A theoretical perspective on organizational culture and digitalization

Are emerging technologies unlocking the potential of sustainable practices in the context of a net-zero economy? An analysis of driving forces

Increasing globalization and climate change have significantly affected business activities. Government and other stakeholders are creating pressure to have a sustainable business model for efficient resource utilization and minimizing negative environmental impact. Many organizations have started focusing on sustainable and cleaner production through the adoption of net-zero economy (NZE) practices. Certain technological advancements are required to put these concepts into practice. Firms have begun to adopt digital technologies (such as big data analytics, artificial intelligence, and internet of things), and have been widely used in practice to achieve NZE. Is digitalization unlocking the potential of sustainable practices in the context of a net-zero economy? This question is still unanswered; therefore, this study aims to identify and analyze the drivers of digitalization that ensure sustainable practices to achieve net-zero economy. Through an extensive literature review and experts' opinions, a list of drivers was identified. An empirical investigation was conducted to validate the identified drivers and further understand the influencing relationship among the drivers, Pythagorean fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (PF-DEMATEL) was employed. The findings of the study show that "high degree of automation," "enhancing the flexibility in the manufacturing process," and "real-time sensing capability" are the main influencer drivers among all cause group forces. The present study can be a source for industrial practitioners and academia that can provide significant guidance on how the adoption of digitalization can unlock the potential to achieve CE, which can lead us toward net-zero.

COVID-19 pandemic-induced organisational cultural shifts and employee information security compliance behaviour: a South African case study

Purpose

The purpose of this preliminary empirical research study is to understand how environmental disruption such as brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic induces shifts in organisational culture, information security culture and subsequently employee information security compliance behaviour.

Design/methodology/approach

A single-organisation case study was used to develop understanding from direct experiences of organisational life. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected using a sequential mixed methods approach, with the qualitative phase following the quantitative to achieve complementarity and completeness in analysis. For the quantitative phase, 48 useful responses were received after a questionnaire was sent to all 150–200 employees. For the qualitative phase, eight semi-structured interviews were conducted. Statistical software was used to analyse the quantitative data and NVivo software was used to analyse the qualitative data.

Findings

The pandemic-induced environmental disruption manifested as a sudden shift to work-from-home for employees, and relatedly an increase in cybercrime. The organisational response to this gave rise to shifts in both organisational and information security culture towards greater control (rule and goal orientations) and greater flexibility (support and innovation orientations), most significantly with information security culture flexibility. The net effect was an increase in employee information security compliance.

Originality/value

The vast literature on organisational culture and information security culture was drawn on to theoretically anchor and develop parsimonious measures of information security culture. Environmental disruptions such as those caused by the pandemic are unpredictable and their effects uncertain, hence, the study provides insight into the consequences of such disruption on information security in organisations.

Digitalisation as the Indicator of the Evidence of Sustainability in the European Union

Digitalisation provides access to an integrated network of information that can benefit society and businesses. However, the evidence of sustainability in business is less researched. In our paper, by building up the research approach, we address the relevant gap by investigating how sustainable development goals represent the interrelationship between digitalisation and sustainability. Such research is particularly important because understandings of digitalisation and sustainability determine how different actors, including business managers and policymakers, act in response to those imperatives to develop future employees skills starting from school age. Following a multi-method approach, we have combined our analysis into two steps examining the relationship between digitalisation and sustainability. Building digital networks, business managers and policy makers using digital means can create some unique opportunities to strategically address sustainable development challenges for the United Nations Targets (SDG) to ensure higher productivity, education, and an equality-oriented society. This point of view describes the potential of digitalisation for society and businesses of the future. The authors revise the links between digitalisation and sustainability in the European Union countries by using data available in Eurostat and UNECE public databases. The two-stage methodology for the identification of the relationship between ICT and sustainability is used in the paper and a linear regression model is applied. The results showed tiers with five SDGs, focusing on business, and all these tiers are fixed in the constructed equations for each SDG. The recommended solution is statistically valid and proves the novelty of this research. Among digitalisation indicators, only mobile-cellular subscriptions and fixed-broadband sub-basket prices in part do not affect researched sustainable development indicators.

Intelligent Digital Platform for Community-Based Rural Tourism—A Novel Concept Development in Peru

The COVID-19 pandemic has driven the rapid evolution and digitization of different tourism sectors through Industry 4.0. However, Community-based Rural Tourism (CRT) has not experienced the same technological advancement. Thus, considering tourism as a powerful socioeconomic driver, this research is based on the relevance of the CRT for the development of rural areas through job creation, preservation of historical-cultural and architectural heritage, and appreciation of the local market. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to present a concept development model of an intelligent digital platform (IDP), where tourism products and services are visualized, articulated, and integrated with the different actors of the CRT, offering a personalized tourist experience. The concept was developed based on Business Process Management and Business Model Canvas (BMC). Thus, through meetings and interviews, it was possible to extract essential information to obtain the necessary know-how for the development of the concept. It was concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic has established a new business scenario, intensifying and accelerating the use of digital tools and ICTs in several sectors, including tourism. However, the use of ICTs in CRT is still incipient. As Peru is a country where rural tourism has a strong tradition, but there are no specific platforms for CRT, which makes the broad dissemination of rural experiences difficult, a BMC template has been developed to integrate the expected objectives, and the application of the proposed framework serves as a guide for other platforms with different niches markets in the tourism sector.