Governing Digital Transformation In Organizations

Digital transformation has become a central challenge for contemporary organizations. The introduction and use of digital technologies do not simply add new tools to existing organizational arrangements; they unsettle established ways of coordinating action, making decisions, distributing responsibility, and legitimizing authority. Organizations are expected to become more adaptive, innovative, data-driven, and resilient, while at the same time maintaining legitimacy, accountability, and social responsibility. Simultaneously, digital transformation often unfolds under conditions of uncertainty, acceleration, and competing expectations.

This session invites organizational sociological contributions that examine how digital transformation is governed in and through organizations. Governance is understood broadly as the interplay of formal and informal rules, decision-making structures, coordination mechanisms, technologies, and practices through which digital transformation is enabled, constrained, stabilized, contested, or redirected. Contributions may address private, public, hybrid, or civil society organizations, as well as interorganizational arrangements, platforms, data infrastructures, standards, or ecosystems.

We are particularly interested in papers that analyze governance arrangements and governance regimes that (re)shape organizational iedntity, authority, responsibilities, participation, expertise, accountability, and legitimacy. How is the interrelation between managers, professionals, employees, technical systems, external providers, and regulatory actors readjusted? How do organizations deal with tensions between innovation and control, efficiency and participation, technological possibilities and institutional constraints? How do governance arrangements emerge, become contested, and shape the direction of organizational change?

The session aims to bring into conversation different organizational sociological perspectives on digital transformation, thereby fostering debate on how digital technologies reconfigure organizational order, authority, and change.

Session Format: Open Sessions (Paper Presentation Sessions)