Leading the Change - Digital Leaders Facilitating MNEs’ Investment Behaviour

Abstract: In our ever-changing world guided by technological advancements and data-driven disruptions, enterprises need adaptation and development strategies to stay competitive. Digital transformation (DT) has great potential to help organisations maintain their market position in these turbulent times. This is through innovatively recombining digital technologies and business models to enhance value creation. Within DT, digital solutions enable organisations to integrate their resources and strengthen their business models, thus, it is recognised to potentially disrupt industries in the future. One of these industries is the industrial goods sector which is well-established with many incumbents being large multinational enterprises (MNEs). These MNEs are entering a new era of DT and face numerous challenges. Therefore, MNEs must undertake digital investments that are internally aligned with their strategies and environmental changes. These digital investments are core responsibilities of digital leaders. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to investigate how MNEs’ digital investment behaviour is facilitated by digital leaders while aligning with their corporate strategies. In addition, the study focuses on the Nordic region since it is renowned for its well-developed digital infrastructure and a high level of involvement in the use of modern technologies. To gain an in-depth understanding of how digital leaders facilitate the organisation’s digital investment behaviour, the study applied a qualitative research strategy with an abductive approach. This was done by conducting semi-structured interviews at six Nordic business-tobusiness MNEs in the industrial goods sector with four executives and seven managers, with the collected data being analysed through a thematic approach. By analysing the theoretical framework and empirical findings, the research suggests that digital leaders create and foster an alignment between the corporate strategy and their digital initiatives to establish transparent communication between all stakeholders when assisting a holistic understanding of the company’s vision at all organisational levels. Digital leaders continuously assess the status quo of their digitalisation efforts by constructing roadmaps of how they can increase the organisation’s digital maturity levels. In addition, digital leaders ensure that the investments in digital technologies are anchored in the corporate strategy and guarantee a seamless integration by building the required capabilities and creating the appropriate knowledge. Finally, digital investment behaviour is impacted by MNE-specific factors which must be considered throughout the decision-making process with an emphasis on managing organisational change.