghaus, Back, 2016).
• Performance measurement is tracking performance indicators for digital transformation (Berghaus, Back, 2016).
• Management support denotes that there is a responsible individual or group of individuals for digital transformation at executive level of an organization (Kane, et al., 2015).
Thus, the propositions 10A, 10B, and 10C are the following:
Proposition 10A. Governance constitutes transformation management. Proposition 10B. Performance measurement constitutes transformation management.
Proposition 10C. Management support constitutes transformation management.
6. Digital-oriented culture
Digital-oriented culture covers behaviours and mindsets that are critical for digital transformation, including the practice of learning from failed projects, proactive error management, willingness to take risks, and collaborative environment (Berghaus, Back, 2016; “Digital Quotient”, 2015). For this dimension it is important that leaders
28
support and practice digital-oriented culture, and foster the culture to develop in digital direction (Kane, et al., 2015). The digital-oriented culture is a hallmark of digitally mature companies (Kane, et al., 2015), so the eleventh proposition is:
Proposition 11. Digital-oriented culture enables digital transformation of a company.
The key components of digital-oriented culture suggested by researchers are:
• Collaborative environment means supporting collaboration and creativity, and favouring teamwork both internally and externally (Eager, 2010; Berghaus, Back, 2016). Collaborative environments were proven to be part of digitally mature organizations (Kane, et al., 2015). The possible instruments for collaboration include tools for screen sharing and video calling, and digital platforms to cooperate with partners within and outside of organization (Berghaus, Back, 2016).
• Risk tolerance stands for making risk taking a cultural norm and the source of competitive advantage, so that digital innovation is fostered even when it is financially risky (Kane, et al., 2015). In risk tolerant culture failed digital projects are communicated in a positive and proactive manner (Berghaus, Back, 2016). Business leaders and executives have to embrace failure as a prerequisite for success to make their companies less risk averse (Kane, et al., 2015).
• Digital affinity implies digital commitment among employees and managers, including extensive use of digital tools for collaboration, appointment of external experts on digital topics, and promotion of digital innovation within a company (Berghaus, Back, 2016).
29
Hence, the propositions 12A, 12B, and 12C are as follows:
Proposition 12A. Collaborative environment constitutes digital-oriented culture. Proposition 12B. Risk tolerance constitutes digital-oriented culture. Proposition 12C. Digital affinity constitutes digital-oriented culture.
7. IT architecture
IT architecture stands for the process of development of information technology models, specifications, and guidelines with the use of IT notations. In modern digitally competitive environment it is essential for companies to identify the critical technologies that are needed to ensure continuous market leadership (Kaplan, Norton, 2005). From IT department perspective, it should ensure the deployment of relevant digital technologies, provide relevant advice to other department within organization, and test and modify new products using prototypes (Berghaus, Back, 2016). Thus, the right management and deployment of IT architecture are critical to succeed in organizational digitalization, so the thirteenth proposition is:
Proposition 13. IT architecture enables digital transformation of a company.
IT architecture includes the following components:
• Technology capability denotes what technology can do, and is used to compare various technologies to each other (Kaplan, Norton, 2005).
• Social media analytics. Social media is communication systems that allow social actors to communicate along dyadic ties (Peters et al., 2013). Social media analytics stands for aggregating and analysing online conversations and social activity generated by brands across social channels (Kane, 2015).
30
• Mobile technology and analytics denotes communication between two or more parties through the use of mobile medium, device, or technology, and collection and analysis of this data (Macdonald et al., 2012).
• Cloud computing services mean replacing computing resources of organization hardware or software with services provided through the Internet (Gallaugher, 2015).
Consequently, the propositions 14A, 14B, 14C, and 14D are:
Proposition 14A. Technology capability constitutes IT architecture. Proposition 14B. Social media analytics constitutes IT architecture. Proposition 14C. Mobile technology and analytics constitutes IT architecture.
Proposition 14D. Cloud computing services constitute IT architecture.
8. IT infrastructure
IT infrastructure indicates company’s collection of hardware and software, data centres, networks, facilities and other related equipment for information technology services (Zhu, et al., 2006). Information technology infrastructure includes related technologies that an organization has in place, such as intranet, extranet, electronic data interchange, wide area network, and local area network (Zhu, et al., 2006). Reliable and effective IT infrastructure is crucial for digital transformation success, so the fifteenth proposition is as follows:
31 9. IT spending
IT spending dimension indicates the costs that a company has on technology and its implementation. Considering the ways to measure IT spending, it could be, for example, the overall costs of IT or the total cost at two biggest implementation per year divided by the number of employees (Park, Saraf, 2016). Information technology spending intensity is an important construct identifying the level of digitalization and impacting organizational productivity (Devaraj, Kohli, 2003), what leads to the sixteenth proposition:
Proposition 16. IT spending enables digital transformation of a company.
10. IT training
IT training is essential to effectively use IT and employ all the benefits of available technologies. Training imparted to employees and managers is crucial following new IT implementation to achieve a positive impact on company performance and digitalization (Sharma, Yetton, 2007). Information technology training develops critical initial knowledge among employees and enables them to seek for quick assistance as soon as problems with performing tasks using new technologies appear (Argote, 2005). IT training includes either business skills training of IT personnel or IT skills training of functional personnel, and it facilitates higher usage of new technology, impacting firm’s digitalization as the result (Robey et al. 2002). Hence, the seventeenth proposition is:
Proposition 17. IT training enables digital transformation of a company.
32
• Number of employees trained for new technology as the percentage of total number of employees (Park, Saraf, 2016).
• Total duration of training on IT per year (Park, Saraf, 2016). Therefore, the proposition 18A and 18 B is as follows:
Proposition 18A. Number of employees trained constitutes IT training. Proposition 18B. Total duration of training trained constitutes IT training.
11. IT usage
IT usage is defined as the extent to which IT is being used in a company to conduct value chain activities (Zhu, et al., 2006). IT usage is tightly related to IT training, so when number of employees trained is low, level of IT usage is also low, and the other way around (Park, Saraf, 2016). Previous research indicates the positive impact of IT usage on firm performance indicators, and on the degree of digitalization (Devaraj, Kohli, 2003). So, the nineteenth proposition is:
Proposition 19. IT usage enables digital transformation of a company.
Considering ways to quantify the IT usage, previous research has indicated the following:
• The number of employee categories for which IT was standardized. Possible employee categories could be: managers, professionals, technical staff, marketing and sales, clerical and administrative personnel, and production workers (Park, Saraf, 2016).
33
• The number of employee categories that use the new IT for the same categories as in previous point (Park, Saraf, 2016).
• The number of employees using new IT as a percentage of the total number of employees (Park, Saraf, 2016).
Subsequently, the propositions 20A, 20B, and 20C are:
Proposition 20A. The number of employee categories for which IT was standardized constitutes IT usage.
Proposition 20B. The number of employee categories that use the new IT constitutes IT usage. Proposition 20C. The number of employees using new IT constitutes IT usage.
12. Digital value proposition
One of areas of digital innovation involves value proposition, quality of which can be accessed on dynamics of customer segmentation, bundling of products, and negotiated commissions with channel owners (Nylen, Holmstrom, 2015). Companies need to clearly articulate digital value proposition of each digital product or service, where the main question is “How does given product create value for the customer?” Digital value proposition, which deals with how value is created and captured in each product, is one of key areas for digital transformation. Thus, the twenty-first proposition is:
Proposition 21. Digital value proposition enables digital transformation of a company.
34
• Segmentation embraces analysing the customer base to decide about how different customer groups should be reached with firm’s digital products or services (Nylen, Holmstrom, 2015). It enables companies to reflect on pricing and positioning of products from its digital portfolio.
• Bundling designates company’s decisions on how various digital products and services can be bundled and differentiated in new and innovative ways (Nylen, Holmstrom, 2015).
• Channels include decisions on usage of various channels and negotiation of commission with channel owners (Nylen, Holmstrom, 2015).
• Interaction of online and offline experiences indicates digital strategies that address the increasingly blurring distinction between online and offline channels (Kane, et al., 2015).
• Customer-perceived service quality can include, for example, the ability to standardize elements of service offering as well as personalize or customize them to the individual customer when suitable (Demirkan, et al., 2016). For this element it is important to focus on customer needs and deliver the features that are essential for the consumer.
Consequently, the propositions 22A, 22B, 22C, 22D, and 22E are:
Proposition 22A. Segmentation constitutes digital value proposition. Proposition 22B. Bundling constitutes digital value proposition. Proposition 22C. Channels constitutes digital value proposition.
Proposition 22D. Interaction of online and offline experiences constitutes digital value proposition.
35 13. User / customer experience
User experience stands for level of usability, carefully designed authentic properties, engagement, and personalization that digital products or services possess (Nylen, Holmstrom, 2015). Customer experience is also revelled by involvement of users into service creation as well as innovation process and personalization of digital customer communication (Berghaus, Back, 2016). Moreover, the delivery of customer experience should be outcome-targeted, so the process of digital transformation is a mix of user experience optimization, improvement of processes, and cost savings (Demirkan, et al., 2016). User experience is an essential key area that companies need to measure in order to facilitate and track of digitalization and innovation efforts (Nylen, Holmstrom, 2015). Hence, the twenty-third proposition is:
Proposition 23. User / customer experience enables digital transformation of a company.
Considering the components of customer experience, prior researchers suggested the following ones:
• Usability means the functionality and handiness of offered product or service that allows customer to seamlessly enjoy the usage of it (Nylen, Holmstrom, 2015).
• Aesthetics stands for style, beauty, and appearance of the product that must be carefully leveraged to evoke emotional positive response from the customer (Hassenzahl, Tractinsky, 2006; Tractinsky, et al., 2006).
• Engagement indicates exploring and tapping into values that make the experience of digital products and services meaningful and enjoyable for customers (Diller, et al., 2005).
36
• Personalization means making customer experiences personalized and targeted, and focusing on user data when designing an interaction (Berghaus, Back, 2016). On a consumer level, people expect to be able to personalize everything, and to meet these expectations companies need to use customer preferences, context, and habits to make these experiences delightful, simple, and personalized ("Digitalization: Driving Business Model Transformation", 2015).
• Integration of customers into service creation and delivery stands for making customers actively involved into design and provision of digital product or service. Examples of this integration include self-service education, IT outsourcing, applications development, healthcare information systems, etc. (Demirkan, et al., 2016).
Thus, the next propositions are:
Proposition 24A. Usability constitutes user / customer experience. Proposition 24B. Aesthetics constitutes user / customer experience. Proposition 24C. Engagement constitutes user / customer experience. Proposition 24D. Personalization constitutes user / customer experience.
Proposition 24E. Integration of customers into service creation and delivery constitutes user / customer experience.
14. Customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction scores indicate satisfaction of customers with company’s offerings, and include referral rates, and retention indicators (Sol, 2010). Customer satisfaction can also be improved through communication and interaction with clients via both online and offline channels (Barger, Labrecque, 2013). Customer satisfaction
37
scores indicate the success of company’s digital offerings and digitalization (Barger, Labrecque, 2013), so the twenty-fifth proposition is:
Proposition 25. Customer satisfaction enables digital transformation of a company.
Potential customer satisfaction scores include:
• Referral rates can be measured by number of references, shares or citations on particular company by the customers (Hoffmann, Fodor, 2010).
• Retention percentages are the ratios of customers that make return purchases of firm’s products or services, measured per customer segment (Sol, 2010). • Providing support via social media can be measured by complaint visibility
and customer feedback (Barger, Labrecque, 2013).
Consequently, the propositions 26A, 26B, and 26C are:
Proposition 26A. Referral rates constitute customer satisfaction. Proposition 26B. Retention percentages constitute customer satisfaction. Proposition 26C. Support via social media constitutes customer satisfaction.
15. Product innovation
Product innovation includes implementation of new features and technologies into products development, product and service expansion with digital services, and contributions of new product ideas from employees and customers (Berghaus, Back, 2016). Product innovations also mean focusing on the capabilities that enable more agile and flexible ways of working forming the basis for effective digital business and transformation (Valdez-de-Leon, 2016). So, the proposition 27 is:
38
Proposition 27. Product innovation enables digital transformation of a company.
Based on previous research, the main components of product innovation are:
• Disruptive potential. Eager (2010) suggests evaluating disruptive potential of company’s products, or what is the probability of a given product to disrupt the market and how sophisticated underlying technology is.
• Business segment extension – the level to which product offering is extended with digital services (Berghaus, Back, 2016).
• Innovation capability – digital competencies of a company, including strong collaboration with internal IT department; cooperation with external partners, such as start-ups and universities; and allocation of resources, budget, and time to digital innovation (Berghaus, Back, 2016).
• Customer integration stands for involving the users in the process and making use of customer data when developing new products, as well as extensive use of customer testing of new products (Berghaus, Back, 2016).
• Time-to-market denotes the period of time that takes to develop next generation of product or create an entirely new product (Eager, 2010; Kaplan, Norton, 2005). One way to measure time-to market is to compare time of new product introduction with firm’s competitor’s indicator (Kaplan, Norton, 2005).
• New products development stands for company’s efforts to develop and bring to live new products and new generations of products. It can be measured by percentage of sales from new products and of sales from proprietary products (Kaplan, Norton, 2005).
39 Thus, the propositions 28A to 28F are:
Proposition 28A. Disruptive potential constitutes product innovation. Proposition 28B. Business segment extension constitutes product innovation.
Proposition 28C. Innovation capability constitutes product innovation. Proposition 28D. Customer integration constitutes product innovation.
Proposition 28E. Time-to-market constitutes product innovation. Proposition 28F. New products development constitutes product innovation.
16. Inter-firm collaboration
A lot of companies, especially smaller-scale ones do not have required expertise and capabilities to employ all the benefits that IT and technology has to offer. Firms with such constraints have an alternative option, which is inter-firm collaboration to access new knowledge and technologies that alliance companies offer (Eisenhardt et al. 2010). So, organizations can achieve high performance by either building IT configurations internally or by relying on inter-firm collaboration, what leads us to the next proposition:
Proposition 29. Inter-firm collaboration enables digital transformation of a company.
Park and Saraf (2016) suggest two variables to measure inter-firm collaboration:
• Reliance on external suppliers of products or services (Yes / No);
• Inter-firm collaboration in research and development, production or marketing (Yes / No).
40
Proposition 30A. Reliance on external suppliers of products or services constitutes inter-firm collaboration.
Proposition 30B. Inter-firm collaboration and in research and development, production or marketing contribute constitutes inter-firm collaboration.
17. Partner readiness
Partner readiness is the degree to which company’s partners (up or down its value chain) have the systems in place that allow them to perform transactions digitally (Barua et al., 2004). So, to conduct digital transactions all partners need to install compatible electronic systems, what leads to the inference that company’s digital transformation is influenced by the readiness of its partners (Zhu et al., 2003). Thus, the thirty-first proposition is:
Proposition 31. Partner readiness enables digital transformation of a company.
Table 2. Research propositions overview
Groups of KPIs
(Level 1) Groups of KPIs (Level 2) Propositions
Overall company digitalization
1. Digital strategy
Proposition 1. Digital strategy enables digital transformation of a company. Proposition 2A. Business & IT alignment constitutes digital strategy. Proposition 2B. Digital commitment constitutes digital strategy. Proposition 2C. Customer-centric approach constitutes digital strategy.
2. Digital-oriented organization
Proposition 3. Digital-oriented organization enables digital transformation of a company. Proposition 4B. Improvisation constitutes digital-oriented organization.
Proposition 4C. HR flexibility constitutes digital-oriented organization.
Proposition 4E. Agile project management constitutes digital-oriented organization. Proposition 4D. Organizational agility constitutes digital-oriented organization. 3. Processes and
operations digitalization
Proposition 5. Processes and operations digitalization enables digital transformation of a company. Proposition 6A. Automation constitutes processes and operations digitalization.
Proposition 6B. Business models time-to-market constitutes processes and operations digitalization. Proposition 6C. Storytelling practice constitutes processes and operations digitalization.
4. Data-driven management
Proposition 7. Data-driven management enables digital transformation of a company. Proposition 8A. Integration of data in processes constitutes data-driven management. Proposition 8B. Analytics constitutes data-driven management.
5. Transformation management
Proposition 9. Transformation management enables digital transformation of a company. Proposition 10A. Governance constitutes transformation management.
Proposition 10B. Performance measurement constitutes transformation management. Proposition 10C. Management support constitutes transformation management. 6. Digital-oriented
culture
Proposition 11. Digital-oriented culture enables digital transformation of a company. Proposition 12A. Collaborative environment constitutes digital-oriented culture.
42
Groups of KPIs (Level 1)
Groups of KPIs
(Level 2) Propositions
Proposition 12B. Risk tolerance constitutes digital-oriented culture. Proposition 12C. Digital affinity constitutes digital-oriented culture.
IT & Technology
7. IT architecture
Proposition 13. IT architecture enables digital transformation of a company. Proposition 14A. Technology capability constitutes IT architecture.
Proposition 14B. Social media analytics constitutes IT architecture.
Proposition 14C. Mobile technology and analytics constitutes IT architecture. Proposition 14D. Cloud computing services constitute IT architecture.
8. IT
infrastructure Proposition 15. IT infrastructure enables digital transformation of a company. 9. IT spending Proposition 16. IT spending enables digital transformation of a company. 10. IT training
Proposition 17. IT training enables digital transformation of a company. Proposition 18A. Number of employees trained constitutes IT training. Proposition 18B. Total duration of training trained constitutes IT training. 11. IT usage
Proposition 19. IT usage enables digital transformation of a company.
Proposition 20A. The number of employee categories for which IT was standardized constitutes IT usage. Proposition 20B. The number of employee categories that use the new IT constitutes IT usage.
Proposition 20C. The number of employees using new IT constitutes IT usage.
Product & customer experience digitalization 12. Digital value proposition
Proposition 21. Digital value proposition enables digital transformation of a company. Proposition 22A. Segmentation constitutes digital value proposition.
Proposition 22B. Bundling constitutes digital value proposition. Proposition 22C. Channels constitutes digital value proposition.
Proposition 22D. Interaction of online and offline experiences constitutes digital value proposition. Proposition 22E. Customer-perceived service quality constitutes digital value proposition.
13. User / customer
Proposition 23. User / customer experience enables digital transformation of a company. Proposition 24A. Usability constitutes user / customer experience.
43
Groups of KPIs (Level 1)
Groups of KPIs
(Level 2) Propositions
experience Proposition 24B. Aesthetics constitutes user / customer experience. Proposition 24C. Engagement constitutes user / customer experience. Proposition 24D. Personalization constitutes user / customer experience.
Proposition 24E. Integration of customers into service creation and delivery constitutes user / customer experience.
14. Customer satisfaction
Proposition 25. Customer satisfaction enables digital transformation of a company. Proposition 26A. Referral rates constitute customer satisfaction.
Proposition 26B. Retention percentages constitute customer satisfaction. Proposition 26C. Support via social media constitutes customer satisfaction.
15. Product innovation
Proposition 27. Product innovation enables digital transformation of a company. Proposition 28A. Disruptive potential constitutes product innovation.
Proposition 28B. Business segment extension constitutes product innovation. Proposition 28C. Innovation capability constitutes product innovation. Proposition 28D. Customer integration constitutes product innovation. Proposition 28E. Time-to-market constitutes product innovation.
Proposition 28F. New products development constitutes product innovation.
Partners management
16. Inter-firm collaboration
Proposition 29. Inter-firm collaboration enables digital transformation of a company.
Proposition 30A. Reliance on external suppliers of products or services constitutes inter-firm collaboration.
Proposition 30B. Inter-firm collaboration and in research and development, production or marketing contribute constitutes inter-firm collaboration.
17. Partner
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The research consists of three stages: exploration, case studies, and validation. The key method employed throughout the research is multiple case studies with the use of interviews and secondary data. Moreover, in-depth literature analysis is performed in exploration stage of the study to create awareness in the topic and build the conceptual framework. The overview of research stages and methods is provided in the Figure 1.
Figure 1. Research design
Considering the definition of case study research strategy, Schramm (1971) states that the essence of case studies is that it tries to illuminate a particular decision (or set of decisions), answering the questions: “why it was taken”; “how it was implemented”; and “with what results”. Thomas (2011) defines case studies as analysis “of persons, events, decisions, periods, projects, policies, institutions, or other systems that are
