Cognitive mapping the topic of digitalization

Cognitive mapping the topic of digitalization

Joseph Kim-keung Ho

Independent Trainer

Hong Kong, China

Abstract: The topic of digitalization in the subject of Business Management is complex. By making use of the cognitive mapping technique to conduct a brief literature review on the digitalization topic, the writer renders a systemic image on the topic of digitalization. The result of the study, in the form of a cognitive map on digitalization, should be useful to those who are interested in the topics of cognitive mapping, literature review and digitalization.

Key words: Digitalization, cognitive mapping, literature review

Introduction

As a topic in Business Management, digitalization is complex. It is thus useful to employ some learning tool to conduct its study, notably for literature review purpose. For a teacher in research methods, systems thinking and management, the writer is specifically interested in finding out how the cognitive mapping technique can be employed to go through a literature review on  digitalization. This literature review exercise is taken up and reported in this article.

On the cognitive mapping exercise for literature review

Literature review is an important intellectual learning exercise, and not just for doing final year dissertation projects for tertiary education students. On these two topics of intellectual learning and literature review, the writer has compiled some e-learning resources. They are the Managerial intellectual learning Facebook page and the Literature on literature review Facebook page. Conducting literature review with the cognitive mapping technique is not novel in the cognitive mapping literature, see Eden and Simpson (1989), Eden, Jones and Sims (1983), Open University (n.d) and the Literature on cognitive mapping Facebook page. In this article, the specific steps involved in the cognitive mapping exercise are as follows:

Step 1: gather some main points from a number of academic journal articles on Digitalization. This result in the production of a table (Table 1) with the main points and associated references.

Step 2: consolidate  the main points from Table 1 to come up with a table listing the cognitive map variables (re: Table 2).

Step 3: link up the cognitive  map variables in a plausible way to produce a cognitive map (re: Figure 1) on the topic under review.

The next section applies these three steps to produce a cognitive map on digitalization.

Descriptions of cognitive map variables on the digitalization topic

From the reading of some academic articles on Digitalization, a number of main points (e.g., viewpoints, concepts and empirical findings) were gathered by the  writer. They are shown in Table 1 with explicit referencing on the points.

Table 1: Main points from the digitalization literature and referencing

Main points from the digitalization literature	Referencing
Point 1: "Innovation in advanced manufacturing technology includes product innovation, manufacturing technology innovation and industry model innovation. Digitalization and intelligentization are the generic enabling technologies for product innovation and manufacturing technology innovation. They profoundly reform the mode of production in manufacturing sector as well as its shape and form. They are the core technologies for the new industrial revolution".	Zhou, J. 2013. "Digitalization and intelligentization of manufacturing industry" Adv. Manuf. 1: 1-7.
Point 2: "Nowadays the major proportion of organizational information resides in digital documents (Blair 2002, Päivärinta and Tyrväinen, 1998). This digitalization trend is not only adding productivity, but has also generated new problems and added to the impact of existing ones, such as the information overflow, which arises from effortless availability of all kinds of information. The ease of information distribution, for example by overdistributing or forwarding received mails to many people, can impair organizational communication by overloading the persons receiving the data with irrelevant or secondary information. This action does not increase communicators’ knowledge in any way  but it increases the amount of total communication in the organization".	Kilpeläinen, T. 2004."The degree of digitalization of the information overflow" Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems 3, ICIS, Porto, Portugal: 367-374.
Point 3: ".... pervasive digitalization made possible by information and communication technologies are revolutionizing service exchange possibilities. Citing the e-book as an example, Yoo et al. (2010, p. 725) comments that digitalization of content and embedding digital capabilities into technology artifacts such as e-book readers are rapidly transforming value networks of firms and organizations, not only reconfiguring the organizing logics of “who does what” but changing what it is possible to do. That is, the potential to co-create value for customers and providers of e-books differs dramatically from that of printed books".	Barrett, M., E. Davidson, A.L. Fayard, S.L. Vargo and Y. Yoo. 2012. "Being innovative about service innovation: service, design and digitalization" Proceedings of the thirty third International Conference on Information systems, Orlando: 1-6.
Point 4: "... digitalization is often associated with dematerializing the material (Norman 2001). Yet value exchanges among human beings nonetheless occur within contexts that are material, even if that materiality may be transformed through digitization. Moreover, contexts for exchange are social as well, governed by the immaterial but nonetheless powerful forces of social structures, norms, rules, regulations, and traditions. The social and material implications of digitalization in service-for-service exchange suggest opportunities for innovation but may also limit or alter value co-creation in unanticipated ways".	Barrett, M., E. Davidson, A.L. Fayard, S.L. Vargo and Y. Yoo. 2012. "Being innovative about service innovation: service, design and digitalization" Proceedings of the thirty third International Conference on Information systems, Orlando: 1-6.
Point 5: "The digitalisation of sex trade and work involves shifts towards new forms of discourse and types of communication, interaction, engagement and networking that cannot be captured by those perspectives that disregard the techno-cultural transformations of sexual relations (Blair 1998). Broadly speaking, while new media offer possibilities for gender swapping and the construction of fluid identities that transcend gender, ethnic and racial boundaries, the assumption that digitalisation will enable us to do away with physical bodies and gender and racial inequalities has proven to be quite misleading".	Pakinik, M., N. Kambouri, M. Renault and I. Šori. 2016. "Digitalising sex commerce and sex work: a comparative analysis of French, Greek and Slovenian websites" Gender, Place & Culture 23(3): 345-364.
Point 6: "Digitalization...  is one of the most significant on-going transformations of contemporary society and encompasses many elements of business and everyday life. This transformation is important for the retail sector, which both affects and is affected by this development. Retailers provide consumers with various digital products and services that are adapted to the use of digital technologies and are simultaneously affected by the new forms of consumption associated with these digital technologies. While digitalization has a long history in retailing (see, e.g. Salkin, 1964; Watson, 2011), the significance of the transformation is becoming increasingly visible".	Hagberg, J., M.Sundstrom and N. Egels-Zandén. 2016. "The digitalization  of retailing: an exploratory framework" International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management 44(7): 694-712.
Point 7: ".... digitalization has so far primarily been addressed in terms of e-commerce. Although e-commerce is part of digitalization, its impact extends far beyond e-commerce and includes the transformation of physical products into digital services, consumer recommendations in social media, and the incorporation of digital devices into the purchasing process – such as online information searches leading to offline purchases".	Hagberg, J., M.Sundstrom and N. Egels-Zandén. 2016. "The digitalization  of retailing: an exploratory framework" International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management 44(7): 694-712.
Point 8: "A central facilitator of these broader effects of digitalization is the increasing use of mobile devices that connect to the internet, which have begun to change consumer practices, including shopping behaviours in fixed-store settings. New consumer products with mobile internet access are launched at a rapid pace, often linking to other technologies (Cochoy, 2012), and mobile devices are becoming increasingly important in the retail setting (Shankar et al., 2010). Although mobile devices may work as a substitute for activities previously performed by laptops, they also provide additional features, such as barcode scanning, location-based services, and near field communication".	Hagberg, J., M.Sundstrom and N. Egels-Zandén. 2016. "The digitalization  of retailing: an exploratory framework" International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management 44(7): 694-712.
Point 9: "The evolution is underway from where the traditional broadcaster has “push delivered” to the market to that of the consumer taking greater choice-based control of “pull delivery”. The consumers’ ability to determine for themselves what they select, and when and where they will view or listen to the broadcast product is a paradigm shift in the nature of broadcasting as we have traditionally known it. The challenge for broadcasters facing such revolutionary technological change brought about by digitalisation is to make the necessary changes to their infrastructure and operations processes in an evolutionary manner across the broadcast chain, and considerable work is underway throughout the region with all broadcasters at differing steps down that path".	Heads, W. 2006. "Digitalisation" Media Asia 33(3-4): 175-179.
Point 10: "Following Yoo, Lyytinen, Thummadi and Weiss (2010, p. 4) we understand digitalization as “the transformation of existing socio-technical structures that were previously mediated by nondigital artifacts or relationships into ones that are mediated by digitized artifacts and relationships with newly embedded digital capabilities.”..".	Thorseng, A.A. and M. Grisot.2017. "Digitalization as institutional work: a case of designing a tool for changing diabetes care" Information Technology & People 30(1): 227-243.
Point 11: "...we take an institutional work lens to analyze the activities of a design team to digitalize a tool for diabetes care. We analyze how the team, through these activities, purposefully aimed to change the practices of diabetes care. We use institutional work to unpack the process of digitalization with attention to the agency of individuals, their strategies and micro activities. This lens allows us to see digitalization as a process involving individuals engaged not only in the technical design and development of the tool but in envisioning new practices of diabetes care, and in supporting the transition to the new practices".	Thorseng, A.A. and M. Grisot.2017. "Digitalization as institutional work: a case of designing a tool for changing diabetes care" Information Technology & People 30(1): 227-243.
Point 12: "we share the thinking that is guiding our experimentation at IESE to create new pedagogical models and approaches. At its core is a deep reflection about how digitalization – defined as the diffusion and assimilation of digital technologies into all aspects of daily life – is transforming industries in general, and learning and development in particular".	Auricchio, G. and E. Káganer. 2015. "How Digitalization is Changing the way Executives Learn" IESE Insight Third Quarter 26: 31-38.
Point 13: "... the ever growing density of our digital connections and the “datafication” of our daily activities is blurring the boundary between these two worlds and, in some cases, removing it completely. Indeed, we are starting to live “blended” lives, where physical experiences are seamlessly intertwined with and enriched by digital interactions, creating new ways for people to relate to each other and their world. The consequences of this are being felt across a wide range of industries".	Auricchio, G. and E. Káganer. 2015. "How Digitalization is Changing the way Executives Learn" IESE Insight Third Quarter 26: 31-38.
Point 14: "In today’s hypercompetitive environment, new sources of product and process innovation are continually being sought to reinforce companies’ competitive advantages. In the recent past, the digital revolution inspired new managerial applications to strengthen positions within market arenas. In the case of airlines, early web applications were in the form of asynchronous sites, where customers could get little more than the same information on timetables and fares provided by travel agents albeit in new formats. Later, carriers started selling tickets on the web to make use of the cheaper distribution channel than the standard computer reservation systems (CRSs)".	Jarach, D. 2002. "The digitalisation of market relationships in the airline business: the impact and prospects of e-business" Journal of Air Transport Management 8, Pergamon: 115-120.
Point 15: "Digitalization, speedy innovation, technological convergence, and concentration of enterprises or multimedia integration are some of the axes that condition media systems nowadays, as well as play a role in democratic societies".	Corominas, M., M. Bonet, J.A. Guimerá and I. Fernández. 2006. "Digitalization and the Concept of "Local": The Case of Radio in Spain" Journal of Radio Studies 13(1): 116-128.
Point 16: "Digitalization began simultaneously for radio and television in 1997, at the start of the first term of office of the Partido Popular government. Through Law 66/1997, the government decided to promote digitalization of radio broadcasting and opted for the standard backed by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU): Eureka 147, usually known as DAB (digital audio broadcasting) in Europe. This decision was not a specific law but one intended to complement the budget".	Corominas, M., M. Bonet, J.A. Guimerá and I. Fernández. 2006. "Digitalization and the Concept of "Local": The Case of Radio in Spain" Journal of Radio Studies 13(1): 116-128.

With a set of main points collected, the writer produces a set of cognitive map variables. These variables are informed by the set of main points from Table 1. These variables are presented in Table 2.

Table 2: Cognitive map variables based on Table 1

Cognitive map variables	Literature review points
Variable 1: Drivers of interest in digitalization	Point 2: "Nowadays the major proportion of organizational information resides in digital documents (Blair 2002, Päivärinta and Tyrväinen, 1998). This digitalization trend is not only adding productivity, but has also generated new problems and added to the impact of existing ones, such as the information overflow, which arises from effortless availability of all kinds of information. The ease of information distribution, for example by overdistributing or forwarding received mails to many people, can impair organizational communication by overloading the persons receiving the data with irrelevant or secondary information. This action does not increase communicators’ knowledge in any way  but it increases the amount of total communication in the organization". Point 9: "The evolution is underway from where the traditional broadcaster has “push delivered” to the market to that of the consumer taking greater choice-based control of “pull delivery”. The consumers’ ability to determine for themselves what they select, and when and where they will view or listen to the broadcast product is a paradigm shift in the nature of broadcasting as we have traditionally known it. The challenge for broadcasters facing such revolutionary technological change brought about by digitalisation is to make the necessary changes to their infrastructure and operations processes in an evolutionary manner across the broadcast chain, and considerable work is underway throughout the region with all broadcasters at differing steps down that path". Point 13: "... the ever growing density of our digital connections and the “datafication” of our daily activities is blurring the boundary between these two worlds and, in some cases, removing it completely. Indeed, we are starting to live “blended” lives, where physical experiences are seamlessly intertwined with and enriched by digital interactions, creating new ways for people to relate to each other and their world. The consequences of this are being felt across a wide range of industries". Point 15: "Digitalization, speedy innovation, technological convergence, and concentration of enterprises or multimedia integration are some of the axes that condition media systems nowadays, as well as play a role in democratic societies". Point 16: "Digitalization began simultaneously for radio and television in 1997, at the start of the first term of office of the Partido Popular government. Through Law 66/1997, the government decided to promote digitalization of radio broadcasting and opted for the standard backed by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU): Eureka 147, usually known as DAB (digital audio broadcasting) in Europe. This decision was not a specific law but one intended to complement the budget".
Variable 2: Improve intellectual understanding of digitalization	Point 4: "... digitalization is often associated with dematerializing the material (Norman 2001). Yet value exchanges among human beings nonetheless occur within contexts that are material, even if that materiality may be transformed through digitization. Moreover, contexts for exchange are social as well, governed by the immaterial but nonetheless powerful forces of social structures, norms, rules, regulations, and traditions. The social and material implications of digitalization in service-for-service exchange suggest opportunities for innovation but may also limit or alter value co-creation in unanticipated ways". Point 10: "Following Yoo, Lyytinen, Thummadi and Weiss (2010, p. 4) we understand digitalization as “the transformation of existing socio-technical structures that were previously mediated by nondigital artifacts or relationships into ones that are mediated by digitized artifacts and relationships with newly embedded digital capabilities.”..". Point 11: "...we take an institutional work lens to analyze the activities of a design team to digitalize a tool for diabetes care. We analyze how the team, through these activities, purposefully aimed to change the practices of diabetes care. We use institutional work to unpack the process of digitalization with attention to the agency of individuals, their strategies and micro activities. This lens allows us to see digitalization as a process involving individuals engaged not only in the technical design and development of the tool but in envisioning new practices of diabetes care, and in supporting the transition to the new practices". Point 12: "we share the thinking that is guiding our experimentation at IESE to create new pedagogical models and approaches. At its core is a deep reflection about how digitalization – defined as the diffusion and assimilation of digital technologies into all aspects of daily life – is transforming industries in general, and learning and development in particular".
Variable 3: Effective digitalization practices	Point 1: "Innovation in advanced manufacturing technology includes product innovation, manufacturing technology innovation and industry model innovation. Digitalization and intelligentization are the generic enabling technologies for product innovation and manufacturing technology innovation. They profoundly reform the mode of production in manufacturing sector as well as its shape and form. They are the core technologies for the new industrial revolution". Point 3: ".... pervasive digitalization made possible by information and communication technologies are revolutionizing service exchange possibilities. Citing the e-book as an example, Yoo et al. (2010, p. 725) comments that digitalization of content and embedding digital capabilities into technology artifacts such as e-book readers are rapidly transforming value networks of firms and organizations, not only reconfiguring the organizing logics of “who does what” but changing what it is possible to do. That is, the potential to co-create value for customers and providers of e-books differs dramatically from that of printed books". Point 8: "A central facilitator of these broader effects of digitalization is the increasing use of mobile devices that connect to the internet, which have begun to change consumer practices, including shopping behaviours in fixed-store settings. New consumer products with mobile internet access are launched at a rapid pace, often linking to other technologies (Cochoy, 2012), and mobile devices are becoming increasingly important in the retail setting (Shankar et al., 2010). Although mobile devices may work as a substitute for activities previously performed by laptops, they also provide additional features, such as barcode scanning, location-based services, and near field communication". Point 14: "In today’s hypercompetitive environment, new sources of product and process innovation are continually being sought to reinforce companies’ competitive advantages. In the recent past, the digital revolution inspired new managerial applications to strengthen positions within market arenas. In the case of airlines, early web applications were in the form of asynchronous sites, where customers could get little more than the same information on timetables and fares provided by travel agents albeit in new formats. Later, carriers started selling tickets on the web to make use of the cheaper distribution channel than the standard computer reservation systems (CRSs)".
Variable 4: Learn from digitalization practices	Point 5: "The digitalisation of sex trade and work involves shifts towards new forms of discourse and types of communication, interaction, engagement and networking that cannot be captured by those perspectives that disregard the techno-cultural transformations of sexual relations (Blair 1998). Broadly speaking, while new media offer possibilities for gender swapping and the construction of fluid identities that transcend gender, ethnic and racial boundaries, the assumption that digitalisation will enable us to do away with physical bodies and gender and racial inequalities has proven to be quite misleading". Point 6: "Digitalization...  is one of the most significant on-going transformations of contemporary society and encompasses many elements of business and everyday life. This transformation is important for the retail sector, which both affects and is affected by this development. Retailers provide consumers with various digital products and services that are adapted to the use of digital technologies and are simultaneously affected by the new forms of consumption associated with these digital technologies. While digitalization has a long history in retailing (see, e.g. Salkin, 1964; Watson, 2011), the significance of the transformation is becoming increasingly visible". Point 7: ".... digitalization has so far primarily been addressed in terms of e-commerce. Although e-commerce is part of digitalization, its impact extends far beyond e-commerce and includes the transformation of physical products into digital services, consumer recommendations in social media, and the incorporation of digital devices into the purchasing process – such as online information searches leading to offline purchases".

The next step is to relate the cognitive map variables to make up a cognitive map on digitalization. The cognitive map and its explanation are presented in the next section.

A cognitive map on digitalization and its interpretation

By relating the four variables identified in Table 2, the writer comes up with a cognitive map on digitalization, as shown in Figure 1.

These cognitive  map variables, four of them altogether, are related to constitute a systemic image of digitalization. The links in the cognitive map (re: Figure 1) indicate direction of influences between variables. The + sign shows that an increase in one variable leads to an increase in another variable while a -ve sign tells us that in increase in one variable leads to a decrease in another variable.  If there no signs shown on the arrows, that means the influences can be positive or negative.  For further information on digitalization, readers are referred to the Literature on digitalization Facebook page.

Concluding remarks

The cognitive mapping exercise captures in one diagram some of the main variables involved in digitalization. The resultant cognitive map promotes an exploratory way to study digitalization in a holistic tone. The experience of the cognitive mapping exercise is that it can be a quick, efficient and entertaining way to explore a complex topic such as digitalization in Business Management. Finally, readers who are interested in cognitive mapping should also find the article informative on this mapping topic.

Bibliography

1.      Auricchio, G. and E. Káganer. 2015. "How Digitalization is Changing the way Executives Learn" IESE Insight Third Quarter 26: 31-38.

2.      Barrett, M., E. Davidson, A.L. Fayard, S.L. Vargo and Y. Yoo. 2012. "Being innovative about service innovation: service, design and digitalization" Proceedings of the thirty third International Conference on Information systems, Orlando: 1-6.

3.      Corominas, M., M. Bonet, J.A. Guimerá and I. Fernández. 2006. "Digitalization and the Concept of "Local": The Case of Radio in Spain" Journal of Radio Studies 13(1): 116-128.

4.      Eden, C. and P. Simpson. 1989. "SODA and cognitive mapping in practice", pp. 43-70, in Rosenhead, J. (editor) Rational Analysis for a Problematic World, Wiley, Chichester.

5.      Eden, C., C. Jones and D. Sims. 1983. Messing about in Problems: An informal structured approach to their identification and management, Pergamon Press, Oxford.

6.      Hagberg, J., M.Sundstrom and N. Egels-Zandén. 2016. "The digitalization  of retailing: an exploratory framework" International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management 44(7): 694-712.

7.      Heads, W. 2006. "Digitalisation" Media Asia 33(3-4): 175-179.

8.      Jarach, D. 2002. "The digitalisation of market relationships in the airline business: the impact and prospects of e-business" Journal of Air Transport Management 8, Pergamon: 115-120.

9.      Kilpeläinen, T. 2004."The degree of digitalization of the information overflow" Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems 3, ICIS, Porto, Portugal: 367-374.

10. Literature on cognitive mapping Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/Literature-on-cognitive-mapping-800894476751355/).

11. Literature on digitalization Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/Literature-on-digitalization-289510868179292/).

12. Literature on literature review Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/literature.literaturereview/).

13. Managerial intellectual learning Facebook page, maintained by Joseph, K.K. Ho (url address: https://www.facebook.com/managerial.intellectual.learning/).

14. Open University. n.d. "Sign graph" Systems Thinking and Practice (T552): Diagramming, Open University, U.K. (url address: http://systems.open.ac.uk/materials/T552/) [visited at April 10, 2017].

15. Pakinik, M., N. Kambouri, M. Renault and I. Šori. 2016. "Digitalising sex commerce and sex work: a comparative analysis of French, Greek and Slovenian websites" Gender, Place & Culture 23(3): 345-364.

16. Thorseng, A.A. and M. Grisot.2017. "Digitalization as institutional work: a case of designing a tool for changing diabetes care" Information Technology & People 30(1): 227-243.

17. Zhou, J. 2013. "Digitalization and intelligentization of manufacturing industry" Adv. Manuf. 1: 1-7.