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The integration of the digital transformation of agriculture and China’s ‘dual-carbon’ strategy for agriculture is new momentum for developing agriculture, reducing rural income inequality, and improving the subjective well-being of farm households. This paper uses data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) in 2014, 2016, and 2018 to examine the impact of internet use on rural income inequality at the household level. The results show that internet use can significantly reduce rural income inequality by enhancing information availability and farm households’ nonfarm employment level. The results of a heterogeneity analysis reveal that the internet is more conducive to improving the income inequality of rural burdened families and families in Western China. Further analysis shows that improving income inequality can enhance the subjective wellbeing of farmer households. Accelerating the construction of digital villages, building internet skills cultivation systems, and focusing on the utility of internet use among vulnerable rural groups can reduce rural income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a world bombarded with unprecedented challenges, it is paramount for organizations to embrace resilience in all their processes, albeit supply chain management. In the wake of ever-intensifying race for digital transformation, it is crucial for organizations to follow structured roadmaps towards building digital supply chain resilience (DSCR) through striking a balance between supply chain resilience (SCR) and supply chain vulnerabilities (SCV), in a manner that does not erode profits, neither expose the organization to increasing vulnerabilities. The paper addresses the evolution of SCR, the SCR and SCV drivers, and recommends investment in particular Industry 4.0 (I4.0) enablers. The outcomes of this paper are (a) a discussion of the complementary relationship between SCR and SCV drivers; (b) a thorough understanding of the possible contributions of I4.0 technologies towards DSCR; and (c) a roadmap for future research into the integration of SCR drivers and SCV constrained by the resilience fitness space (RFS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, stems from the rapid advancement of digital technologies such as the Internet of Things and Cyber-Physical Production Systems. It has the potential to weave positive changes to firms and impact organizational structure layers. Therefore, it provides an impetus for the collaboration of factories, suppliers, and customers. Nevertheless, due to the difference of Industry 4.0 vision among companies, there is a lack of unified perception and approach of its implementation roadmap. Therefore, many firms in both developed and developing countries that step in the way of digital transformation encounter not only organizational, technological, and operational challenges but are also compelled to cope with a large deal of confusion. Hence, this paper aims to identify the main concepts, characteristics, and technology enablers related to Industry 4.0 to provide stakeholders with a clear understanding of this paradigm. It then clusters and matches the derived concepts and characteristics associated with Industry 4.0. Further, the paper provides an analysis of how these clusters are supported by technology enablers of Industry 4.0, as well as managerial implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the key aspects of digitalization brought by Industry 4.0 is driven by the Internet of Things. Perhaps, the most interesting component of digital transformation is Augmented Reality. Augmented reality is merging the digital and physical worlds in the same experience. This new technology is accepted and applications are initiated in various areas including manufacturing. The main usage area in manufacturing is planning, execution, and verification of the assembly and maintenance operations. Likewise, augmented reality is used in the training of inexperienced people and to guide them by remote expert support. However, the augmented reality application selection, especially for non-technology savvy manufacturing organizations is challenging. Detailed and time-consuming analyses are required to understand the key features to compare and select the most suitable augmented reality application. In this paper, the most critical nine augmented reality software selection criteria are identified. To help organizations to apply such criteria and make a selection that is most suitable for the enterprise, a multi criteria decision-making approach is suggested. The suggested method is based on a fuzzy spherical number. The complex proportional assessment method is used to calculate the rankings. Therefore, the suggested method is called SF-COPRAS. Moreover, the detailed definition of augmented reality features and terminologies is explained. Several augmented reality use-case scenarios are discussed for manufacturing organizations on their Industry 4.0 initiatives. This paper aims to guide decision makers on their augmented reality software selection journey. The offered framework aims to save time for investigating augmented reality solution features systematically and objectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) is continually striving to use resources efficiently and manage complex processes. Now more than ever, there is a strong need for digital transformation in AEC. The improvement in the accessibility of consumer-based head-mounted displays (HMD) is attracting different entertainment and research fields to immersive virtual reality (VR) applications. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is known as a promising technology in AEC. The full potential of BIM is not yet employed to empower this field, however, and this could be a result of some barriers still to be surmounted by BIM in both technological and management perspectives. One of these barriers is the communication and collaboration between design, construction, operation, and maintenance phases. VR can fill this gap by providing additional capabilities for BIM which either were not available before or were not possible to employ in practical ways. In this paper, we systematically review recent research around the application of VR in BIM and discuss the results using the PRISMA flowchart. We discuss the most commonly used technologies, software, and evaluation methods and the various applications of VR in the reviewed papers. Finally, we extend the discussion by summarizing the potential future work in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the post-industrial period, traditional Chinese enterprises are facing the awkward situation of being 'big but not strong', with their core technologies being controlled by others. The digital transformation of enterprises has not only reshaped business models and industrial boundaries, but also boosted the high-quality development of China's economy. This paper reviews the existing literature and discovers that digital technology promotes enterprise production efficiency through cost reduction, efficiency improvement, and innovation. Based on the data of listed manufacturing companies in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2009 to 2017, this paper constructs a differences in differences (DID) model to empirically study the relationship between digital transformation and production efficiency. The results revealed that the implementation of digital transformation plays a significant role in promoting economic benefits and the results of the lag regression method are still robust. Based on this, combined with the actual situation of Chinese enterprises, this paper proposes countermeasures and suggestions to promote the development of enterprise digital transformation. The conclusion is of great significance for Chinese enterprises to occupy a dominant position in the new wave of global industrial revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current pandemic situation has forced organisations to adapt quickly and change processes through digital transformation. Businesses began to interact with consumers online and generally had to adjust existing processes and develop or improve the products and services offered. The agile transformation as part of Industry 4.0 started several years ago and in the current situation can be considered the best starting point for ongoing changes. The agile approach is mostly used in the field of IT, where it has penetrated mainly into software solutions and project management. Later, this concept began to penetrate deeper into several areas of the organisation, today we can talk about the company-wide transformation into an agile platform. While agility was initially perceived as a benefit, especially for software solutions, today it helps in successful business mainly by penetrating the organisational culture in which organisations define the desired values, ideas and procedures of employee behaviour in the organisation and is able to implement agile management principles. In the presented article, we present the results of research focussed on the analysis of the current state of application of agile management methods in companies operating in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The aim of this paper is to identify the approach to building an agile culture as a basic prerequisite for their effective implementation. The contribution of this article to agile management research is to identify specific aspects of agile culture that support agile management functioning. The size of the examined sample and the comparison of the results between the group of companies in the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic provide findings with a high degree of reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The establishment of the pilot financial reform zone is aimed at promoting regional financial supply-side structural reform. By giving localities broader financial autonomy, local governments are incentivized to target the "pain points and blockages" in financial services to the real economy, thus having a significant impact on the development and transformation of micro enterprises. Based on micro data of A-share listed manufacturing enterprises in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2010–2021, this paper uses the double difference method (DID) to explore the impact of the establishment of a comprehensive financial reform pilot zone on the digital transformation of micro manufacturing enterprises and its mechanism. The results found that the pilot zone of comprehensive financial reform significantly improved the digitalization of manufacturing enterprises. Specifically, it effectively promotes the digital transformation of enterprises by reducing their financing costs and promoting their physical investment levels. In particular, it has had a stronger positive impact on the digital transformation of non-state-controlled enterprises, competitive enterprises, and labor-intensive and technology-intensive manufacturing enterprises. The results of the present study can provide a reference experience for other regions to carry out financial reforms to serve the transformation and upgrading of enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural and food system transformation helps increase farm productivity and encourages farmers to participate in updated value chains, adopt newer technologies, thereby helping farmers transform their livelihoods in a sustainable manner. Relatedly, value chain innovations depend on multiple decisions farmers make at various stages of the value chain, adequate participation being a primary factor. In this paper, we integrate farmers' adoption decision of a new variety of chilli crop ("Teja") along with their electronic market participation decision and e-market participation intensity, based on data from the chilli farming sector in India, where agricultural markets have been modernized through digitization (Kalgudi e-Market). Thus, the employed Triple-Hurdle Model (THM) integrates adoption decision of "Teja" variety of chilli, e-Market Participation Decision and e-market participation intensity thereby, allowing us to make inferences relating to chilli farmers in Andhra Pradesh, India. Our results, showed that the drivers of "Teja" variety adoption, e-market participation, and e-participation intensity include education, reliable extension services, access to seeds of high yielding varieties, market information, and membership in farmer-producer organizations. Added to these, personnel training visits, prompt deliveries of inputs, and prompt payment of sales proceeds are also important in influencing participation and intensities. Results show that the three stochastic decisions of THM are strongly correlated implying that the adoption decision of "Teja" variety of chilli by the farmers influences the e-market participation decision and consequently, e-market participation intensity and these three decisions are sequential. On the contrary, the decisions viz., e-market participation decision and e-market participation intensity as input buyers and consequent adoption of "Teja" variety of chilli are simultaneous. So, the policy measures that promote production technology interventions (say, "Teja" variety of chilli) will definitely enhance better e-market access of chilli farmers. Accordingly, the breeding programs of the agricultural research stations should enhance the uptake of improved varieties in tune with modern marketing (e-market) technologies. Future farm policy and agricultural-research and innovations must recognize the potential that the digital marketing systems have to offer. Such considerations coupled with the provision of market infrastructure including assaying, grading, storage, and market information will promote digital transformation in agricultural value chains in developing countries like India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new Readiness Model, 3D-CUBE, to assess the current state of manufacturing companies in the digital transformation context. Using a systematic literature review with 8-Steps-Search-Flow and a hypothetical-deductive framework (considering maturity as an 'input' enabler and not as an 'output'), the best information of 63 existing models was selected from 486 studies found in 10 databases. The 3D-CUBE was elaborated, with 3 dimensions (X = Organizational , Y = Technological , and Z = Process Maturity), 6 sub-dimensions, and 21 elements, including a scale 0-5 to assess the company readiness level. For the company's Data Collection, a 3D-CUBE Questionnaire was developed, which provides a radar graph and calculates the company's score with a readiness vector R=(X,Y,Z). Based on the existing model's shortcoming, 3D-CUBE is a new contribution to this research stream, to help companies in getting ready for Industry 4.0.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today's global supply chain (SC) is grappling with unprecedented challenges, which rendered conventional SC resilience (SCR) inadequate. In the wake of the Industry 4.0 (I4.0) age, investment in digital SCR (DSCR) relying on I4.0 technologies can potentially enhance organizations abilities to detect, avoid, respond to, and recover from disruptions promptly and efficiently. Literature most focuses on traditional SCR, while DSCR remains incipient. From this, this paper conducts a comprehensive literature review on the SCR, I4.0, and investment (INV) interplays to identify potential research gaps and avenues. It is revealed the integration of SCR-I4.0-INV as a complex and multifaceted process that requires holistic approaches. Some research gaps include the need for empirical studies on DSCR impacts, the role of organizational culture in supporting digital transformation, and investment and resilience trade-offs. This research provides insights for decision-makers and policymakers seeking to develop strategies for promoting resilient SCs in the digital transformation era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Maurice Holland Award is an annual award presented to the authors of the best paper published in the previous year's volume of Research-Technology Management. The 2023 award was given to Michael Obal, Todd Morgan, and Wesley Friske for their article titled "Is 'Cutting-Edge' Good? Assessing Product Newness Factors in Technologically Turbulent Environments." The article explores the challenge faced by firms in developing products that are both cutting edge and easily understood by customers. The authors found that while firms are effective at innovating, customers may not be driven to adopt the newest products. The award aims to bridge the gap between research and practice, and the winning article emphasizes the importance of striking the right balance in new product development. [Extracted from the article]

Limiting human exposure to radio frequency electromagnetic fields in crowded indoor public spaces such as shopping malls, is identified as one of the key metrics in the process of green and digital environment transformation. To assess the exposure levels in shopping malls, we conducted a human centric extensive measurement campaign using three-axial frequency selective measurement equipment. Our study involved various indoor locations within the mall, capturing electrical field levels at different times and days of the week. A total of 529,340 samples were collected during working days, and 430,020 samples were collected during weekends. We measured E-field strength, power density, and calculated total exposures for frequency bands ranging from 88 MHz to 5850 MHz. The presented comparative analysis revealed that mobile communications technologies operating at 900 MHz and 1800 MHz were the main contributors to personal exposure levels in different mall environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digitalisation trend is affecting the manufacturing industry by adopting several emerging technologies that can increase the efficiency and output of production processes and operations. A growing body of literature shows that this trend demands a structural rethink of how companies do business. However, there is a lack of holistic contributions describing how aspects of manufacturing digitalisation align with the Business Model Innovation process. This study uses a bibliometric mapping approach to analyse the literature on manufacturing digital transformation through the Integrated Business Model (IBM) lens. The results identify the major research topics discussed in the analysed domain and propose an enriched IBM framework with specific descriptions and connections among the components and their relative strengths. Holistically, the resulting enhanced model may ultimately assist practitioners in understanding the innovation process of the BM triggered by technological shifts in their manufacturing, enabling an alignment of the manufacturing strategy with IBM's components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study discusses the readiness of established companies in mature industries to revamp and reorganize their technology intelligence processes as they adapt to digitalization. Technology intelligence is a crucial activity for firms that are trying to keep abreast of rapid technological change. Yet technology intelligence is hardly integrated into companies' strategic decision-making processes—particularly in manufacturing companies. We explore how the case study firms' existing processes compare to those of the ICT industry. We discuss the challenges manufacturing companies face regarding their technology intelligence activities, especially in adopting digital technologies and leveraging the potential advantages of digitalization. We provide suggestions to practitioners on how to address these challenges—notably more organized and systematized technology intelligence processes than those we observed in our sample of firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid developments in building information modeling (BIM) are escalating the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry toward digital transformation. However, the lack of skilled BIM professionals is a critical issue slowing this transformation. Currently, few educational institutions include BIM topics in their curricula, especially those developed for quantity surveying (QS) programs. Moreover, the learning outcomes of BIM curricula may not meet the current industrial requirements. Thus, this study investigated the current states, gaps, and challenges of BIM education for QS practices in Hong Kong. This study conducted surveys to determine industrial requirements and a case study to examine the BIM curricula currently offered at Hong Kong educational institutions. The results suggest that the current BIM education for QS practices is in line with the pace of BIM development in the AEC industry. However, some advanced topics are not covered in BIM education. Additionally, the non-standardized BIM competencies to be attained by students lead to uncertainty and challenges in BIM education for quantity surveyors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate the convergence of digitalisation in the European Union (EU) in terms of DESI per capita in all EU countries during 2015–2020. The empirical results sustain the hypothesis of convergence of the degree of digital level in the European Union member countries. In evaluating the convergence process, we also aimed to investigate the role of economic development and education, measured by gross value added and education index. The analysis results, the use of sigma and beta convergence methods, showed that the role of economic development is likely to be decisive in resolving disparities, as opposed to that of educational development. The sigma convergence analysis showed that the gap between the EU-28 countries regarding digitalisation tends to decrease in the analysed period. Spatial data analysis, in turn, provides strong evidence for the presence of spatial autocorrelation in the DESI distribution. This result is based on a spatial lagged model that considers that DESI growth rates are related both to their initial levels of digitalisation and the growth rates of neighbouring regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital transformation, both omnipresent and influential, has deeply impacted various sectors with a particular focus on the economy. The introduction and adoption of tools that facilitate technological changes and online business practices have emerged as game changers. They have endowed corporations with enhanced internal agility and improved employee communications. Online business, with its vast potential, is becoming increasingly crucial in developing countries, where Internet accessibility is steadily growing. This study explores the impact of e-commerce on company productivity by considering both formal and informal sectors. It leverages data from the 2018 General Business Census of Togo. By applying endogenous switching regression and smoothed instrumental variable quantile regression tools, this study demonstrates that online businesses can significantly increase productivity, particularly in firms within the informal sector. However, this finding highlights the potential risk of job loss. This study concludes that support strategies are essential for promoting the integration of online companies, increasing productivity, and protecting jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital transformation remains a passion. Globally, science and technology are transforming businesses to make them more competitive and conducive to sustainable development. However, rapid advancements in financial technology have enabled financial institutions to steal customers from traditional banks, resulting in their demise. Consequently, this study employs the System GMM-two step estimator and data from 118 Chinese banks from 2014 to 2021 investigate the issue. Empirical evidence suggests that banks' digital transformation has a negative impact on their profitability to some extent, but digital inclusive finance has enabled the bank to change its digital transformation behavior and enhance its operational performance. Therefore, banks must continue to strengthen their digital transformation by expanding online customer services, increasing the use of e-accounts and mobile applications, providing digital offline services, strengthening digital risk management and privacy and security controls, reducing customer psychological risk, and promoting financial inclusion. Financial inclusion should simultaneously achieve reduced financial exclusion of customers and increased financial literacy of customers. All these factors will help banks to maintain profitability by leveraging synergies with financial inclusion in the process of digital transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a world where financial capital serves as the backbone of individual and societal economic health, understanding the mechanisms that can stimulate or hinder its accumulation is critical. This study explores how the accessibility of banking services and the integration of digital finance can influence the accumulation of financial wealth, as well as disparities in household savings. Drawing on data derived from the Finscope Consumer Survey for Togo 2016 and the Harmonized Living Standards Measurement Study 2018 for Togo, this study employs a range of analytical methodologies including propensity score matching, double difference, and smoothed instrumental variable quantile regression tools. The outcomes of this study underscore that access to banking services and digital finance significantly enhances physical asset investment and the adoption of sound financial practices rather than an increase in bank savings alone. Therefore, the emergence of digital finance can be seen as a missing link in the formal financial system's ability to improve the efficiency of financial service provision and make a significant contribution to reducing inequalities in wealth accumulation. This study sheds light on the significant decrease in inequality concerning the capacity for wealth accumulation among households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of digital economy and technology in China, we research on whether corporate digital transformation in traditional industries can improve accounting quality as well as corporate governance. Our findings suggest that, firms proceeding more digital transformation have lower degree of earnings management and higher degree of accounting qualities. Digital transformation can improve accounting quality by reducing three types of agency costs. Specifically, digital transformation can improve corporate internal control, as well as attract more analyst tracking, to improve accounting qualities. Additional analysis suggests that, the governance effects of corporate digital transformation are more prevails in non-state firms, or weak information quality firms, as well as in long-term oriented firms. Corporate digital transformation can decrease real earnings management and stock price synchrony, increase accounting quality, reveals a positive governance effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of Digital Earth (DE) was formalized by Al Gore in 1998. At that time the technologies needed for its implementation were in an embryonic stage and the concept was quite visionary. Since then digital technologies have progressed significantly and their speed and pervasiveness have generated and are still causing the digital transformation of our society. This creates new opportunities and challenges for the realization of DE. 'What is DE today?', 'What could DE be in the future?', and 'What is needed to make DE a reality?'. To answer these questions it is necessary to examine DE considering all the technological, scientific, social, and economic aspects, but also bearing in mind the principles that inspired its formulation. By understanding the lessons learned from the past, it becomes possible to identify the remaining scientific and technological challenges, and the actions needed to achieve the ultimate goal of a 'Digital Earth for all'. This article reviews the evolution of the DE vision and its multiple definitions, illustrates what has been achieved so far, explains the impact of digital transformation, illustrates the new vision, and concludes with possible future scenarios and recommended actions to facilitate full DE implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By combining two types of studies: theoretical and field, the study aims to explore the impact of digital transformation on the quality of accounting information and the efficacy of corporate governance through the deployment of blockchain technology in banks. The study's dimensions and variables were examined using a descriptive-analytical technique. To collect data from Jordanian banks' financial analysts, auditors of shareholders' accounts, and financial managers in the field research community, data lists were developed. For the analysis of the field research data, SPSS was used. Both the first and third hypotheses were rejected, indicating that the null hypothesis was rejected and the alternative hypothesis was accepted. Neither the second nor the fourth hypotheses were accepted. In order to reap the benefits of blockchain technology in increasing the quality of accounting information and strengthening corporate governance, a digital transformation toward its application in commercial operations is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the long-anticipated digital transformation of traditional retail has become the new reality. Retailers are responding to changes in consumers' shopping behaviours and their demand for new interaction channels and touchpoints to shop at their convenience, regardless of time and location. Consequently, retailers are experiencing a change from single-channel models to multi-channel and omnichannel models. Omnichannel retailing demands integrated channel management and operation to improve customers' shopping experiences. This study uses measures of channel integration levels from previous research to analyse channel integration among leading vendors in three top retailing sectors (clothing and apparel, home furniture and grocery) and expands the analysis by including indicators of digital transformation. The model includes 27 indicators related to channel integration and 9 indicators of digital transformation, and compares the results across sectors. By so doing, the study also aims to help establish values that may be used as target or reference values of channel integration and digitalization of retailers across sectors, irrespective of their size. The research methodology uses the 'mystery shopper' technique and includes the collection of data about the 165 leading companies in these sectors in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) worldwide, especially in European countries, suffered a steep fall due to the rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus. This article is the first effort to empirically investigate the nexus between digital transformation and FDI inflows, thereby finding a way to help countries overcome the current situation. Using the data of 23 European countries pre-COVID (2015–2019) and during the COVID health crisis (2020), we demonstrate a nonlinear relationship between digitalization and FDI inflows, implying that a certain extent of digital transformation could promote the inflows of FDI. Before the COVID-19 health crisis, digital business played a critical role in attracting FDI inflows. E-commercial activities also enhanced FDI flows during the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, and digital public services may be an effective tool to help countries overcome the health crisis. Furthermore, digitalization plays a critical role in promoting FDI inflows in both the short term and long term. Hence, digital transformation is an inevitable process that countries need to embrace in order to overcome the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and resolve the delay or lack of foreign investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the big areas of opportunity that the company saw across these verticals was that business customers were not only interested in sophisticated pieces of machinery, but were now also interested in data: in apps for their phone or dashboards so they could see what was happening across a fleet of different elevators, for example. We have seen the same pattern of incredibly rapid business model exploration and adoption from Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, and others - really from all of the most successful companies of the digital era. Alibaba and Amazon are great examples of companies that follow the customer and break outside of their business models, but it would be useful to have an example of an industrial company that has done the same thing. [Extracted from the article]

Sweden aspires to become 'the best in the world at utilizing the opportunities of digitalization' and is internationally recognized for its digital performance. Education has been identified as instrumental for the digital transformation of Swedish society, and efforts are made to accelerate the digitalization of the educational system. As governments' demands for digitalization get increasingly loud and persuasive, it is important to critically explore what values and ideologies are embedded in the argumentation. In this study, we use Critical Discourse Analysis to examine the Swedish Digitalization Commission's report 'For digitalization with the times'. Our results demonstrate that the policy argumentation, despite being anchored in traditional Swedish welfare values, is characterized by a coherent and reductionist neoliberal framing of education. Students are represented as self-managing entrepreneurial citizens with a moral obligation to renew their human capital and adapt to market demands, while the educational system is constructed as a flexible, largely automated, infrastructure for 'life-long learning', in which teaching is reduced to 'facilitating'. We suggest that such discourses around education in Swedish policy rest upon three preconditions: digitalization as an interconnective policy object, Swedish digitalization policy making as soft governance, and the Swedish welfare model as susceptible to discursive drift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industry 4.0 mainly focuses on the application of modern technologies (digitalization) and the changing role of human beings (digital transformation) in modern production and logistics systems. Besides the basic principles of digitalization, interconnectivity, and autonomization, the importance of human-centered decision-making processes, such as the selection of strategic suppliers, is also increasing, as complex, novel, and unstructured decisions cannot be fully computerized. In this context, there is still a lack of understanding of which formal patterns in the strategic supplier selection process will lead to better supplier performance. Until now, most of the literature emphasizes a minor number of process-related factors in the strategic supplier selection process leading to limited support for the individual decision-maker. This study introduces a cause-effect model that extends prior research by investigating the impact of process formality, as a comprehensive measurement construct of target-, information-, organization-, and heuristics-related process factors in the strategic supplier selection process on supplier performance and purchaser satisfaction. Based on the usage of variancebased structural equation modeling in a large-scale field study, a significant relationship between process formality and supplier performance as well as between process formality and purchaser satisfaction is substantiated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology has reshaped how financial services are designed, delivered, and consumed over the past decade. The increased mobile and internet penetration and availability of cheap data combined with the advent of Fintech, digitalization, blockchain technology, machine learning, and artificial intelligence have fast-tracked the digital transformation of economies worldwide. Covid19-induced lockdowns accelerated the digitalization of financial services. This study identifies the main areas and current dynamics of Fintech, digitalization, and financial services and suggests future research directions. Using a bibliometric analysis followed by a thematic literature review, the study examines a sample of 583 journal articles from the Scopus database from 1984 to 2021. Based on the bibliometric analysis, we identified four dominant themes. These themes are further explored through a thematic literature review to gain further insights. We conclude by suggesting potential directions for future research in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart connected products are transforming existing markets and creating new ones. The smart homes market is one popular example. This transformation is particularly challenging for large, traditional industrial manufacturers that often rely on organizational structures that have evolved over decades. To adapt, some companies collaborate with or acquire startups, establish subsidiary firms, or encourage spinoffs in an effort to leave the "old firm" untouched while simultaneously seizing an opportunity to participate in the new market. Other companies are more adventurous and transform their organizational structure. Miele, the leading manufacturer of premium domestic appliances, is among the latter. We describe how Miele met this challenge in 2016 and discuss lessons learned in the four years after the company initiated its transformation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Overview: Digital transformation is reshaping entire segments and industries: communications, retail, and, increasingly, health care, medicine, agriculture, and manufacturing. While a few companies reach front-runner status, most seem to lag. Digital transformation is a top concern of senior leaders worldwide and motivated the development of this study. This article describes the results of the Patterns of Digitization survey designed to assess how companies are implementing digital transformation. The survey covers the various strategies companies employ, the technologies they invest in, and, in particular, the actions they take to overcome the organizational resistance that is common in most large-scale transformations. We highlight important actions all companies are taking to digitally transform their businesses and the differentiated actions of digitally mature organizations. The insights gleaned from the study should help lagging companies understand what is involved in implementing a digital transformation and what they need to do to catch up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Overview: LEGO Group launched an Agile transformation of its corporate digital departments in early 2018; this transformation included the introduction of a new digital operating model. One year into the transformation, the impact of the new model is beginning to show in a significant reduction in the time required to respond to change—from months to weeks—in the company's core functions. This article describes how the Agile transformation was orchestrated and Agile values and principles integrated into the process to avoid implementing a set of Agile processes and tools without changing behavior and mind-set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]