• 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.

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 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.

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.