Adopting an Ecosystem Approach to Digitalization-driven Organizational Change ? Actionable Knowledge from a Collaborative Project

Emanuela Shaba (), Marco Guerci (), Filomena Canterino (), Silvia Gilardi (), Raffaella Cagliano () and Emilio Bartezzaghi ()
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Emanuela Shaba: Università degli Studi di Milano
Marco Guerci: Università degli Studi di Milano
Filomena Canterino: School of management Politecnico di Milano
Silvia Gilardi: Università degli Studi di Milano
Raffaella Cagliano: School of management Politecnico di Milano
Emilio Bartezzaghi: School of management Politecnico di Milano

Systemic Practice and Action Research, 2023, vol. 36, issue 6, No 3, 877-896

Abstract: Abstract A vibrant debate has emerged on the opportunities of digitalization for ‘humanizing’ work versus substitution or deskilling effects. Recognizing the processes of designing digitalized organizations as crucial for predicting the outcome of digitalization on workers and labor, extant research has developed an evolutionary ecosystem socio-technical (STS) perspective aimed at designing more human organizations in light of digital transformation. In this study we build upon the STS ecosystem analytical framework by Winby and Mohrman (2018), aiming to explore how the STS design principles, as proposed by said authors, are applied in three big manufacturing companies, in light of digitalization. Data collected through qualitative techniques has been analyzed abductively. Findings provide a detailed overview of how the STS ecosystem design principles are operationalized, and shed novel light on applied design methods, such as ‘agile’ and ‘design thinking’, able to support interconnection among systems, in a never-ending and iterative process. This study extends the existing ecosystem STS organization design conceptual model by exploring ‘how’ we change, ‘who’ the change is for, while also investigating ‘what’ this means for the hitherto conceptualized STS work-system. Implication for management practice and ODC scholarship are also discussed.

Keywords: Digitalization; Socio-technical principles; Ecosystem; Integrated Design; Multistakeholder; Agile; Design Thinking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1007/s11213-023-09632-4

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