Industrial Revolutions and Digital Transformation: Understanding Technological Embeddedness and Its Impact on Organizational Dynamics

Submit your paper here!

Introduction

The special issue aims to explore the multifaceted impact of digital transformation in the context of Industry 4.0 and 5.0, examining how technological embeddedness influences organizational dynamics. Emphasizing interdisciplinary research, it will uncover how digital technologies reshape organizational climate, human resource management strategies, employment structures, work ecosystems (e.g., GIG Ecosystem), and approaches to equality, diversity, and inclusion, considering technological shifts and the post-COVID period. This issue will provide a collection of research analyzing how digital transformation changes organizational policies, strategies, and structures. Additionally, it will consider the darker aspects of these advancements by exploring how digitalization can lead to adverse behaviors, including discrimination and potentially toxic organizational environments. Submitted research must provide robust theoretical and practical contributions to the organizational change literature within this issue's context. The recent systematic review by Hanelt et al. (2021) presents a comprehensive framework for understanding digital transformation. They introduce contextual factors (like organizational and environmental influences), processes (such as innovation and integration), and results (including how organizations are structured, economic aspects, and spill-over effects). This academic contribution emphasizes the wide-ranging impact of digital transformation on organizations. However, it's important to recognize that there is still a gap in research on how organizations effectively deal with and meet the requirements of digital transformation. Moreover, we have limited insight into how this transformation affects the way organizations are structured, their strategies, and their day-to-day operations. While some recent research (e.g. Aydin et al., 2023; Rahman et al., 2022) examines the consequences of digital transformation, particularly in the context of Industry 5.0 and Industry 4.0, there is a need for more exploration in the academic literature to keep up with the ever-changing world of digital technology, considering the continuous advancements in this field. Additionally, it is clear that the period after the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about new values and influences on organizations and society (He and Harris, 2020; Yang, 2023) . This has added complexity to our understanding of digital transformation and how organizations manage change. In this dynamic setting, this special issue aims to provide insights into the effects of digitalization in the midst of the challenges posed by ongoing technological progress driven by various industrial changes and the shifts in culture resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak. Through this investigation, we aim to clarify the intricate relationship between technology and culture, offering valuable perspectives for researchers and professionals navigating the evolving world of digital transformation and its impact on organizations. 
This special issue will contribute to the organizational change management literature by providing an evidence-based perspective to understand the impact of digital transformation, industrial revolutions, and the post-COVID era on organizational structures, climates, and processes. Having adopted various theoretical perspectives, this special issue will shed light on how digitalization changes the nature of work and organizations in different country contexts. There is a paucity of research on digitalization and its effects on organizational contexts. For this reason, this research will extend existing knowledge related to digitalization and organizational change by adopting micro-individual, meso-organizational, and macro-national levels of analysis.

List of Topic Areas

• Digital transformation, 
• Organizational change, 
• Technological embeddedness, 
• Post-Covid Era, 
• Dark Side of Technological Advancements

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here.
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see here.
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to ““Please select the issue you are submitting to”. 
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Key Deadlines

Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 24/06/2024 
Closing date for manuscripts submission: 31/12/2024

References

Hanelt, A., Bohnsack, R., Marz, D., & Antunes Marante, C. (2021). A systematic review of the literature on digital transformation: Insights and implications for strategy and organizational change. Journal of Management Studies, 58(5), 1159-1197. 
Aydin, E., Rahman, M., & Ozeren, E. (2023). Does Industry 5.0 Reproduce Gender (In) equalities at Organisations? Understanding the Interaction of Human Resources and Software Development Teams in Supplying Human Capitals. Information Systems Frontiers, 1-15. 
Rahman, M., Kamal, M. M., Aydin, E., & Haque, A. U. (2022). Impact of Industry 4.0 drivers on the performance of the service sector: comparative study of cargo logistic firms in developed and developing regions. Production Planning & Control, 33(2-3), 228-243. 
He, H., & Harris, L. (2020). The impact of Covid-19 pandemic on corporate social responsibility and marketing philosophy. Journal of business research, 116, 176-182. 
Yang, C. G. (2023). A study on the changes in the ICT industry after the COVID-19 pandemic. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 123(1), 64-78.