”Man är digital – men är man det på rätt sätt?” : Relationen mellan digital transformation, kommunikation och organisationskultur på SJ AB

Sammanfattning

Many organizations are striving to reach the benefits that digital transformation brings, as there are clear benefits to be gained from digitizing an organization. However, a vast majority of companies fail to implement digital technology. Previous research within the field emphasizes that the organizational culture is crucial for the success of digitization projects. This study examines the relationship between digital transformation and organizational culture through a communicative approach, and the assumption is made that there is a reflexive relationship between organizational culture and communication. The study is based on a social constructivist perspective, where the aim is to contribute key insights regarding the importance of communication and organizational culture in digital transformation processes. The selected case company is SJ AB (Statens Järnvägar)—a major Swedish railway company. The intention is to assess SJ’s digital maturity, which is concretized by studying their employees’ perceptions of the implementation of SJ’s new scheduling system IVU— an implementation that did not meet the expected goals. The study has a qualitative approach; the method used is semi- structured interviews, where 13 interviews in total were conducted with employees from different departments within SJ’s organization. The results indicate that due to the divided organizational culture within the company SJ’s organization has different levels of digital maturity. The result also suggests that the insufficient communication may have been a contributing factor to the outcome of IVU.