A co-workership approach on digital transformation : Towards smart manufacturing

• Digital transformation refers to the process of organizational change, evolving over time for value creation and appropriation aiding for smart manufacturing (Skog, 2019). Regarding the role of organizational means, there is an embedded dynamic generator of challenges, opportunities, and resources that affect the digital transformation at various organizational levels related to social factors such as values, culture, and trust (Ibid). Earlier studies of the Swedish manufacturing industry imply that as the number of digital technologies increase within organizations, while striving towards becoming a smart factory, cooperation and social factors become more imperative (Björkdahl, 2020). By following this reasoning, understanding organizational prerequisites that facilitate the human-centric perspective in relation to digital transformation is crucial when approaching smart manufacturing by moving from Industry 4.0 (I4.0) towards Industry 5.0 (I5.0) (Navarandi, 2019). It is argued that a prerequisite for digital transformation is the employees’ ability to cross organizational boundaries both horizontally and vertically (Carlsson et al., 2022) challenging management. The aim of this study is to explore organizational prerequisites for co-workership in digital transformation towards smart manufacturing. The concept of the co-workership wheel reflects the employee as an autonomous actor within the organization. As such, co-workership is vital for managing organizational change, e.g., digital transformation, capturing employees’ initiatives and prospects (Andersson, et al. 2021). As illustrated in Figure 1 the co-workership wheel consists of four conceptual pairs: Trust and Openness; Community Spirit and Cooperation; Engagement and Meaningfulness; Responsibility and Initiative. Together these four pairs describe the foundation for co-workership within the organization, feedbacking a development process towards smart manufacturing.Inspired by the application of the co-workership wheel in the health care sector (ibid), this study builds on previous work by Carlsson et al. (2022) to further contribute to the exploration of co-workership in the manufacturing sector strengthening the I5.0 emerging research. By applying a qualitative case-study, organizational prerequisites for co-workership in digital transformation are explored (Yin, 2018). The term co-worker is herein applied in a general sense to explore employees’ experiences covering both managerial levels and service functions. The case company is a large manufacturing organization in the Swedish energy sector. In-depth interviews (n=29) were conducted over nine months (Oct. 20 – Jun. 21), exploring co-workers' current and retrospective experiences of the early phases of digital transformation. Referral sampling was applied for selecting informants from functions such as design, quality, production, logistics, digitalization development leaders, and corporate service functions including HR, IT, and financial controllers. Access was granted to six internal documents guiding all employees covering the organization’s strategic work with industrial digitalization, vision, and core values: responsibility, excellence, and innovation. Several rounds of data analysis followed, identifying organizational prerequisites related to each of the four conceptual pairs (Andersson et al., 2020) through a coding scheme based on the co-workership wheel, Findings show that employees interpreted digital transformation as difficult to navigate due to limited communication and cooperation across the organization. Furthermore, the need for trust in digital technologies and employee engagement for transformation are emphasized by informants. Thus, it is argued that an adaptive organizational culture and a focus on learning and competence are necessary organizational prerequisites for translating the means of digital transformation. Managers in the manufacturing sector hence need awareness and understanding of when and how to apply co-workership for transformational change. Manufacturing cultures need to absorb a more human-centric perspective when navigating I4.0, moving in incremental steps encompassing the whole organization, rather than treating digital transformation as scattered and disruptive activities. We argue that the findings give useful implications for manufacturing organizations navigating the challenges of digital transformation to reach the benefits of smart manufacturing. As digital transformation cuts across organizational structures and working processes, there is a need to highlight a human-centric perspective on smart manufacturing by applying the conceptual pairs of the co-workership wheel. Lessons learned show that by applying a co-workership approach with its aspects of trust and openness, community spirit and cooperation, engagement and meaningfulness, responsibility and initiatives, management needs to encourage organizational prerequisites such as an adaptive culture and learning and competence for reaching and sustaining a human-centric perspective on digital transformation.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Systemvetenskap, informationssystem och informatik med samhällsvetenskaplig inriktning (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Information Systems, Social aspects (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Produktionsteknik, arbetsvetenskap och ergonomi (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

smart manufacturing

digital transformation

co-workership

human-centric

industry 4.0

industry 5.0

Production Technology

Produktionsteknik

Work Integrated Learning

Arbetsintegrerat lärande

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)