Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks : Unpacking the relation between digital capabilities and digital initiatives within decentralized industrial incumbents

Sammanfattning

As the digitalization of society progresses, it becomes increasingly important for organizations to digitalize themselves. However, many decentralized industrial incumbents struggle with generating long-term value from digital initiatives. Due to their legacy and tight coupling with physical resources and products, it can be challenging to digitalize established business models. Therefore, this study explores the role of digital capabilities when generating long-term value from digital initiatives, contributing to the Industry 4.0 transformation of decentralized industrial incumbents. To achieve this, the research question was: How does decentralization impact what digital capabilities are needed for generating long-term value in industrial incumbents? A case study was conducted through semi-structured interviews with a large Swedish industrial incumbent. Findings show that the issue lies in social aspects such as stewardship, cross-functional collaboration, and sustained commitment. Furthermore, the study provides a synthesized framework and definition for digital capabilities to better understand how long-term value is generated from digital initiatives and how it contributes to Industry 4.0 transformation.