Invitation to send articles to a Special Administration Notebooks on
Digital Transformation in Times of Crisis
Editorial committee
Rafael A. González
Facultad de Ingeniería
Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia
ragonzalez@javeriana.edu.co
Pedro Olaya
Escuela de Ingeniería y Ciencias
Tecnológico de Monterrey, Guadalajara, México
Orlando López
Departamento de Matemáticas y Departamento de Humanidades
Universidad El Bosque, Bogotá, Colombia
orlandolopez@unbosque.edu.co
Crisis management demands digital transformations from organizations when they are related to digital ecosystems. Financial crises, for example, can be associated with the opacity of instruments built with sophisticated algorithms and investment decisions are made using artificial intelligence. Discussions on climate change also revolve around data obtained with advanced sensors, analytics of large volumes of data and projections made by simulations with high-performance computer networks. The current multi-crisis unleashed by the SARS-Cov-2 virus has also been managed with the support of mobility data, tracking of infections with mobile applications and simulation of various isolation and vaccination scenarios. Households, educational establishments, commerce and companies have also had to respond through digital scenarios. This has accelerated the adoption of digital technologies.
Indeed, there has been great digital growth in the financial and commercial sectors with banking use through digital services, fintech, e-commerce and mobile home delivery applications. The presence and use of virtual spaces for interaction has exploded in teleworking, virtual education, videoconferencing and cloud infrastructure. The blockchain has been deployed for logistical support such as through multiple cryptocurrencies, whose market has expanded remarkably. Finally, digital content has expanded the subscription and use of video-on-demand platforms (e.g. Netflix) and online video games (e.g. Among Us). Thus, much of the continuity of vital activities amid the pandemic has been made possible by technology.
This technological adoption and digital transformation have not been entirely voluntary and are far from being inclusive and generalized. The pandemic has highlighted and highlighted inequalities. There are children and schools without Internet access; employees abandoned to their fate to create teleworking conditions in precarious homes; closed shops without the possibility of offering their services online. Many have reluctantly handed over their data only to see it exploited without ethical considerations. Tech moguls have widened their fortunes amid rampant unemployment. The bidding between beginner investor groups and Wall Street has been enjoyed and suffered, undermining trust in an already badly wounded system. With the closure of borders, flights have been sold that go nowhere (e.g. Qantas), which makes many think that everything will return to normal, or worse; that there is no such thing as the "pedagogy of disaster" and we will not learn anything (Sloterdijk, 2020 p. 35). Furthermore, organized crime is also in the midst of its own digital transformation, resulting in cybercrime skyrocketing around the world.
Due to the effect of the pandemic, it is necessary to critically rethink the digital transformation. Are your premises valid in scenarios where this transformation is not motivated by innovation but by the need to survive? Is the digital transformation generating new inequalities between organizations and sectors with weak absorption capacities? Can we learn - from successes and failures of cases of digital transformation - to deal with the complexities that arise from inserting ourselves into a digital ecosystem? What have been the successful strategies behind these transformation processes? Which sectors have had the greatest transformation and what results have they obtained in productivity, quality, job satisfaction, etc.?
With this Special, a space is generated to address these and other questions. We invite you to formulate and resolve with your inter or multi-disciplinary contributions, based on articles of reflection that enter into dialogue with the academic literature; empirical research on factors associated with digital transformation; sectorial cases or studies, both public and private, on what the main effects of the crisis have been on:
- The rhythms and models of digital transformation or organizational absorption of digital technologies;
- The sectoral differences; or by nature (public, private or NGO); by company size; by type of activity (social, economic, cultural), etc., in the digital transformation processes;
- The organizational functional areas (production and supply chain, marketing, finance, human management and ways of working, etc.) and their digital transformation;
- The development and deployment of dynamic organizational capabilities, via digital transformation (Teece, 2018);
- Relationship of organizational digital transformation and sustainability (Salminen et al., 2017).
In particular, it is interesting to establish which (of these) effects are more structural and irreversible.
Priority will also be given to:
- Systematic theoretical or empirical reviews of digital transformation;
- In-depth case studies on the success / failure of digital transformation, before, during and after the crisis;
- Articles on the lessons of the effect of shocks / catastrophic events, in the dynamics of technological absorption, digital transformation, dynamics and modes of innovation in organizations.
Important dates
Process
Period
Receipt of items
August 30 - October 30, 2021
Editorial Committee Review
September 30 - November 2021
Review by peer reviewers
October 30 - December 15, 2021
Reception of the final versions of the articles
October 30, 2021 - January 15, 2022
Publishing articles online
November 30, 2021 - February 28, 2022
Publication of the Special online
March 30, 2022
REFERENCES
Salminen, V., Ruohomaa, H., and Kantola, J. (2017): “Digitalization and big data supporting responsible business co-evolution.”Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, Vol. 498, , pp. 1055–1067.
Sloterdijk, P. (2020): Infinite Mobilization. (S. Berjan, tran.), Polity, Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA.
Teece, D. J. (2018): “Business models and dynamic capabilities.”Long Range Planning, Vol. 51, No. 1, , pp. 40–49.