Unpacking Approaches to Digitalization Strategy

Abstract

According to existing strategic management literature certain sets of alignments between the content and key elements of strategy enhance organizational performance. While local governments are increasingly adopting strategic approaches to manage digitalization, research that examines such alignments in strategy for digital change is scarce. To introduce such a relational perspective, we develop a framework for analyzing digitalization strategy. We show through a comparative case study that municipalities primarily choose to focus digitalization efforts on the improvement of services, often using “tried and tested” applications, rather than experimenting with the latest digital innovations. Yet, we observe misalignment in organizing and implementing for this strategic choice, eventually undermining digitalization efforts. We contribute to the literature that explains the nature of digital change by directing attention to the interplay of strategy elements and highlight the importance to view digitalization strategy as embedded in a relational structure of actors, contents, processes and structures.