Transformation Management Capabilities for Digital Transformation Initiatives: A Construct Conceptualization in Alignment with the Dynamic Capabilities Framework

Abstract:

Organizations all over the world are transforming digitally. However, the success rate of such a transformation is minimal. In order to increase the chance for a successful transformation, the leaders of the organizations going for digital transformation are required to have transformation management capabilities (TMC). The current studies surrounding this topic rarely discuss these capabilities as the main issue. Most papers only discuss several capabilities which are relevant to their research. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to present a comprehensive review to synthesize the conceptualization of TMC. We begin the research with the idea that TMC is the set of capabilities possessed by the leaders of the organizations. The capabilities should enable them to pull away from failure and drive the organization to embrace the critical success factors and achieve the digital transformation vision and objectives. From the 67 works reviewed in our research, we found 64 failure reasons and 223 critical success factors for digital transformation. We used the grounded theory to rigorously review the literature and developed a conceptual construct for TMC and then aligning it with the dynamic capabilities framework. Our finding shows TMC is a two orders construct with 8 dimensions and 35 indicators. Our findings contribute to the body of knowledge by developing a structural construct of TMC. It also benefits the practitioners by better comprehending the management capabilities that the organizations need to acquire to have a successful digital transformation.