• Examine government’s role in orchestrating extra-government digitalization initiatives through sectoral governance via public policy innovation. • Focus on high impact digital transformation of the microbusiness sector in Ireland. • Theorize the knowledge mechanisms through which sectoral governance facilitate the digital transformation of microbusiness sector. • Leverage a rich Irish case study of a government led digital transformation program in the context of microbusiness. • Identify roles of knowledge ecosystem stakeholders, pathways, and practices and map their social value and well being impacts. Most prior public sector digital transformation (DT) research has examined the role of digitalization in improving either the internal operational efficiency of the government or the quality of government service delivery to external stakeholders such as citizens and businesses. Although policy-driven digitalization of specific sectors is key for promoting public value, government’s role in orchestrating extra-government digitalization initiatives to create public value has not been sufficiently investigated. To address this perceptible void in the public sector DT literature, we study a government-led DT program designed to promote digitalization among microbusinesses (MB), a sector that has major economic and social implications. Given the significant role of technical and business knowledge in facilitating enterprise DT, we examine and theorize different knowledge mechanisms through which government policy initiatives can help foster MBs’ DT. Drawing on qualitative data from a series of structured interviews and focus groups with government agents, digital champions, and MB owner-managers involved in the implementation of a government-led DT program for MBs in Ireland, among the different DT stakeholders, we identify three knowledge pathways playing different knowledge-related roles and aiming to facilitate this transformation: top-down, bottom-up, and multidirectional. Each pathway comprises distinct practices. Collectively, the identified knowledge mechanisms in the DT program knowledge ecosystem foster social value creation for both MBs and government stakeholders, and therefore for the nation as a whole. Specifically, sustenance of the DT program is achieved through “initiation” and “instantiation” knowledge routes. Our findings offer theoretical contributions to the literatures on government-led digital transformations, effectiveness of government-led digital initiatives, and digital transformation in the MB sector. Our study also has significant implications for policy and practice.

Purpose As part of the growing necessity for inter-organisational and multi-disciplinary interaction to facilitate complex innovation in digital security, there needs to be greater engagement with regulation in the innovation process. This is particularly true in the case of security technologies that are embedded within wider systems and that are largely invisible to most of the users of that system. This paper aims to describe stakeholders’ perspectives on regulation in the digital security innovation process and evaluates the implications of these perspectives on anticipatory regulation in digital security. Design/methodology/approach Using a qualitative methodology based on semi-structured expert interviews and ethnographic participant observation, the study draws on the authors’ involvement in a formally organised programme of academia–industry–government collaboration called Digital Security by Design (DSbD). Findings The study highlights a relational dimension to establishing regulatory responsibilities that is enabled through interdisciplinary dialogue. The study contributes to understanding the multifaceted roles of regulation in digital security innovation across organisations and areas of expertise. It does so by identifying four themes in how regulation is perceived in the DSbD programme: ethical imperative, adding value, adoption lever and passive compliance. Practical implications Incorporating regulatory responsibilities through dialogue early in the innovation process, rather than only once a security technology’s deleterious effects are noticeable, which could make digital innovation and transformation safer and better regulated. It can also make regulation successfully adopted, rather than an exercise in damage control or an adversarial process between regulators and organisations. Originality/value This paper presents original empirical research on how regulation is considered by stakeholders in a novel multi-disciplinary digital security innovation process. It then uses these findings as a basis to evaluate the implications for establishing regulatory responsibilities for a class of security technologies that are embedded within wider systems and that are largely invisible to most of the users of those wider systems.

Despite the economic and societal significance of microbusinesses (MBs), digital transformation (DT) efforts in the MB sector have been rather sporadic. Further, prior DT studies have primarily examined large- and mid-sized organisations, leaving a perceptible void in the literature. In this paper, we leverage the unique context of MBs and recognise the key role of microbusiness owner-managers (MBOMs) for the management and sustenance of DT initiatives. Specifically, we theorise the influence of MBOMs’ DT readiness in terms of their growth and technology mindsets contributing to their DT learning resources and processes. Drawing on qualitative data from a series of structured interviews and focus groups with MBOMs and other key stakeholders in the Irish MB digital ecosystem, we identity three MBOM digital transformer archetypes comprising unique configurations of MBOMs’ growth and technology mindsets, namely: champion digital transformers, emerging digital transformers, and aspiring digital transformers. For each of these archetypes, we explore the different learning capabilities and mechanisms through which MBOMs manage and sustain their digital transformation efforts. Our findings offer theoretical contributions to the fields of digital transformation in microbusinesses, digital leadership, and digital capabilities. Our study also has significant implications for policy and practice.

Whilst participatory practice is increasingly adopted in end user studies, there has been far less use of a participatory approach when designing lower down the software stack. As a result, end users are often presented with security controls over which they have no control but for which they retain the responsibility. Conversely, hardware and software engineers struggle to innovate new security control designs that are resilient to new and emerging threats. In a study utilising ethnographic research and stakeholder interviews, we show that there is a siloing of communities of practice between hardware security engineers, software engineers and coders, manufacturers in the technology supply chain and end users. Our findings indicate that this siloing and a lack of participatory practice impedes the development of a more cohesive digital security design that integrates security through the stack from the hardware layer upwards to the OS and application layers. These barriers make difficult the negotiation between what is possible lower down the stack with what is needed and wanted higher up the stack. Our findings suggest that a more holistic and comprehensive participatory design approach is required to negotiate a digital security by design paradigm that more evenly distributes power over and responsibility for security controls throughout the stack. Working with the HCI literature on co-production in design, this paper will suggest that a pathway for breaking through this impasse is to utilise objects in the design process of the hardware secure instruction set architecture as a feedback mechanism to incorporate other sets of designers and users in the design process to create a more workable stack.

Whilst the role of online communities (OCs) in knowledge exchange and generation has been widely discussed, limited research exists on the distance and direction of OC knowledge flows. In this paper, we examine this issue by taking the case of an industry-founded OC that rendered around the use of a specific Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) module used by public sector organisations. Through a grounded analysis approach, we extend literature on OCs by identifying user-generated practices that enable knowledge flows in the online space as well as by examining the travels of these knowledge flows, taking particular account of the distance they cover and the direction they take. Findings point to within, outwards and inwards travels of OC-related knowledge flows showing a widely spread OC knowledge impact. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed.

By conceptualising presence as a behavioural construct, this study explores how online leaders’ presence exerts an influence on online communities and their members. Drawing on qualitative research where five online communities were examined, the findings show that online leaders’ presence is identified in different forms which ultimately may have different impacts on the community and its members. Articulations of leaders’ presence online included interactive, instructive, stimulating and silent and for each the leader was found to exert a different influence on online community members. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed and areas for further research are identified.

This paper describes the development and home testing of the inTouch system, a video link designed specifically for people with dementia to use. Iterative, user centered design of four user interaction models was carried out at a day centre. A touchscreen with a telephone handset model was chosen as the most usable interface for a range of people with dementia. This model was developed into a fully working prototype and tested in two home trials, linking two households together over domestic broadband connections. The recruitment of participants for home testing proved to be a significant challenge with no single reason being given for declining or not continuing. Two in-home evaluations of the system were carried out; the system was perceived as easy to use and participants could see the potential benefits, such as being reassured about each other's wellbeing, and enjoyed engaging visually. The poor reliability of existing broadband connections in the homes was a significant limitation to gathering data within the trials. We have successfully applied user centered design principles to the development of a home video link for people living with dementia and their carers. Developers need to consider practical issues around recruitment and broadband infrastructure when carrying out real world evaluations of ICT systems.

In this paper, we introduce the concept of business strategic conflict and examine its influence on communication media selection and use in inter-organisational collaborations. In doing so, we show the inherent complexities in the computer-mediated interactions between synergistic companies in the same industry. The work draws on a field study carried out for 5 months in a case of a product design collaboration between two large high-tech corporations in Taiwan and Korea. Findings show that at an early stage of the collaboration, the use of media has shifted substantially from FTF meetings to email, while it is also found that, due to the competitive nature of the inter-organisational collaboration involved, business strategic conflict significantly influences media selection and, in turn, it is influenced by the selected media. Our results contribute to media selection theories that have so far neglected the coopetitive inter-organisational environment.

This paper examines how the use of mobile phones influences the temporal boundaries that people enact in order to regulate and coordinate their work and non-work activities. We investigate both the structural and interpretive aspects of socio-temporal order, so as to gain a fuller appreciation of the changes induced by the use of mobile phones. With specific reference to professionals working in traditional, physically based and hierarchically structured organizations, we found that mobile phone users are becoming more vulnerable to organizational claims and that as a result ‘the office’ is always present as professionals, because of the use of mobile phones, become available ‘anytime’. This is enabled by the characteristics of the technology itself but also by users’ own behaviour. In the paper, we discuss the properties of the emerging socio-temporal order and show how mobile phones may render the management of the social spheres in which professionals participate more challenging.

In this paper we discuss the role of silence within a virtual organising context. The paper raises issues related to the construction of silence in the virtual team context and the implications it has on team interactions. By drawing upon existing studies on virtual teams, we argue that members' silence may not always have negative effects on team performance and team relationships, but that silence is an embedded part of this environment as it reinforces the very nature of virtuality. The theoretical and practical significance of this study are discussed and implications for further research are identified.