Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

9-2025

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Business

Advisor

Karl Lang

Committee Members

Nanda Kumar

Maria Halbinger

Subject Categories

Management Information Systems

Keywords

Digital transformation, higher education, organizational culture, sociostructural systems, work logics, agency

Abstract

Digital transformation broadly refers to the process of enacting digital technologies to fundamentally change how an organization creates value, enhancing the customer experience, increasing efficiency, and achieving a sustained competitive advantage. Current industry research estimates that over 90 percent of large organizations globally are undertaking digital transformation initiatives, yet a surprisingly low percentage of them report a resulting lift in revenue or improved efficiency. This trend is particularly pronounced in the education sector, where universities, navigating the pressure of lower enrollment rates following the global pandemic and the impact of disruptive technology such as artificial intelligence and online learning platforms, have significantly lagged behind. According to the literature, research on the digital transformation phenomenon has increased exponentially, yet little is known about how these transformations deliver measurable benefit or why so many fail. However, organizational culture is one of the most frequently cited reasons that digital transformations fail.

Though it can be difficult to quantify, it is important to understand digital transformation value, and we do not yet know how to account for variation driven by the perspectives and requirements of different stakeholder groups. While extant literature suggests that a digital transformation requires both a top-down and bottom-up approach, there is a need to study how the tensions that emerge and the resulting compromises to resolve those tensions shape digital transformation outcomes. This research explores this critical gap, investigating how a bureaucratic, compliance-driven public university with strategic digital goals responds to a market demanding change. We examine the influence of cultural and sociostructural dynamics on the digital transformation of higher education and seek to understand how stakeholders navigate the sociostructural system – i.e., the control structures, business processes, organizational policies, and power dynamics – to define and shape the trajectory of these initiatives.

To understand the influence that stakeholders have on digital transformation, we conduct a qualitative case study of a public university system. In Study 1, we investigate how digital technologies impact the work practices of public university stakeholders. We find that the use of digital technologies depends on the enactment of agency, which is role-based and may be institutionally encouraged or constrained, thereby impacting digital transformation outcomes. In Study 2, we explore how digital technologies shape the dynamics of digital culture, a subcomponent of organizational culture, as stakeholders exercise agency within the sociostructural constraints of a public university system. In Study 3, we examine the emerging use practices of generative artificial intelligence among students and faculty, analyzing the tension between market pressure and professional values in higher education. This research advances the study of digital transformation by analyzing the impact of the phenomenon on the cultural and sociostructural systems in public universities and the importance of situated agency within the cultural-structural framework. The results also have practical significance for higher education, offering theoretical insights and practical guidelines for universities striving to remain relevant as they seek to digitally transform.

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