Shoemaker's Children - A qualitative study on digital disruption's effect on a multi-professional service firm's strategic knowledge renewal.

Abstract: The fourth industrial revolution is here, causing digital disruption of knowledge-intensive firms including professional service firms. As a result, these firms need to strategically renew their digital knowledge base to remain a relevant actor on the market. This study aims to contribute to the two rather unexplored research silos of digitalization and professional service firms by combining the two and filling an identified knowledge gap. The gap refers to research on how multi-professional service firms renew their digital knowledge due to digital disruption and how it may differ across professions in the same firm. An interdisciplinary framework that bridges multiple research fields deemed suitable. The theoretical fields include strategic renewal, service climate, human resource development, exploration versus exploitation and service intelligence. A case study on one of the Big Four Firms serves as empirical focus in this qualitative study. The reason for this choice is to provide deeper and more detailed understanding for this nascent research area. Through an interplay between theory and empirical data, my results suggest that a multi-professional service firm should engage in HRD activities and focus on the leaders, rewards and technological readiness to foster a service climate that renews the digital knowledge base. The results suggest that there is a discrepancy in prioritization of building knowledge depending on if it is for internal or external purposes. Furthermore, different professions adopt and prioritize knowledge building differently depending on their level of service intelligence and their experience of digital disruption. This in turn affects their sense of urgency for renewal of the digital knowledge base.