New Working Capabilities for Coping With COVID Time Challenges

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic played as a booster to the cultural, social, and economic transformations triggered by the 4.0 Industrial Revolution, increasing the diffusion and employment of technological devices and requiring to reconsider the traditional approach to work and organization. Dealing with an emblematic organizational case, the article highlights the main key capabilities requested to face the current scenario, suggesting transformed attitudes needed to cope with the unfolding complex, uncertain, changing digital and blended world. The findings, gathered through an extensive survey involving 500 people who started working at a distance during the 2020 lockdown period, underline the main actionable skills to be achieved for enhancing agile work, hybrid professional roles and new work, and organizational and managerial cultures.

The contribution of organizational culture, structure, and leadership factors in the digital transformation of SMEs: a mixed-methods approach

“…Having horizontal and boundary-less structures tends to increase the company’s shared vision (expert RealE), the organization’s malleability, permeability, and adaptability, the collaboration among employees, and support for co-creating transformation. In this context, we also perceive an orientation to ‘ multifunctional and self-managed team organization ’, which favors DT (following Matarazzo et al 2021 ) and, according to Fregnan et al ( 2022 ), promotes the integration of different kinds of knowledge which help to broaden perspectives and solutions. Likewise, promoting an innovation culture helps ‘cut bureaucracies’ (expert SysC) and ensure quality and agility in decision-making (experts EntF and SysJ).…”

“…Besides, internal organizational collaboration and cooperation have been highlighted and explored as essential elements of DT (Fregnan et al 2022 ; Roblek et al 2021 ; Vial 2019 ; Li et al 2021 ). In this respect, all experts indicated that ‘ collaborative work execution’ supports DT’s success.…”

“…Moreover, par rapport the development of valuable digital deliveries, Roblek et al ( 2021 ) indicates the importance of ensuring that the natural curiosity of employees is maintained, and, in this sense, interviewees have widely cited that an innovation culture comprises and impact the fact of ‘ hold space for activities based on experimentation and tests ’, like supporting activities of MVPs, tests, and adjustments. Following Fregnan et al ( 2022 ), it is crucial to be open to the introduction of something new and to promote activities of developing new solutions and functionalities experimentally, combining data and information, and comprehend that making the customer pay for a solution ‘requires a lot of trial and error and observation of other primary sources of success’ (expert SysK). Finally, we highlight that an innovation culture enhances the need to keep up with and get used to new technologies, creating room to maintain a structure that ‘ encourages activities to sense and monitor opportunities ’ in the market and the ecosystem.…”

“…The current competitive environment is characterized by a number of major and intertwined phenomena that contribute to reshaping its strategic and organizational landscape. These phenomena include (1) the rise of digital competitors that renew industries (e.g., Spotify, UBER, Airbnb); (2) increasingly informed and demanding consumers (Fernández-Rovira et al 2021 ; Shakina et al 2021 ; Warner and Wäger 2019 ); (3) the constant emergence of disruptive digital technologies (e.g., Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, big data, blockchain) that, among other things, create new business opportunities (Müller et al 2018 ), enable the more accurate insights and information of the needs and requests of consumers (Rialti et al 2019 ), and encourages the creation of flexible and interconnected firm systems (Magni et al 2021 ); and (4) a global crisis caused by the coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) which accelerated the conditions of development and adoption of technologies and capabilities (Fregnan et al 2022 ). The result is a scenario that challenges companies’ business models and pushes them to remain successful (or to survive) through ways to deliver their products and services digitally (Seetharaman 2020 ; Scuotto et al 2022 ).…”

“…Furthermore, we know that culture, leadership, and organizational change have significant positive associations with organizational performance (Dalvi et al 2013 ), so how they operate and relate to each other (or not relate) is also an attractive gap inside the DT discussion (Vaska et al 2021 ; Priyono et al 2020 ). While some capabilities grew in importance during the pandemic suggesting a new work culture (Fregnan et al 2022 ), according to Vaska et al ( 2021 ), the culture shift in companies that transitioned to digital requires more research. Also, Ko et al ( 2021 ) conclude that decision-makers are the drivers of DT in organizations, and for Vial ( 2019 ), leaders can ensure that companies develop digital orientation and the necessary agility to respond to digital technology's context.…”