Managing Digital Resources: A Qualitative Investigation of Digital Management in the Norwegian Private Sector

Abstract

Digital technologies are introduced, removed, recombined, and utilized in businesses, industries, and sectors every day, and fundamentally transform processes and organizations (Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2016; Westerman et al., 2015). Even so, there is little consensus on how to best manage these technologies and resources. Through an exploratory, qualitative, interview-based study with 16 top managers from 15 Norwegian companies, we aim to uncover how these top managers conceptualize and conduct digital management. We address their planning, organizing, leading, and following-up activities in relation to these resources, and discover that by conducting digital management, the organizations build two key capabilities: to continuously develop strategies, offerings, and the organization, and to facilitate individual empowerment.