Page - 237 - in Digital Entrepreneurship - Impact on Business and Society

1. The presence of a sufficient number of members of an organisation who understand digital technology and can create and implement all the innovations necessary to drive the digital transformations needed by that organisation 2. Thewayanorganisationmakesdecisions and takes necessary actions to exhibit a fluid knowledge of digital technology. Some organisations succeed in both aspects. Smart digital thinking pervades every aspect of their corporate functioning.As for the rest ofmodernorganisations, it is unlikely that their largest barrier to digital innovation is a lack of peoplewith the knowledge of digital technologies. Companies today hiremany digital natives.However, if digital innovation does not take place, the issue is more likely that a company is blocking the intrapre- neurial spirit of its digitally competent employees, while those with significant digital talent are leaving the organisation or are disengaged and demotivated. See Case 2 below formore on this situation. Themajor problem preventingmost organisations from acting from a place of understanding of digital technology lies in their management. If management has neither the sufficient understanding of nor the familiarity with digital technology, how can it rapidly foster the organisational knowledge of digital technology? 1. Certainly, widespread education about digital technology is one part of the answer;however, itwill probably take time tohelp theseniormanagement reach the required level of understanding of and familiarity with digital technology where it would be able to properly assess any proposed digital innovations. There are faster approaches to the issue in question. 2. Ifmore senior-levelmanagers put their trust in selectingmid-levelmanagers as sponsors, the growth of digital organisational competence within a company would significantly increase without the need for substituting any senior man- agers. A cultural transformation aimed towards increasing professional trust is necessary to empower intrapreneurs, and it can also increase the company’s organisational intelligence in digital matters much faster than if the company tried to foster a profound digital competence among its senior executives. However, the seniormembers are still needed to providewise advice about the core of the business that takes years to develop. 3. If a company learns togivemoreweight to the character, competence, and track record of its intrapreneurs,with slightly less focus on the initial quality of their ideas, then their sponsors will be able tomake better decisions evenwithout a detailed knowledge of digital technologies. In this scenario, the sponsors may augment their understanding of technology by knowing how to recognise and relate to true intrapreneurs. 4. Senior executives and middle managers can build a small set of digitally competent advisors to help them understand and assess proposals related to digital transformation. These advisors may not be highly ranked and may 244 G. Pinchot III andM. Soltanifar