Leveraging Informal Organizational Networks for Successful Digital Transformation

数字转型是一个比人们通常认识到的要复杂得多的过程。这是因为在数字进步的头条新闻背后，数字技术从根本上重塑了组织与数据的关系。一旦一家公司的高级领导层决定像许多人经常描述的那样“走向数字化”，他们就需要通过关注数字技术、数据和工作组织之间的关系来处理后端的复杂性。尽管通过数字技术收集、存储和访问的数据在成功的数字转型中发挥着重要作用，但我们对某些类型的技术使用如何影响和使用数据，从而改变非正式工作组织的方式知之甚少，而对如何制定公司的数字变革战略知之甚少。在这项研究中，我们首先假设新的数字技术只为组织和完成工作的新方式提供了潜力。为了实现成功的数字化转型，必须将数字技术带来的与数据相关的新能力转化为人们实际可以使用的资源。为了了解向数字技术的过渡如何影响组织，以及数字技术提供的数据如何被激活到通信网络中，需要在实施新的数字技术之前和之后研究数字转型。一个及时的机会是，全国许多城市都在计划重大举措，安装几项先进的数字技术，以更好地管理其市政当局的水。我们将在五个城市水务机构进行一项多年的人种学研究，以调查数据在实施之前、期间和之后如何影响任务、角色和网络。我们将使用定性和定量的方法来回答以下问题：1)自来水公司内部的利益相关者如何选择数据密集型技术并为其做好准备？2)组织如何使用来自新的数据密集型技术的数据来进行泄漏检测、预防性维护和灾难准备工作？3)数字技术对自来水公司的组织在任务、角色和组织内的网络方面有什么影响？4)不同类型的部门和不同的职业群体之间的信息使用情况如何比较？这项研究的结果将塑造我们对以下问题的理解：技术被配备来做什么工作，组织成员应该如何接受培训，以使用新的数字技术及其所需的分析能力，以及如何减轻使用数字技术指导组织中的工作和沟通实践的意外后果。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Digital transformation is a much more complex process than is often recognized. This is because behind headline-grabbing stories of digital advances, digital technologies fundamentally reshape an organization’s relationships with data. Once a firm’s senior leadership decides to “go digital,” as many often describe it, they need to deal with the backend complexity by focusing on the relationship between digital technology, data, and the organization of work. Despite the importance of the role that data collected, stored, and accessed through digital technologies plays in successful digital transformation, we know very little about how certain types of technology use affect and use data in ways that produce changes to the informal organization of work than we do about how to set corporate strategy for digital change. In this study, we begin with the assumption that new digital technologies provide only potential for new ways of organizing and getting work done. To bring about a successful digital transformation, the new data-related capabilities enabled by digital technology must be made into resources that people can actually use. To understand how the transition to digital technologies affects organizations and what how data provided by digital technologies are activated into communication networks, digital transformation needs to be studied both before and after new digital technology implementation. One timely opportunity is the fact that many cities across the country are planning for major initiatives to install several advanced digital technologies to better manage water across their municipalities. We will conduct a multi-year ethnographic study at five municipal water agencies to investigate how data affects tasks, roles and networks before, during and after implementation. We will use both qualitative and quantitative methods to answer the following questions: 1) How do stakeholders within water utilities select and prepare for data-intensive technologies? 2)How do organizations use data from new data-intensive technologies for the work of leak detection, preventative maintenance and disaster preparedness? 3) What effects do digital technologies have on the organization of water utilities regarding tasks, roles and networks within the organization? 4) How does information use compare between different types of departments and different occupational groups? The findings of the study will shape our understanding of what work technology is equipped to do, how organizational members should be trained to work with new digital technologies and the analytic capabilities they require, and how to mitigate unintended consequences of using the digital technologies to guide the work and communication practices in organizations.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.