Multidimensional and Strategic Outlook in Digital Business Transformation: Human Resource and Management Recommendations for Performance Improvement 3031234316, 9783031234316

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Contributions to Management Science

Pelin Vardarlıer   Editor

Multidimensional and Strategic Outlook in Digital Business Transformation Human Resource and Management Recommendations for Performance Improvement

Contributions to Management Science

The series Contributions to Management Science contains research publications in all fields of business and management science. These publications are primarily monographs and multiple author works containing new research results, and also feature selected conference-based publications are also considered. The focus of the series lies in presenting the development of latest theoretical and empirical research across different viewpoints. This book series is indexed in Scopus.

Pelin Vardarlıer Editor

Multidimensional and Strategic Outlook in Digital Business Transformation Human Resource and Management Recommendations for Performance Improvement

Editor Pelin Vardarlıer Head of Human Resources Management Department Faculty of Business and Management Sciences Istanbul Medipol University Istanbul, Turkey

ISSN 1431-1941     ISSN 2197-716X (electronic) Contributions to Management Science ISBN 978-3-031-23431-6    ISBN 978-3-031-23432-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23432-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

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Algorithmic Control: A Disruption to Motivation of Gig Workers? A Critical Review��������������������������������������������������������    1 Shalini Sharma, Shikha Bhardwaj, and Bhumika Gupta

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Positive and Negative Effects of Digitalization on Human Resource Management ��������������������������������������������������������   15 Oya Alhan

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Aligning Digitalization and Sustainability: Opportunities and Challenges for Corporate Success and the Achievement of Sustainable Development Goals ��������������������������������������������������������   27 Mustafa Kemal Yilmaz

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Digital Diversity and Inclusion: Agenda for Data Privacy and Protection����������������������������������������������������������������������������   39 Bahaudin G. Mujtaba, Pelin Vardarlıer, and Emine Gündoğmuş

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The Validity and Reliability of the Measure for Digital Leadership: Turkish Form����������������������������������������������������   53 Elif Bilginoğlu and Uğur Yozgat

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Changing Role of Energy in the Digitalized World: An Examination of Russian Revisionism in World Politics�����������������   69 Selçuk Aydın

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 Digital Twin: Is It Hype? ������������������������������������������������������������������������   81 Aslı Göksoy, Hazal Yaren Yalırsu, and Özalp Vayvay

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Creating Public Opinion in Digitalized Renewable Energy Projects: The Case of the Konya City��������������������������������������   95 Ihsan Eken and Sena Kurt

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Contents

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The Role of Digital Financial Issues on the Effectiveness of European Energy Policies ������������������������������������������������������������������  105 Serhat Yüksel, Hasan Dinçer, Çağatay Çağlayan, and Alexey Mikhaylov

10 Digital  Literacy on Privacy Rights Policies in the American Workplace��������������������������������������������������������������������  115 Bahaudin G. Mujtaba 11 Technology  Matters: The Efficacy of Virtual Realistic Job Preview and Its Effect on Job Commitment in Hybrid Staffing Context����������������������������������������������������������������������  127 Xiaochuan Song and Pelin Vardarlıer 12 Can  Digitalized Financial Products Increase Thorium-Based Nuclear Energy Investments ��������������������������������������  141 Hasan Dinçer, Serhat Yüksel, Duygu Yavuz, Alexey Mikhaylov, and Sergey Prosekov 13 The  Digitalization of International Logistics Tools������������������������������  151 Zbigniew Bentyn 14 Exploring  the Impact of Digitalized Learning and Teaching Systems on the Big Five Personality Traits��������������������  165 Ezgi Yildirim Arslan, Osman Yildirim, Tayfun Kaynas, and Koycho Atanasov 15 The  Role of Data Mining in Digital Transformation����������������������������  177 Recep Özsürünç 16 The  Personified Model for Supply Chain Management����������������������  191 Ezgi Yildirim Arslan, Selin Soner Kara, Nadi Serhan Aydin, and Osman Yildirim 17 Business  Competencies for a Strategic Model Suitable for Digital Transformation����������������������������������������������������������������������  205 Abdullah Türk 18 Which  E-Leadership Skills Are Needed to Deploy Digital Strategies? A Study on Multinational Companies in Northern Malaysia������������������������������������������������������������������������������  217 Geetha Ashvini, Yashar Salamzadeh, and Noor Fareen Abdul Rahim

Chapter 1

Algorithmic Control: A Disruption to Motivation of Gig Workers? A Critical Review Shalini Sharma, Shikha Bhardwaj, and Bhumika Gupta

Abstract  Organizations rely on algorithms to exercise mechanized control over workers – referred to as algorithmic control (AC). The use of algorithmic control has evolved into a commonplace with platform-based work in the gig economy, where independent workers are paid for completing a given task (or “gig”). The gig economy is on a steep rise after the onset of the pandemic because employers are more concerned about smaller pieces of jobs being taken up by temporary labor, thereby saving on the investment in full-time resources. Motivation among the gig workers has always been debatable, especially with the onset of AC on the gig workers. This research is an attempt to analyze the disruption of the motivation of gig workers through digital platforms taking self-determination theory (SDT) and social exchange theory (SET) of motivation into consideration. Grounded on the theory of SET and SDT, this chapter explains the underlying characteristics of algorithmic control affecting employee motivation in the gig economy. This is a conceptual framework for the disruption of motivation of the gig workers through the IT-enabled checks on the progress of the gig workers. The future avenues of this research may gather deeper insights on the well-being of gig work and its subsequent impact on family-life integration. This chapter uniquely explores the lesser researched phenomena in the gig economy and highlights the gray side of algorithmic control on gig workers’ motivation. Keywords  Algorithmic control · Gig economy · Disruption · Gig workers · Self-determination theory · Social exchange theory · Disruption in motivation S. Sharma GNIOT Institute of Management Studies, Greater Noida, UP, India S. Bhardwaj Indian Institute of Management, Sambalpur, Odisha, India B. Gupta (*) Institute Mines-Telecom Business School, Evry, France Indian Institute of Management, Sambalpur, Odisha, India e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Vardarlıer (ed.), Multidimensional and Strategic Outlook in Digital Business Transformation, Contributions to Management Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23432-3_1

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1.1 Introduction Gig economy is a non-traditional approach to job engagement by the people who work on a task basis only. The gigs are not a newer phenomenon as they existed before also across the globe connected with their employers either through the IT enabled or physically in both offline and online tasks (Wood et al., 2019). The gig work provides autonomy in operations to both the employer and the employee, which could be the preferable reason for employers to support the gig workers. Although the absolute numbers in the gig economy are relatively smaller in the higher-income countries, the concept has been taken very positively in lower- to middle-income countries (Wood et  al., 2019; De Stefano, 2016). Yet, globally, around 70 million gig workers have been estimated to have registered with online labor platforms, and therefore it has been in the top themes of independent review of modern employment practices. As per the UK economy is concerned, the report of Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development says that the remote-type gig economy is equivalent to the locally delivered gigs out there with around 2.8 million people being engaged in the gig work (Lepanjuuri et al., 2018), out of which 25% are having some kind of gig work as their primary job (Eurofound, 2017). Despite this, the research on the gig economy accelerated after the pandemic hit the world. It has been the most searched topic on the Internet and thereby garnered the attention of several research scholars. Nevertheless, the literature available is neither plentiful nor addresses various aspects of the gig economy. Though the discourse of the work by the gig workers traverses around enjoying autonomy and flexibility in their work, still the concern for the motivation of the gig workers has often been raised by many researchers and social workers (Abraham et al., 2018, Jabagi et al., 2019, Stewart & Stanford, 2017), but there seems to be a dearth of studies that discuss gig worker motivation being stanched by algorithmic control (AC). AC has been possibly introduced to track the performance of the gig workers who would have been suffering from the monotony of the digital platform used for the gig. These digital platforms are being automated through various self-­ learning algorithms being given the responsibility to make and execute the decisions to regulate the gigs and gig workers known as algorithmic management (AM), a mechanism being implemented on the gig workers to supervise their involvement in tasks assigned. However, several studies have used algorithmic management and control interchangeably (Wood et al., 2019). This chapter critically analyzes the various aspects of algorithmic control (AC) and employee motivation among gig workers through the literature available. This chapter reviewed various published research articles on the concept of AC and motivation among gig workers. The gig economy has laid the foundation of a concept of self-employment and self-management, yet the concern for self-motivation of the workers is missing. Owing to this context, self-determination theory (SDT) and social exchange theory (SET) are used to recognize the potential impact of AC among gig workers.

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1.2 Gig Economy Gig workers or contingent workers may be classified on the basis of the gigs or the short-term work they handle. There could be various definitions of gig workers. Dubal (2017) stated that a gig worker is the one who performs services or delivers goods on demand and lacks the safety and security of employment benefits, that is, they are not hired for long terms and do not earn a wage or a salary benefit. However, the common denominator that distinguishes gig workers from the other contingent workers is the digital interface of the organizations they work for (Spreitzer et al., 2017). However, the definition may be ambiguous as it does not specify which types of works are considered to be gigs that fall under the category of freelancers or independent contractors (Watson et  al., 2021). The taxation forms issued for gig workers are different from those of regular workers. Another definition given by Dickson and Lorenz (2009) views gig workers as a specific type of workers within the broader umbrella of nonstandard work arrangements including temporary employees, part-time employees, and contracted employees. Though gig workers have been in demand by every industry for the past many decades however because of the ease of operation remotely, wider access to better talent, cost cutting for the employer, and flexibility for both the employer and the employee (Jabagi et al., 2019) have led to the surge in the gig working. Earlier there used to be certain specific jobs only which were included in the gig working, but with the onset of the pandemic, various non-conventional jobs also got included in the gig. Technological disruption has led to disruption in the conventional job market and paved a way for the gig economy considering its vast benefits to both parties. The reason for this upsurge in gig work is because of the technological advancements, the preference of workers for non-traditional short-term jobs rather than traditional full-time jobs, and the political, socioeconomic, and institutional shifts which have spurred the changes in legal employment policies to demand the gig workers (Scully-Russ & Torraco, 2020). This means that the market demands more for gig work (e.g., Uber, Ola, and Urban Company), the workers demand more flexibility, and the employers find it convenient in shifting to temporary labor in order to get rid of the standard employee protective policies. This resurgence in the non-traditional jobs focuses on the perception that the restructuring of the business enterprise due to the technological advancements has accelerated the pace of change in the organizations affecting prominently the worker and firms (Abraham et al., 2018).

1.3 Digital Interface and Gig Workers Gig workers operate both through the digital/online labor markets (OLMs) and mobile labor markets (MLMs). The OLMs are potentially global, for example, Mechanical Turk, WhiteHat Junior, BYJU’s, and Amazon, and the  MLMs are

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localized jobs. The OLMs have their own challenges in execution for the gig employees. The gigs function as digital marketplaces for alternative work. In the case of gigs, the services offered are labor intensive, that is, service-­oriented rather than selling or renting physical goods or assets (Bucher et  al., 2021; Lee et  al., 2015). For the gigs facilitated through the digital platform, the matching of the skills for the services being offered is matched through digital mediation, yet the services could be offered physically or virtually whichever mode is feasible and admissible. Operating as the primary mechanism of coordination in the gig economy, platforms can support millions of transactions a day across disaggregated workforces (Mateescu & Nguyen, 2019). These digitally mediated platforms provide autonomy to the workers in choosing the jobs and working as per their feasibility (Barley et al., 2017). These platforms may have certain challenges in terms of the relationship between the workers and the organization as they do not consider their workers as employees still the norms and regulations imposed on the workers to ensure proper work and performance management (Duggan et al., 2020). The work available depends on the market situation and is not regular. It has also been reported that certain online platforms prefer the gigs of a certain race and gender. Here on these digital platforms, the work is treated as a commodity, and the worker acts as a computation service bidding for their choice of work available on the platforms (Irani, 2015). On the contrary, some sales jobs (Tupperware, Avon, Oriflame, Modicare, etc.), babysitting, and musicians are also the forms of gigs prevalent in the late 1990s and still see many of us involved in them, but they are not really counted as gigs by many types of research and scholars. Gig workers could further be classified into five different profiles, gig service providers, gig goods providers, gig data providers, agency gig workers, and traditional gig workers, based on the combinations of their secondary traits of the type of gig work (Watson et al., 2021).

1.4 Motivation Theories in Gig Work Motivation refers to a driving force that triggers an individual toward a task or goal. It is a decision-making process undertaken by an individual to choose their desired goals and consequently set their behavior to acquire these valued goals (Ryan & Deci, 2017). It is a behavioral process of converting sparks into action to accomplish goals (Chen et al., 2019). To understand it further, several motivation theories have analyzed the mechanism behind individuals’ actions and quite extensively elaborated upon various motivation concepts, for example, Maslow’s need hierarchy, and Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory. For the purpose of this chapter, we discussed self-determination theory and social exchange theory as widely used by researchers in the gig worker space (Behl et al., 2021; Yang & Lee, 2021).

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1.4.1 Self-Determination Theory (SET) Self-determination theory broadly explains the constitutional framework of an individual’s motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2012). It presents two forms of individual motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is generally self-driven that motivates a person to perform out of his/her own interest, whereas extrinsic motivation is dependent on external factors such as rewards, recognition, and compensation that drive a person to perform (Gagné & Deci, 2005). As a result, a gig worker may join sharing economy either for external factors (extrinsic motivation) or due to self-interest in distinct features of the job (intrinsic motivation) (Zaman et al., 2020; Kanat-Maymon et al., 2020; Kuhn & Galloway, 2019). While both forms of motivation are dependent on the social and cognitive development of an individual (Behl et al., 2021), it is seen that on-demand work such as gig work essentially satisfies a person’s innate psychological need (Rockmann & Ballinger, 2017). The accomplishment of psychological needs builds intrinsic motivation to perform among employee (Abou-Moghli, 2018) and shows a positive impact on desired outcomes (Chen et al., 2019). Interestingly, prior studies highlight that work satisfaction and career success are highly motivated by self-determination (Zaman et al., 2020; Ryan & Deci, 2017, 2019). In other words, a satisfied employee tends to perform better and stay motivated. Also, there exists a significant relationship between SDT and joy of work (Zaman et al., 2020; Kuranchie-Mensah & Amponsah-Tawiah, 2016; Neuman et al., 1989). The joy of work means the happiness and satisfaction that an individual draws after performing one’s own work. The level of satisfaction among gig workers is highly influenced by work autonomy which is an important element of SDT (Cano & Castillo, 2004). The SDT theory focuses on three psychological needs that motivate an individual, namely, autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Fulfillment of these needs fosters better engagement, performance, and creativity (Behl et al., 2021). The need for autonomy describes an individual desire to exercise freedom with a sense of choice while engaging in any task. The need for competence explains an individual wants to feel skilled and efficient while performing any task in the social as well as the physical world. The need for relatedness means a feeling of being meaningfully connected to tasks, others, and organization. According to SDT, the realization of these needs may influence positively or negatively an individual’s ability to take initiative, motivation, and social and cognitive well-being (Behl et al., 2021). Deci and Ryan (2008) discussed three crucial elements of SDT: (i) an individual can master his/her inner self by self-regulating their emotions, (ii) individuals are driven by an inherent tendency to contribute and grow, and (iii) individuals require a constant external push to perform optimum actions and develop. Thus, the use of algorithms as an external push to gig workers justifies the organizations’ intention to produce optimum results; however, on the contrary, recent studies claim that gig workers usually opt for gig tasks due to high autonomy in the task (Lehdonvirta,

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2018). Further, Zuckerman et  al. (1978) asserted that if given an opportunity an individual would like to choose what motivates them intrinsically with greater positivity. Along similar lines, while gig workers fundamentally function on choice-­ based freelance work, control in the form of algorithmic management would diminish their freedom and will to work. Unlike full-time jobs that are dominated by fixed policy, time, and roles, gig workers are highly driven by flexibility and autonomy. Also, the gig economy has low regulatory compliance which makes it critical to absorb and retain efficient gig workers. With the use of algorithmic control, the jobs are commanding and taking away the basic decision-making choices of gig workers. Such situations may lead to high employee dropout or exit from the gig workforce. In the case of digital marketplaces, gig organizations have to provide a digital platform and address the two key HR challenges. Firstly, retaining the gig workforce for a longer period may prove monotonous to the existing clientele. Secondly and the most important, there is no human intervention in the supervision of the gig workers, which could lead to decreased motivation among the gig workforce as machines do not motivate individuals (Jabagi et al., 2019). Therefore, the use of algorithmic control over gig workers may look justifiable from an organization’s perspective, but it may significantly reduce the intrinsic motivation among gig workers (Blanchard et al., 2019).

1.4.2 Social Exchange Theory (SET) Social exchange theory (SET) is defined as an exchange between two parties based on psychological and sociological interactions (Emerson, 1976). Homans (1961) asserted exchange as an activity that may be tangible or intangible, rewarding, or costly. Further, the study claims that individuals in social interaction first carry out a cost-benefit analysis and then weigh the risk involved in social trade. If the risk involved is high, individuals tend to quit the social interaction, whereas when the risk is low, they continue the social relationship (Blau, 1964). SET is based on two elements  – interdependence and self-interest. Interdependence is described as an individual phenomenon, while self-interest is usually combined with psychological and economic needs (Cropanzano et al., 2017). SET is widely used in employee-­ employer relationships, customer-firm relationships, and recently in gig work (Biron & Boon, 2013). As suggested by Nye (1978), there are nine theoretical propositions in the application of SET; however, in the context of gig workers, two are applicable: (a) Costs and other rewards being equal, individuals will choose statuses that provide the most autonomy. (b) Immediate outcomes being equal, individuals will choose those alternatives which promise better long-term outcomes. Therefore, gig workers may prefer to choose alternatives in a social exchange relationship with organizations – if the cost of social trade is high and if autonomy

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is restricted (Liu et al., 2020; Stanford, 2017). As a result, high algorithmic control to manage gig work may not only restrict the operations of gig workers but also makes it risky. For example, an Uber driver is restricted with the number of rides in a day, or feedback given by a customer is used as his assessment of performance. Such a situation may create fatigue, stress, lack of freedom, and high risk (Behl et al., 2021). Thus, gig workers may see bleak benefits and more costs in trade.

1.5 Algorithmic Control and Gig Workers The term algorithmic management (AM) was coined by Lee et al. (2015), to describe how the software algorithms allow workers to be assigned, optimized, and evaluated through algorithms and tracked data (Lee et al., 2015). Algorithmic management is predominant in the sharing: economy/gig economy for the collection of a large pool of data. This enables technologically aided surveillance of the workers and real-­ time responsiveness to data that informs management, facilitates decision-making (automated or semi-automated) and performance evaluation through rating systems, and incentivizes worker behaviors (Mateescu & Nguyen, 2019). It is a set of different technological tools and techniques that organize the working conditions and manage remote workers. Their arrival could have been to disrupt the human intervention in the traditional management structures (Jabagi et al., 2019). AM helps in reducing labor costs by optimizing the data by calibrating the disaggregated workforce and coordinating their activities (Mateescu & Nguyen, 2019). Organizational management through algorithmic control (AC) became prevalent by the ride-hail apps such as Uber, Lyft, or multiservice platforms which manage a big task force on the digital platforms through smartphone apps (Mateescu & Nguyen, 2019). The advent of people’s analytics led to the exercise of control over the workforce through the data-driven technological infrastructures in the form of AC (Jarrahi et al., 2021). This may include automated scheduling, people analytics, or recruitment systems. The AC is used in the case of people analytics to leverage the behavioral patterns of the workers and offer recommendations to managers regarding key decisions such as motivation, performance appraisal, and promotion (Gal et al., 2020). In the gig economy, this AC is subsumed to track the workers’ performance, job matching generating the employee rankings, and resolution of disputes between workers and in the case of gig service providers between the customers, service provider, and the employer. AC can be exhibited through a variety of sources such as Microsoft Teams, voice analysis algorithms, AI-based algorithmic evaluations of telephones or videos, and curriculum vitae (CV)-based screening mechanisms (Kӧchling & Wehner, 2020; Yarger et al., 2020). Kellogg et al. (2020) proposed that AC in the workplace operates through six main mechanisms (“6 Rs”): restricting and recommending, recording and rating, and replacing and rewarding. Employers can use these algorithms to direct workers, evaluate workers, and discipline them. The algorithms also shape the behavior among the people building relationships between the workers and the

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clients by governing the access, visibility, and reputation on the platforms (Curchod et al., 2019). In this spatial unfixing of work, AC is predominantly used through digital platforms unlike the traditional management control in the HR system. The workers can be tracked on the minutiae of their activity, their productivity, their behavioral patterns all through the day, and other macro details such as managing HR toward achieving their strategic goals. Algorithms have now been adopted for offline platforms such as warehouses where the speed of work, delivery, and other performance aspects are also monitored. For example, Amazon closely monitors its workers’ performance and the tele-calling jobs where the voice of the operator is recorded for quality optimization purposes checking on the adequacy of various parameters such as politeness and empathy in the conversation. It should rather be understood as a sociotechnical process constituted by the continuous interaction of organizational members (Jarrahi & Sutherland, 2019), organizational surroundings, and algorithms that mediate the work where both humans and algorithms form an assemblage to reflect and redefine the already established relationships between the managers and the workers (Bader & Kaiser, 2019). Algorithmic control was introduced in the organizations by ride-hailing platforms such as Uber and Lyft and then adopted by the other digital platforms. The aims to use these algorithms in the HR processes were to regulate and handle the large pool of data and supervise the gig workforce; on the contrary, the algorithms are most often used to nudge and penalize the workers rather than evaluate and reward (Jarrahi et al., 2021). Several studies have reported the increasing dissemination of strictly automated control through algorithms as evidenced through the legal inquiries of the US judges in the Uber and Lyft cases. Kellogg et al. (2020) highlighted that algorithmic control goes beyond traditional organizational control in several ways such as the workers being controlled by automated decision-making, challenging the traditional HR functions (Kuhn & Maleki, 2017; Duggan et al., 2020). Arguably AC is considered to be a more comprehensive, rapid, interactive, and opaque method as compared to the traditional means of control (Kellogg et  al., 2020). The major concern these algorithmic technologies bring is that the workers are left isolated in their roles creating a hyper-flexibility without secure employment, development opportunities, or a progressive career path. This may also lead to the gig workers comparing themselves to the permanent employees and have an implication on their performance (Petriglieri et al., 2018).

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1.6 Disruption in Motivation Theories and Algorithmic Control on Gig Workers Motivation theories set some underlying assumptions about the gig economy. While SDT explains the importance of intrinsic motivation, it is essential to identify that most gig workers take up on-demand work due to their innate psychological needs and desire to control their tasks. On the contrary, the use of algorithmic control allows a platform to track workers’ movement, assign new work, and monitor performance (Duggan et al., 2020). Thus, algorithmic management may demotivate a gig worker due to a lack of human interface. Several applications of algorithms replace HR functions and processes in the gig economy. These techniques are impersonal and objective but may result in reduced well-being of an individual (Wood et al., 2019). According to SET, individuals may choose alternatives if their autonomy is curtailed. Algorithmic management is defined as a system of self-­ learning algorithmic control for making and executing decisions related to labor, thereby restricting human involvement and supervision of the labor process (Duggan et al., 2020). While it reduces the cost of HR personnel to manage HR processes, it also impacts the need for the relatedness among employees. SDT highlights the need for relatedness as one of its core elements; however algorithmic control automates the management practices leaving very little scope to build relatedness at work. App-based gig work represents low sensitivity and minimal human interaction which may lead to the poor mental health of gig workers (Jahoda, 1982). On the one hand, low-rated gig workers will discontinue the job, and high-rated will continue. But on the another hand, the gig economy lacks standardization which adds difficulty to the institutionalization of control. The application of algorithmic control automatically filters low performers that may deactivate gig workers and demotivate them. Another critical aspect of algorithmic control is that since control and management of workers are platform-based, organizations tend to hire a large number of employees which in turn creates high competition. However, gig workers are usually aware of competition, but sometimes gig workers oversubscribe to work on tight deadlines, overwork, and exhaustion (Duggan et al., 2020). Motivation theories support autonomy as the core of gig work, but the downside of autonomy is social isolation. Working without interpersonal exchange with algorithmic control has its own side effects that may lead to other alternatives by gig workers. While intrinsic motivation leads to improved psychological well-being, sometimes an impersonal form of platform-based control may turn it another way around. Due to non-regulatory and unstandardized practices in the gig economy, the incentivization of work based on customer ratings may create mixed responses among gig workers. The feedback mechanism is established to promote good quality and efficiency of work by creating organization-specific metrics (Kuhn & Maleki, 2017), but sometimes it conveys negative perceptions among under-­ performers, undermines the need for competence, and decreases motivation (Deci et  al., 1999). Though many organizations have introduced gamification in their algorithmic practices to entice and motivate the workers to earn more, still there is

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a lot to be implemented to the platform in order to get the maximum potential of the worker.

1.7 Findings and Discussion Considering the algorithmic control from a management perspective, there is a need for a possible ramification in the execution of algorithmic control. Introducing algorithms into organizational management aimed to streamline the process and reduce human bias in controlling a large data pool. Since algorithmic control has been applicable more to the gig workers, the discrimination should have been eliminated at the introduction of the process. This has led to various gamification tactics on digital platforms too that may be useful at times but do not attract the workers as much as they find themselves strangulated with the algorithms (Mateescu & Nguyen, 2019). The workers are individually and collectively resisting algorithmic control through a set of emerging tactics we call algo-activism (Kellogg et al., 2020). It may also be argued that the well-being of the gig workers may have been overlooked by the organizations. These insights sketch an argued terrain of algorithmic control and map critical areas for future research. These challenges could be mitigated by introducing new organizational roles and practices, reframing people analytics as an errant companion technology, and adopting alternative technology design principles (Gal et al., 2020). As more and more digital as well as traditional organizations rely on algorithmic control, it becomes important for researchers to engage critically with this phenomenon. We, therefore, hope that our study can serve as a foundation for future research on the use of algorithmic control and management and its implications across contemporary organizations. This chapter is a critical review of published research articles on algorithmic control and motivation of gig workers; therefore, unavailable and incomplete research papers were ignored. However, the research has been conducted covering a wider array of factors encompassing the gig economy and AC along with the underlying factors for the motivation of gig workers, but still, a lot remains to be explored. The topic is still in the embryonic stage; as a result, deeper insights on many important aspects of employment practices with AC are amiss. This chapter covers the information available on app-based gig workers who could be in blue-­ collar or white-collar gigs. This chapter entails the usage of digitalized platforms offering the gig with algorithmic technologies. A qualitative study always provides an insight into an issue with further room to investigate it empirically; therefore, the issue picked up in this chapterleaves scope for further empirical studies. Another aspect of the ramification of the amendment in the labor codes to include gigs in the definition of employees and provide them certain benefits and rights also remains untouched in this chapter. As algorithmic control is becoming more common in other work contexts beyond “gig” platforms, there are a lot of scopes for the scholars to research to separately

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undertake blue-collar and white-collar gig jobs. Future studies may take up white-­ collar gig jobs across different industries and study their motivational drive. The offline gigs such as domestic help, plumbers, beauticians, and hotel housekeepers (Mateescu & Nguyen, 2019) along with the higher skilled jobs such as teaching, training, mentoring, and coaching all are being operated remotely tracked on digital platforms; therefore it becomes imperative to expand the research on this area. Future studies may study different offline and online gig works available across countries, differentiate among their respective attributes, and recognize the motivation behind such gig work. Since the gig economy attracts many researchers across disciplines, it would be interesting to capture the interdisciplinary dimension of the gig economy. Most of the existing research articles used case studies or empirical data to establish relationships among variables; hence, future studies may conduct a longitudinal study to measure the impact of AC on gig workers over a period. Future studies may develop a model that integrates gamification, the motivation of gig workers, and algorithmic mechanisms in a holistic manner. In the future, studies may test and validate the impact of AC on psychological contracts and cognitive and behavioral outcomes of gig workers. Future studies may explore other theoretical frameworks such as social exchange theory or theory of planned behavior to understand the relationship between motivation factors. This chapter aims to recognize the impact of AC on gig workers motivation, identify a few critical areas, and subsequently present the scope of future studies.

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Chapter 2

Positive and Negative Effects of Digitalization on Human Resource Management Oya Alhan

Abstract  The human resource department is vital to the long-term success of an organization. It is responsible for very important issues such as employing suitable personnel for their positions within the company, providing these personnel with the necessary training and performance management. In cases where the human resource department does not work effectively, many different departments within the company will be affected by this negativity. This mentioned issue will cause the financial performance of the company to be adversely affected. To increase their performance, the human resource management department should also follow up-­ to-­date practices. Digitization is also a prominent issue in this process. Thanks to the developing technology, the realization of all transactions in the computer environment has also affected human resource activities. In other words, human resource departments can also perform many activities in digital environment. Critical issues such as interviews with the personnel, training, and evaluation of the performance of the personnel can be carried out in the digital environment. This will contribute to the increase in the performance of human resource departments. On the other hand, to manage this process effectively, up-to-date technology investment should be made for the human resource departments, and qualified personnel should be employed in this department. Otherwise, companies that adhere to traditional human resource practices will not be able to compete with others in the long run. Keywords  Digitalization · Human resources · Digital human resources · Strategy management

O. Alhan (*) The School of Business, İstanbul Medipol University, İstanbul, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Vardarlıer (ed.), Multidimensional and Strategic Outlook in Digital Business Transformation, Contributions to Management Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23432-3_2

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2.1 Introduction Human resource management (HRM) refers to the philosophy, policies, procedures, and practices related to the management of people within a company. According to another definition, HRM is the process of acquiring, developing, motivating, and maintaining human resources. Human resource management is the process of hiring and training people, following their legal processes, developing policies regarding employees, and developing strategies for retaining employees (Baykal, 2022). HRM as a field has undergone many changes over the past two decades, gaining an even more important role in today’s organizations. In the past, HRM has meant preparing payrolls, sending birthday gifts to employees, arranging company trips, and making sure forms are filled out correctly. Today, however, HRM has become a function that directly affects the strategic success of a company (Mayorova & Titor, 2022). There is a positive relationship between the performance of the human resource department and the profitability of the company. Therefore, the implementation of activities to increase the performance of the human resource department is very important for the company. One of its most recent applications is green human resource (Bhuiyan et al., 2022; Yuan et al., 2021). Green human resource practices have emerged with the priority given to environment-friendly factors in human resource practices (Eti et al., 2023; Zhao et al., 2021). For companies to increase their image, they should not give up on these practices (Kou et al., 2022; Dinçer et al., 2023). Digitization processes also seriously affect human resource practices. Radical developments in technology have seriously affected many sectors. With digitalization, radical changes have occurred in human resource practices (Xie et al., 2021). This chapter aims to look at the advantages and disadvantages of the digitalization over the human resource applications. Hence, firstly, necessary information will be given about the main functions of the human resources. After that, the significance of the human resource departments will be explained. Next, the necessities to consider modern human resource implementations will be identified. Finally, the impacts of the digitalization on the human resource implementations will be discussed.

2.2 The Functions of Human Resources Many functions/responsibilities of human resource management are also the responsibilities of other department managers. There are seven main responsibilities of the human resource department agreed in the literature. These responsibilities are explained below: Staffing: Organizations need people to perform tasks and get things done. Even in the use of the most advanced machines, people are needed. Therefore, one of the

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most important tasks in human resource management is to recruit employees. Recruitment includes the entire recruitment process, from a job posting to an agreement on a salary and benefits package. There are four main steps in the staffing function (Otmakhova & Devyatkin, 2022). Developing a Staffing Plan: This plan allows human resource management to see how many people it should hire, in line with the organization’s budget. Developing Policies to Promote Multiculturalism: It is increasingly important to have more people from diverse backgrounds in the workforce. Recruitment: The process of finding people to fill open positions. Selection: At this stage, the most suitable person to be selected for the job will be offered a salary and benefits package by interviewing the people. This step is followed by training, retention, and motivation. Developing Workplace Policies: Every company has policies to ensure fairness and continuity. One of the tasks of human resource management is to develop these policies. In the development of policies, HR, the company’s top management, and managers are involved in the process. For example, the HR professional will recognize the need for a policy or policy change, seek feedback on the policy, write the policy, and then communicate that policy to employees. Here, it would be appropriate to say that HR departments do not and cannot work alone. All other departments in the company are involved in every transaction. Some examples of workplace policies are listed as disciplinary process policy, annual leave policy, dress code, ethics policy, and Internet usage policy (Gundorova et al., 2022). Compensation and Benefits Management: HR professionals must ensure that the wage and benefits package offered to employees are compatible with market conditions. In addition, HR professionals need to ensure that employees receive compensation that is comparable to that offered to others doing similar work. This includes setting up remuneration systems that consider seniority in the institution, experience, and level of education. Payments that can be made to the employee are as health assistance, pension plan, stock purchase plan, holiday assistance, sick leave, bonuses, and tuition fee reimbursement (Pizzo et al., 2022). Retention: Human resource workers should be aware of all laws that affect the workplace. Retention involves retaining and motivating employees to stay with the organization. Pay and benefits are an important factor in employee retention, but there are other factors as well. Ninety percent of the employees leave their workplaces for the following reasons: work done, problems with the connected manager, poor fit with organizational culture, and poor workplace environment (Oncioiu et al., 2022). Training and Development: After hiring new employees, human resource management ensures that they are not only trained to do the job but also continue to develop new skills on the job. This results in higher productivity for companies. Training and development activities are an important component of employee motivation. Employees who feel they have improved their skills tend to be happier in their jobs, which makes it easier to retain employees (Vatousios & Happonen, 2022).

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Training and development activities can be exemplified as job skills training, such as how to run a particular computer program, communication training, team building/being training, and legal training such as ethics training. Legal Processes: Human resource professionals must be aware of all laws that affect the workplace. An HR professional can work with the following laws that are discrimination laws, health requirements, basic payment requirements such as minimum wage, worker safety laws, and workers’ rights. The legal environment of human resource management is always changing, so HR should always be aware of changes that occur and then communicate those changes to the entire management team. Employee Protection: Safety is an important consideration in all organizations. Often, new laws are created to set country standards to ensure worker safety. Unions and union contracts can also affect worker safety requirements in a workplace. It is up to the human resource manager to be aware of worker protection requirements and to ensure that the workplace meets country standards. Headings related to employee protection may be as chemical hazards, heating and ventilation requirements, and protection of private employee information (Sun et al., 2022a).

2.3 The Significance of Human Resources In today’s world, where the effects of globalization are intense, the success of companies depends on the quality and efficiency of their human resources. The most important effect of the information society, which forces organizations to change, is the management of qualified employees, the restructuring of information production and distribution for the organization, and the dissemination of employees who collect, produce, and use information. Employees should also be invested to benefit more from building and technology investments. That is why the best investment is the investment in people. With human resource functions, it is aimed to attract, socialize, motivate, and retain employees in an organization. The results of these functions become more and more important over time and are considered one of the most important investments in an organization (Palumbo & Cavallone, 2022). The importance of human resource management for companies can be listed as follows: • Good human resource practices help attract and retain the best people in the organization. • It is essential to recruit the right people to take advantage of the latest technology. The right people can be appropriately placed in new jobs only if management performs the HR function satisfactorily. • Globalization has increased the size of organizations employing thousands of employees in different countries. The performance of the company depends on

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the qualifications of the people employed. This situation has increased the importance of human resource management even more. • HR planning informs about the human resources that the organization will need in the short, medium, and long term. • HR development is essential to meet the challenges of the future. The importance of human resource management has increased due to the lack of real managerial talent in the country.

2.4 The Necessities to Consider Modern Human Resource Implementations HR practices include the strategic operations of human resource management. They form the basis and guide the company’s employees to manage and ensure they work in coordination. It is possible to list HR applications as determining the mission and goals of the HR department; planning, organizing, and managing the business processes of the HR department; measuring the impact of the programs; creating programs to improve the quality of the working environment; cultivating talents and future leaders; executing motivation programs, working together with the management for performance evaluations; and making career plans of employees (Mikhalkina & Nikitaeva, 2022). The items listed above basically cover recruitment and selection, training and development, transparency, employee benefits, employee incentives, remuneration and evaluations, compliance, and firing processes. Companies that want to recruit high performers are turning to innovative practices to facilitate the recruitment process. There are many ways to assess whether a candidate will be both high-performing and culturally fit for the company. When posting a job, it would be helpful to include some information about the company (Popescu & González, 2022). Investing in training and development opportunities is one of the best HR practices to enhance the existing workforce, focus on skill-specific training, and understand the value young workers place on learning. As industries develop at an ever-increasing pace, employees can also support and encourage their development, making them more committed to their work and to the company. An important HR practice is to always maintain transparency and be open to employees about business successes and failures. Companies that foster an environment of open feedback and communication make employees feel trusted, respected, and valued. An HR department should focus primarily on efficiency in the long run. It is recommended that practices in which transparent environments are created and information sharing are encouraged should be widespread (Chudesova, 2022). There are numerous benefits it can offer employees. But the question of which ones provide the most value for the company is critical. A strategic approach is

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required to achieve the best benefit plans, achieve company goals, and retain high-­ potential employees, as well as ensure that employees understand the benefits. Incentives offered by the company have positive and negative aspects. For the incentives to be effective, the HR application must be carried out correctly; otherwise, there may be a risk of demotivating the employees instead of motivating them.

2.5 The Impact of Digitalization on Human Resources Human resource management refers to the policies and practices involved in executing the human resource aspects of a position, including human resource planning, job analysis, recruitment, selection, orientation, compensation, performance appraisal, legal processes, industrial relations, training, and development. HRM consists of policies, practices, and systems that affect the behavior, attitude, and performance of employees. There are different models of HRM in the literature. Traditional HR applications can be listed as follows: • Human Resource Planning: The purpose of HR planning is to ensure that the organization has the right qualified employees in the right place at the right time. A human resource inventory is prepared to evaluate current and future needs and possible deficiencies in human resources. In addition, HR planning forecasts demand and supply and identifies sources of choice. HR planning develops both long-term and short-term strategies to meet manpower needs (Nasution & Febriaty, 2022). • Organization and Job Design: It is the process of revealing the organizational structure, authorities, relationships, and responsibilities. This also means defining job content for each position in the organization. This work is called job description. The qualifications of the people who will be most suitable for each job defined by the job description are also determined (Kilay et al., 2022). • Selection and Staffing: The process of recruiting and selecting employees. This process requires matching people and their expectations with the characteristics and career path of the jobs available within the organization. • Organizational Development: It is an important aspect in which a synergistic effect is created in an organization, that is, a healthy interpersonal and intergroup relationship within the organization. • Compensation and Benefits: It is the area of wage and salary management where wages and compensation are maintained to meet the criteria of justice and equality. In addition, there are additional welfare applications that include benefits and services. • Employee Assistance: Every employee is unique in character, personality, prospects, and temperament. In general, every single employee is faced with many different problems every day. Some of them are personal; some are related to the workplace. It is important to be there for the employees to be more productive and happier.

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• Union-Worker Relations: A healthy industry and labor relations are very important to increase peace and efficiency in an organization. This is one of the important application areas of human resources. As part of its management function, modern HRM provides strategic support to management in the areas of employee acquisition, motivation, and management in an organization. New generation HR applications can be listed as follows: • Video Interview: It is more popular than ever for an employee to reside in a different city, or even country, from the corporate office. When used carefully and correctly, video conferencing is an excellent application of technological developments with the advantage of cost reduction. HR teams can conduct interviews with many different candidates regardless of time and place. • Gamification: This strategy is used to attract potential employees to websites. Gamification can be designed either as a virtual tour of the office or as a video game that completes some of the tasks of the potential business. With gamification, it is aimed to attract especially young talents to companies. • Mandatory Leave: Long-term-minded companies believe that employees are refreshed on vacation. The use of leave is critical so that employees can focus and keep their productivity intact. Today, instead of rewarding employees for being too “attached” to take leave, companies prefer to make compulsory leave. With this practice, it is ensured that employees take time for themselves at regular intervals (Rahimić et al., 2022). • Investing in Employee Health: Gym memberships, paid in-office medical screening, in-office table tennis, and “activity game rooms” are becoming more common in companies. HR executives state that investing in the mental and physical health of their employees greatly benefits company productivity (Kusuma et al., 2022). • Permission for Voluntary Work: Corporate citizenship is gaining importance in companies day by day. In some companies around the world, employees are given leave for a certain period for voluntary work, for example, working in a soup kitchen, building a playground, or volunteering at a hospital. It is thought that the idea of being ​​ a part of goodness through volunteering activities relieves the employees spiritually (Coste, 2022). • Flexible Working Practices: Focusing less on work/life balance and more on the integration of life and work is one of the emerging paradigms in the workplace. In working life, everything is not limited to the time devoted to physical work. Opportunities such as the time allocated for appointments, the child leaving work early for teacher meetings, evoke a sense of loyalty, and satisfaction in the employees. • Green Human Resource Management: Sustainability is now a worldwide issue and companies are increasingly considering the impact of environmental issues on their competitiveness and long-term success (Mukhtarov et al., 2022). It is claimed that human resources are at the center of achieving a successful environmental management. According to the resource-based perspective, human

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resources are among the factors that are important in the competitive advantage of companies due to their rarity, value, non-repeatability, and difference from each other. In the context of environmental protection, human resource management can facilitate the successful maintenance and implementation of environmental management by aligning practices such as selection, performance evaluation, and training with environmental objectives. Therefore, the need to integrate green concepts into this concept is increasing day by day (Dong et al., 2022). Green human resources first reflect a company’s drive toward environmental protection and include a set of specific HRM practices that focus on the ecological impact of the company’s economic activities (Dinçer et al., 2022). Other HRM concepts, such as strategic HRM based on organizational strategic goals, ignore the natural environment. High-performance HRM is a combination of practices that collectively impact organizational performance, such as ensuring job security and comprehensive skills training. Second, green HRM practices can be more beneficial to external stakeholders, while general HRM practices mainly focus on improving corporate performance or profitability, apart from improvements in corporate performance or processes. Green HRM includes environmental practices that can increase employees’ sense of belonging and pride and motivate them to work harder. Environment-friendly practices can therefore help a company develop a good product. In the studies in the literature, it is stated that giving importance to environmental information, selection, recruitment, training, and development can be considered as components of green human resource management (Sawada et al., 2022). Information technology (IT) deeply affects societies and people’s lives and is advancing at an ever-increasing pace. The Internet is a development in which production processes and products are integrated and the machines of the future organize themselves. Industry 4.0 is said to guarantee economic benefits as it provides companies with new business models, products, and services and reinforces operational efficiency. Innovations such as technological artificial intelligence, robotics, and blockchain are creating new possibilities for companies (Küçük, 2022). Human resource management has also been deeply affected by technological development and has changed the way companies recruit, select, motivate, and retain employees. Given the rapid growth in computing and digitization capacity, the possibilities for how robots, artificial intelligence, and digital platforms could serve in the HR space in the future remain unexplored. Therefore, as can be expected from this development, investments in HR technology are increasing day by day, and investment levels continue to rise. Therefore, it is vital for companies to remain proactive and reflect digitalization within HR to face the digital transformations that are occurring. The digital transformation of organizations plays a critical role to survive and continue to develop in the ever-changing world (Febrianti & Jufri, 2022).

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2.6 Conclusion Companies must increase their profitability in order to survive in the competitive market. Otherwise, it is not very possible for companies to compete with their major competitors. In this context, it would be appropriate for companies to take measures to increase their profitability by taking the right actions. In this process, it will be appropriate for companies to make a comprehensive analysis and apply the right strategies. The human resource department is also a very important department for the company. In this chapter, it is mainly aimed to employ the personnel needed by the company. In addition, it is one of the duties of this department to provide the necessary trainings in order to increase the performance of the personnel currently working in the company. Finally, the performance management of the personnel working within the company is also provided within this department. In summary, the human resource department has responsibilities that have a very serious impact on the company’s performance. As can be understood from here, there is a positive relationship between the performance of the human resource department and the profitability of the company. Therefore, the implementation of activities to increase the performance of the human resource department is very important for the company. One of its most recent applications is green human resources. The preference of fossil fuels in energy consumption causes harmful carbon gas to be mixed into the atmosphere (Yüksel & Dinçer, 2022; Xu et al., 2022; Kostis et al., 2022; Yüksel et al., 2021). This situation causes serious damage to the environment (Sun et al., 2022a, 2022b; Li et al., 2022; Fang et al., 2021). In this context, companies have started to give priority to environment-friendly practices (Wan et  al., 2022; Yüksel et  al., 2022; Meng et al., 2021). Green human resource practices have emerged with the priority given to environment-friendly factors in human resource practices. In order for companies to increase their image, they should not give up on these practices. Digitization processes also seriously affect human resource practices. Radical developments in technology have seriously affected many sectors. With digitalization, radical changes have occurred in human resource practices. For example, personnel interviews are conducted online by many companies. This allows companies to save money in terms of both time and cost. In addition, a significant part of the trainings can be given online. In this way, companies do not have to pay rent for the training hall. As can be seen, digitalization has very positive effects on companies’ human resource practices. However, to manage this process effectively, up-to-date technology investment should be made for the human resource departments, and qualified personnel should be employed in this department. Otherwise, companies that adhere to traditional human resource practices will not be able to compete with others in the long run.

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Chapter 3

Aligning Digitalization and Sustainability: Opportunities and Challenges for Corporate Success and the Achievement of Sustainable Development Goals Mustafa Kemal Yilmaz

Abstract  Digitalization provides valuable benefits for entities and offers unique opportunities to strategically address challenges associated with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to ensure a sustainable society. This chapter discusses potential cross-fertilization effects between digitalization and sustainability to catalyze the benefits and challenges of digital transformation on the corporate level and SDGs’ perspective by focusing on sustainable practices. This chapter provides valuable insights for professionals and policymakers on the trends of digitalization and how they can support the SDGs that become a global compass for navigating sustainability challenges. Keywords  Digital transformation · Digitalization · Sustainability · Sustainable development goals

3.1 Introduction Digitalization and sustainability are two of the most powerful global megatrends that dominate the policy agenda and corporate landscape. The complexity and speed of digitalization, paired with the challenge of achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), change the business environment and society (Kiron & Unruh, 2018). Although there is an increasing academic interest in the interactions of digitalization and sustainability (e.g., Del Río Castro et al., 2021;

M. K. Yilmaz (*) School of Business, Ibn Haldun University, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Vardarlıer (ed.), Multidimensional and Strategic Outlook in Digital Business Transformation, Contributions to Management Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23432-3_3

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Seele & Lock, 2017; Song et al., 2017), the interplay between these megatrends is largely unexplored. Therefore, more attention should be devoted to grasping how these dynamics combine to shape market conditions for corporate success and environmental circumstances for the achievement of the UN SDGs. Conceptually, digitalization affects how entities operate and how people interact through innovative technologies. It transforms the industry, improves productivity, enhances social well-being, and provides agility, transparency, connectivity, and continuous product availability (OECD, 2018). Digital technologies provide new value-producing opportunities by changing business models and making workflows easier and more efficient. Given its complex nature, digitalization also has an impact on socioeconomic and environmental applications (Ceipek et  al., 2020). These impacts have been extremely felt during the COVID-19 outbreak. The pandemic process has shown how digital skills are vital in affecting the quality of life (Ragnedda & Ruiu, 2021). In this sense, the multidimensionality of digitalization poses challenges to move toward a sustainable future. In order to manage this outlook, countries shape their economic, social, and environmental activities in a digitalized manner. By the same token, companies work out to ground new products and business models to adopt a digital culture to survive. A similar approach applies to sustainability in which nature, society, and business are interconnected in complex ways. Companies integrate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies into their strategies and business models to enhance sustainability performance. In this context, they adopt advanced digital instruments, i.e., artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), predictive analytics, and Internet of Things (IoT), to achieve SDGs and to manage the pressure of stakeholders in meeting social and environmental responsibility expectations (Avila-Gutierrez et al., 2020). The interactions of digitalization and sustainability offer opportunities and create challenges across economic agents in the society. For instance, companies employ digital instruments to identify their environmental footprint and assess the impact of social and environmental shifts on their business. In a recent study, Ha et al. (2022) analyzed the impact of digitalization on environmental performance, using a database of 25 European countries between the period of 2015 and 2020 to show that digital transformation enhances environmental performance. Digital technologies also improve sustainable innovation even though they lead to vulnerabilities like cybercrime and privacy loss. Hence, the potential positive and negative consequences that digitalization will have on businesses, societies, and human lives are not yet clearly understood (Beier et  al., 2021). Therefore, without discussing the benefits and risks of digitalization that may lead to new social and ecological problems, it will be difficult to actively shape the path of sustainable digitalization in the business environment and in the achievement of the SDGs. This chapter examines the interplay between digitalization and sustainability with a broad-minded view on the corporate and the UN SDG levels. This chapter endeavors a twofold purpose. First, it assesses whether the implementation of digitalization is an accelerator for corporate success. Second, it examines the contribution of digitalization to the achievement of the SDGs that tackle the most important

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global challenges. Finally, this chapter sheds light to the challenges of digitalization and makes suggestions to find ground rules for sustainable digitalization, strengthening the dialogue between the three pillars of sustainability and digital applications. Then, the last section concludes and draws attention for future research avenues.

3.2 Digital Transformation and Sustainability 3.2.1 Digitalization and Sustainable Corporate Management Digitalization is a dynamic process, and it plays a pivotal role in shaping the competitiveness and internationalization of companies. Mobile technologies, storage solutions, learning algorithms, advanced data analytics, and technological solutions, i.e., blockchain, AI, and IoT, create new opportunities (Loebbecke & Picot, 2015; Pereira et al., 2022). Digital tools help companies to optimize business processes, develop new business fields, increase efficiency, reach new clients/markets, and enable them to provide new solutions for customers and other stakeholders (Haefner et al., 2021). Companies with a high level of digitalization could also manage crisis more efficiently (Warner & Wäger, 2019). Digitalization in the business environment has shown remarkable growth in the world. The global digital transformation market size is USD 737 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach USD 3546 billion by 2028 (www.fortunebusinessinsights. com). Global spending on digital transformation has also increased since 2017 and is expected to reach USD 2.8 trillion by 2025 compared to 0.96 trillion in 2017. Institutions that have highly completed their digitalization process are forecasted to contribute to more than half of the global gross domestic product by 2023, accounting for USD 53.3 trillion (IDC, 2020). More companies take action to digitalize their processes and operations in a sustainable manner and deliver more value to stakeholders. In this sense, corporate digitalization represents a cultural shift to more agile, intelligent, and transparent ways of doing business, powered by digital tools. This transition requires the merging of production and ICTs whose market size reached USD 3.8 trillion by 2020 (TUBISAD, 2021). With a business-centered approach, companies use digital data collection and processing to support business decisions. Digital networks also enhance information flows and provide means to record the social and environmental impacts of business activities along the value chain and make them transparent for stakeholders. Many companies use digitalization to carry out their sustainability commitments. For instance, within the environmental dimension, companies provide motivational games for employees to reduce plastic waste or create platforms for analyzing resource consumption. Digital tools may also be employed to enhance internal communication and external cooperation via social intranet and feedback tools like whistle-blower systems.

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Regarding sustainable production, companies can make smart production by applying digital technologies (Liu et  al., 2019). They may also reduce operating costs, improve worker safety through sustainable mechanisms, and reduce resource use and degradation (Roy & Singh, 2017; Zhang et al., 2017). This would in turn facilitate the calculation of ecological footprints and consequently support the development of resource-efficient products (Agez et al., 2020). The electronic product passport recently being developed in the European Union (EU) is a good starting point for applying this approach. However, these benefits must be analyzed with the potential negative impacts of digitalization. Two examples are job losses due to automation and increased energy and raw material consumption caused by the intensified use of ICTs (Jepsen & Drahokoupil, 2017; Lange et al., 2020). In this respect, sustainable digital transformation should be executed by building on its key strengths, i.e., innovative companies and business ecosystems, to overcome the negative effects of digital solutions. In this frame, companies should be prepared to dynamically configurate their innovation processes to profit from long-term impact that the digitalization-sustainability interdependency will likely have on business activities (Lichtenthaler, 2021).

3.2.2 Digitalization and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Digitalization plays a vital role in promoting and supporting economic, social, and environmental goals to realize a prosperous global society (Horn & Grugel, 2018; Sparviero & Ragnedda, 2021). In this frame, it uses innovative technologies to balance environmental protection, social well-being, and economic growth (Rosario & Dias, 2022). In a recent study, Camodeca and Almici (2021) revealed a positive relationship between digitalization and SDGs in the Italian listed companies. The World Economic Forum (2018) reports that 84% of IoT deployments have the potential to address the UN SDGs. Table 3.1 shows the potential ecological effects of digitalization on the selected SDGs and indicates that accelerating progress toward SDGs needs data-driven systemic and context-inclusive approaches derived from digitalization (Gupta et al., 2020; Van der Velden, 2018). In this respect, opportunities offered by digitalization can be aligned with the achievement of the SDGs. Academic studies provide evidence to support this fact. Several scholars claim that digitalization makes production less wasteful, less resource intensive, and more energy efficient to achieve the SDGs (Bai et al., 2020; Chiarini, 2021). Ghobakhloo et al. (2021) showed that digitalization can foster sustainable innovations through green product development competencies and product life cycle management. Some studies recognize the relevance of encouraging multistakeholder collaboration to support sustainable development with digitalization (Dalby et  al., 2019; Messerli et  al., 2019), while other works stress the lack of guidelines for reporting an imbalanced alignment among corporate policies, leading to counterproductive outcomes for digitalization and sustainable development

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Table 3.1  Potential ecological effects of digitalization on selected SDGs SDG goals SDG 9: Industry, innovation, and infrastructure

Potential synergies Dematerialization and resource efficiency by Industry 4.0 Digital innovation for societal and ecological challenges SDG 11: Sustainable Increased reliable data through cities and real-time data collection communities Saving energy and resources and reducing GHG emissions and air pollution through smart city mobility and smart logistics More efficient supply of drinking water SDG 12: Increased environmental awareness Responsible through more data on the sustainable consumption and production and consumption production Monitoring of environmental impacts using “intelligent” products and sensors More efficient use of resources via smart production and dematerialization via virtuality Improved production and supply chain management

Potential conflicts Increased consumption of resources and electricity by digital technologies Increased direct and indirect impacts as well as e-waste Vulnerability of urban infrastructures to cyber attacks

Increased direct and indirect impact, e.g., demand for critical raw material and natural resources Increased volumes of e-waste and related pollution Short-lived software and increasing computing capacities raise product obsolescence Possible increase in consumption due to more marketing, e.g., online shopping

Source: German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU, 2019)

(Lopez, 2020; Pimonenko et al., 2020). All these findings show that careful alignment of digitalization with the SDGs is crucial for the inclusive sustainable development (Gupta & Rhyner, 2022).

3.2.3 How Does Digitalization Contribute to Sustainable Industrialization? Digitalization causes revolutionary structural changes in value creation by affecting technological development in the production processes and the social and environmental intensity of industrialization. Thus, digitalization and industrialization must be carried out environmentally and socioeconomically sustainable if UN SDGs are to be met (Kunkel & Tyfield, 2021). This process necessitates the smartization of factories, supply chains, distribution channels, and value chains in the industrialization process. According to The World in 2050 Report (SDSN, 2021), the major impacts of digitalization on production consist of dematerialization and shared economy. Dematerialization is associated with the reduction of resources, i.e., energy, raw materials, and lower carbon emissions, while the shared economy

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targets the real-time matching of demand and supply, thus improving the quality of services, continuous availability of products, and better asset utilization. In this respect, smart automation of production using robots, and AI, enables customized products in production and allows to make flexible manufacturing (Palacká et al., 2021). While new business opportunities can arise through digitalization, concerns exist about the potential of employment-intensive industries to absorb a growing workforce given decreasing labor intensity due to automation in various industries. Regarding environmental sustainability, digital technologies require energy and resources in the production, use, and disposal, e.g., manufacturing-related emissions and the creation of electronic waste, while they have an impact on energy and resource efficiency in production (Kunkel & Tyfield, 2021). Digital technologies can facilitate industrially sustainable approaches by improving planning processes and allowing companies to experiment with new business models (Frank et al., 2019). For instance, sensor networks improve production processes’ adaptability and flexibility. However, achieving these outputs requires companies to increase awareness and transformation of the manufacturing processes to achieve sustainability-related goals such as optimizing materials and energy consumption through high-level digitalization. For example, industrial IoT and data analytics can gather data from the design stage to the recycling stage to improve energy efficiency and product life cycle (Nnorom & Osibanjo, 2008). Thus, the digital transition can enhance industrial sustainability through intelligent management systems that can achieve multiple functions, i.e., improving resource efficiency and reducing waste. In this context, market participants across the networks should interact using an innovative mindset to address social and environmental problems to achieve competitiveness in the global business environment (Vincent, 2016).

3.3 Challenges of Digitalization for the Sustainability Dimensions The digital transformation causes a deep change in industry and consumer preferences and requires a strong remodeling of how stakeholders interact. From this perspective, the interdependency between digitalization and sustainability brings several occasions for figuring out the sustainable transformation of the economy, industry, and society, paving the way toward the achievement of the SDGs. Nevertheless, digitalization creates several challenges in this hyper-dynamic environment. To make digitalization a success, all parties should be closely engaged to advance a governance framework that is compatible with the ESG dimensions (Renn et al., 2021). This approach requires a special focus on the interdependencies between digital technologies and environmental, social, and governance impacts, and it constitutes a reference point for the impact assessment of digitalization on all

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dimensions of sustainability. The following part discusses these interdependencies on each sustainability dimension.

3.3.1 Environmental/Ecological Dimension Digitalization involves the application of digital technologies to bring solutions in areas such as waste management, production efficiency, and pollution control. The main objectives are decarbonization, dematerialization, and denaturalization by shifting to renewable energy sources (Dalby et al., 2019). Digitalization optimizes production processes and minimizes resource consumption. AI, IoT, and data analytics enhance sustainability practices by reducing waste and carbon emissions (Birat, 2020). However, these benefits are not automatically realized. Due to the growing number of devices and increasing use of cloud services, energy consumption and e-waste accumulation rise (Andrae, 2019). For instance, blockchain technologies rely on servers that require a huge amount of energy to power them, thus having an increasingly negative impact on the environment. Some studies show that modernizing production processes does not really lead to significant efficiency gains, particularly in material and energy consumption (Fritzsche et  al., 2018). For instance, many companies use digital technologies in videoconferencing, e-commerce, and transport route optimization, but the gains sometimes entail opposite effects, i.e., e-­commerce may lead to increased packaging or higher energy use. Looking forward the providers and operators of digital technologies should show a clear commitment to combining the potential benefits of digitalization with the management of environmental concerns. In this frame, binding targets for saving energy and material and reducing non-recyclable waste should be set.

3.3.2 Social Dimension There are three objectives under this caption of the social dimension in digital transition: equivalent living conditions, digital sovereignty, and active participation in the digitalization process as well as social and cultural identification (Weingärtner & Moberg, 2011). Digital services are provided free of charge for most users to make these services accessible to majority of the population. This opportunity has, however, some drawbacks. For instance, many autocratic systems may use digital means to impose surveillance methods for people (Renn et al., 2021). In addition, a gap may occur between those who benefit from digitalization and those who are left behind. For example, small companies may have difficulties dealing with the digital transition, putting them at a competitive disadvantage (Kumar et  al., 2020). Similarly, older adults may be unable to use digital tools, leading to a two-tier digital society (Brenner & Hartl, 2021).

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Other important issues are data security and digital sovereignty. The most important challenge here is data protection and cybersecurity. Practices violate the protection of privacy, reduce transparency on data usage, and foster an illegitimate use of data leading to significant threats. In this context, digital sovereignty is important. It shows the degree of control that institutions and individuals have over the data they generate and use. This includes self-control to decide what and how to consume, to make informed choices, and to not be subject to manipulative forms of website advertising and personalized profiling. Another challenge in the social dimension is the lack of digitally skilled specialists. In this context, companies should spend their efforts to train employees to enable them in digital transformation. Other topics related to the work include the acceptance of new technology in the workplace and health risks like high-stress levels due to digitalization or nomophobia associated with the intensive use of technological devices. Therefore, companies should develop policies and firmly anchor them in managing potential challenges within the organization.

3.3.3 Governance Dimension Managing digital transition requires organizational leadership to implement actions for achieving a sustainable competitive edge. In this context, business leaders may evaluate several options in digitalization and scale up a working option rapidly. Another approach may involve splitting large-scale digital projects into more manageable strategic investments. This method empowers companies to implement digital transformation while minimizing potential risks and achieving sustainability goals (Gerlitz & Meyer, 2021). The governance of data flows in digital transformation is also very important. Companies must determine who should provide what data, how the data should be processed, and who should have access to which data sets. In addition, completeness, quality, and security of the data must be ensured (Pietron et al., 2022). In this respect, the different steps, i.e., data collection, sharing, usage, and standardization, should be structured along the value chain (Li et al., 2019). To sum up, companies should wisely use digital tools to promote universal values in the ESG sphere (Helbing, 2012). To manage the challenges, companies should primarily encourage all departments to participate in the digital transformation and anchor digitalization in people’s minds as corporate culture. For instance, they may introduce a digital talent network program to support employees in actively shaping digitalization processes. Companies should also ensure data protection, privacy, and sovereignty to build trust for the stakeholders. Finally, entities should include society and external stakeholders in the digitalization process. Within this approach, they may give lectures and hand out learning materials to manage ethical issues about the application of digital tools.

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3.4 Conclusion and Discussions Digitalization will contribute to a sustainable future if it is applied wisely to reach universal values in the sustainability perspective. In this sense, institutions should leverage digitalization to successfully manage ecological and social crises. There are many interconnections between digitalization and sustainability. Digital technologies lead to multiple opportunities and risks and require an inclusive decision-­ making style to favor the UN SDGs. In this context, companies may move toward a sustainable world with smart digital solutions by not harming environments and achieving socioeconomic advances. However, the interplay between digitalization and sustainability is still evolving. This necessitates the inclusion of more sustainability parameters into digitalization in the next years. In this vein, companies should adopt a holistic approach in employing digital instruments to protect the environment, empower employees and customers, and guide digital transformation in line with the UN SDGs. Another important focus area is digital literacy. Enhancing digital literacy in the population, assisting companies with digital modernization, and designing digital products that reduce resource consumption are critical targets for a sustainable digital future. In this sense, digital literacy includes competencies in the ICTs. It is the ability to access, manage, understand, integrate, communicate, evaluate, and create information safely through digital devices. In this respect, it is important to put up explicit rules and guidelines for data security. Many of these issues can be handled if all parties across the globe work together in setting up targets, rules, and intelligent policies in line with the UN SDGs and ESG targets (Renn et al., 2021). If these challenges are not adequately addressed, then the acceptance of digital innovations is likely to erode, and efforts toward sustainable digitalization may be jeopardized. Thus, to create a sustainable digitalized world, all parties should put the well-being of people and social and environmental factors at the center of the debate and ensure that digitalization is guided every step of the way by the UN SDGs. In this context, the sustainable global gap between countries should be carefully managed. Thus, policymakers should define a convergence mechanism to harmonize different policies in the implementation of digitalization and sustainability around the globe. Last but not least, to tackle these challenges, academicians, practitioners, and local communities should engage in close cooperation, bring comprehensive solutions, and outline an inter- and transdisciplinary agenda for the next years. The present research only provides a holistic view, pointing out environmental, social, and governance issues, along with digitalization which deserves further research. For future work, a broad empirical basis may be used, including different countries, sectors, and longitudinal studies to assess the direction of sustainable digitalization and develop innovative measurements to advance the quantification of digitalization and sustainability nexus.

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Chapter 4

Digital Diversity and Inclusion: Agenda for Data Privacy and Protection Bahaudin G. Mujtaba, Pelin Vardarlıer, and Emine Gündoğmuş

Abstract  We are in interesting times in the twenty-first century’s world of service and support, where digital transformation (and artificial intelligence, in particular) is rising, while the focus is being placed on transformation in human resource development. While we are more focused than ever before on advanced tools and technology, we also must focus on advancing human knowledge on digital literacy and workplace practices in an inclusionary manner in this multicultural and borderless world of commerce. Since much of the world transitioned to teleworking during the pandemic closures, we now know that digital diversity is a growing reality that requires additional awareness, reflection, and training for everyone to use it in an equitable and inclusionary manner while complying with privacy and security laws regarding the personally identifiable information of employees and consumers. In this chapter, the focus is on human resources in the areas of digital diversity, data privacy, and inclusion practices since our interactions are transforming along with our mindsets but not necessarily in parallel lines. We offer a reflection on digital diversity, inequity of access to online content, inclusion, data protection, and best practices to create an inclusive digital work environment for all the company’s human resources. Keywords  Diversity management · Digital diversity · Equity · Digital transformation · Digitalization · Privacy rights · Data protection

B. G. Mujtaba Nova Southeastern University, Davie, FL, USA P. Vardarlıer (*) Head of Human Resources Management Department, Faculty of Business and Management Sciences, Istanbul Medipol University, İstanbul, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] E. Gündoğmuş The School of Business, İstanbul Medipol University, İstanbul, Turkey © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Vardarlıer (ed.), Multidimensional and Strategic Outlook in Digital Business Transformation, Contributions to Management Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23432-3_4

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4.1 Introduction The subject of diversity is not new as it has been discussed for thousands of years in relation to culture, gender, language, age, generations, history, ethnicity, and other such dimensions which often intersect in the workplace. This subject can at times be very powerful and emotional for everyone who is aware that he or she is impacted by it either directly or indirectly. Without any effort or hard work on their part, some individuals won the “birthplace” lottery, the “zip code” lottery, and/or the “education” lottery. In other words, some individuals had a “privileged life” since birth due to their parent’s financial well-being and other such good fortunes, which were not necessarily available to others. Digital diversity can also be seen as a privilege that has not been equitably available to everyone. During the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine closures, some school children were able to easily continue their learning and do all their academic work from the comfort of their bedrooms as they had access to the latest laptops and fast-speed Internet connections, while others did not own a computer of any kind nor had access to WI-FI at their homes or neighborhoods. So financial status, geography, and the education levels of family members all make a significant difference in children’s access to digital diversity of subject-matter content for continuing their learning without too much hindrance. The same inequities of access to digital content apply to working adults in various regions, cities, sectors, and industries. Diversity challenges and opportunities, both traditional and digital, tend to impact all nations around the world to one extent or another. Diversity, like communication, is a fact of life in real, ideal, and virtual worlds alike. Diversity is natural and irreversible, and its tolerance is a necessity of life if one is to function effectively in this universe. The same can be said about digital diversity for most people around the globe that must use a smartphone, tablet, computer, and/or the Internet to learn, work, entertain, play, eat, connect, and/or socialize. One cannot deny the fact that human diversity and digital diversity have made our lives more interesting, attractive, and less monotonous. Simultaneously, it has made our lives more complicated, habitually dependent on social media, somewhat challenging, and unpredictable regarding human interactions and data privacy (Maziriri et al., 2022). And digital diversity will continue to bring unknown challenges and opportunities that are yet to be faced, discovered, and explored, especially when it comes to the privacy rights and protection of people’s healthcare data (Wilkinson & Reinhardt, 2015; Sonfield & Pollack, 2013; Hsieh, 2014). It is not uncommon to become offended by people’s actions, sayings, thoughts, and overall behaviors in diverse teams and general group settings in today’s workforce. Some of these comments, thoughts, and actions may make us uncomfortable because they challenge our beliefs and values that have been embedded into our subconscious minds for years and decades since childhood. Digital technology has made it easier to communicate and figuratively travel around the world in a matter of minutes and talk to people of diverse cultures. The same applies to the workplace as one’s colleagues can login to online platforms and

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become digitally present in any meeting while living across continents. Digital innovations and applications have resulted in the widespread use of “universally designed technologies” which can be used by learners of diverse needs and learning styles. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of Zoom and other such communication applications became the norm for educational institutions which accommodated students with various disabilities and diverse learning styles. In the years to come, due to the accessibility and ubiquitous nature of digital technology, more educators and teachers at various institutions will come to expect, as well as demand, materials that are flexible enough to meet the challenge of diversity in all their students (Rubenstein, 2006). Having a diverse workforce locally, nationally, or internationally means that our associates, peers, customers, suppliers, and managers comprise people of various backgrounds, languages, cultures, values, and beliefs. Today’s workplaces are not homogeneous anymore; however, they are highly heterogeneous where digitally diverse colleagues and teams work face-to-face, virtually, and asynchronously. This heterogeneity has brought about many changes, and some traditional ways of doing business are being scrutinized and restructured daily to create inclusionary policies that are necessary for the survival of the organization. Understanding, mastering, and applying the information in this digital diversity chapter will help professionals and managers deal with today’s diverse workforce more effectively on a proactive basis.

4.2 Understanding Diversity Diversity among human beings is about differences that make each person a unique individual that is either different or like others in some respects. Diversity management is the process of becoming culturally competent by understanding the needs, wants, desires, strengths, weaknesses, beliefs, and values of each person while providing him or her the opportunity to contribute to the collective genius of the whole (Mujtaba & Cavico, 2022). Digital diversity, as observed by the ubiquitous presence of social media platforms and so much reliance on the Internet, adds another level of complexity for educators, trainers, managers, and organizational leaders as they attempt to create an inclusionary learning environment and workplace for all their associates. It has been stated that “Digital diversity is just as much about who is engineering, developing, testing, and consuming technology as much as it is about the scaffolding of inclusion within scalable technology sectors around the world” (Pegues, 2020). Digital diversity management is about offering equal access to all employees to create synergistic results that are equal to or greater than the sum of the individual parts through integrated and inclusionary synchronous and asynchronous online communications. For the purposes of this discussion, digital diversity refers to the presence of and access to various electronic contents through online communication platforms (intranet, extranet, and Internet) as well as the awareness, protection, integration, usage, and inclusion of everyone’s talent, electronic

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footprints, and interactions through face-to-face, online, and telecommuting modalities synchronously or asynchronously in an integrated manner in all the affairs of the organization. Digitally diverse teams would be made up of members whom all have equitable access to online content based on their different interests, qualifications, certifications, and ranks. Digital diversity is a double-edged sword with benefits and disadvantages. If people’s digital data are not used effectively and secured properly, then this digital diversity can cause pain and headaches for employees and students whose identities are stolen and used by criminals. Of course, with proper safety measures and regulations, we can minimize the negative impact of digital diversity and increase its benefits to the wider society. Digital diversity allows professors to provide multiple attempts at weekly quizzes, mid-term, and final exams so that the examination process can be a learning experience as students attempt to earn good grades through just-in-time learning. Also, educators often combine various digital images, voices, lectures, stories, and movies in each week’s face-to-face in-class lectures as well as in weekly asynchronous discussion forums. Digital diversity has been present in the academic environment for a couple of decades now, and its use has been increasing rapidly at all institutions. We see that students and workers who are not fast readers or those who learn better through verbally hearing lectures can now use text-to-speech tools and applications to hear certain lessons repeatedly as per their dominant learning styles. Digital diversity has made it possible for those who are 100% legally blind to often complete their coursework with very few accommodations by the institution. Using modern technology, a student or worker with a disability can learn the concepts with mainstream groups and peers without feeling isolated. Of course, the laws and regulations will continue to expect more equitable uses of modern digital technology to accommodate the diverse needs of everyone in society. As we see: The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 mandates that, beginning August 18, 2006, all publishers provide a digital version of every textbook they sell. The digital format the law requires, XML, will allow states, resource centers, and other entities to manipulate almost any kind of content (text, audio, video, image) into almost any kind of format (excerpts, text-to-speech, Braille, and various fonts) on any platform (computer, Web site, cell phone, PDA).” (Rubenstein, 2006)

The modern digital workplace has more technical and information technology (IT) engineers than ever in the past. These technical professionals, leaders, and teams come from diverse multicultural backgrounds and different levels of experience based on various abilities, ages, genders, religions, and sexual orientations. Of course, in order for modern technical teams, groups, and leaders to successfully adapt and effectively respond to digital transformation, a diverse culture must be intentional (Pegues, 2020). According to Pegues (2020), “intentional diversity is preceded by acceptance, respect, nurturing, equipping, and promoting diverse talent in order to adapt and build a resilient business” which is a necessity for survival and competitiveness in this twenty-first century’s global world. Besides the traditional elements of diversity, modern firms must also discuss cognitive diversity and identity diversity, while better understanding digital diversity.

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• Cognitive diversity refers to “the inclusion of people who have different styles of problem-solving and can offer unique perspectives because they think differently” (Pegues, 2020). • Identity diversity refers to the inclusion that is “based on the way individuals and groups define themselves and how they are defined by others on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, language, and culture” (Pegues, 2020). • Digital diversity refers to the presence of various electronic media and contents as well as the awareness, protection, inclusion, integration, usage, and even the recognition of each human being’s electronic footprints or data in the organization. Developing a culture of equality and inclusion requires that managers practice digital diversity through high ethics, integrity, and morality throughout the corporate culture. Digital diversity requires taking advantage of the intellectual capital present throughout the organization, regardless of whether they are physically working in a synchronized manner or if they are telecommuters and freelancers contributing asynchronously to keep the business operating successfully. Ultimately, the digitally diverse and inclusive firms that empower all their employees in an equitable manner are likely to outperform homogeneous ones, will have more innovative leaders, and attract 67% of candidates looking for a job (Pegues, 2020). President Joe Biden’s administration, as part of their Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) which is passed by the US Congress in August 2022, has emphasized increasing digital literacy among the populations that have the least access to it so they can benefit from the diversity of knowledge that is accessible through their fingertips at any time. Of course, the national strategy will require sufficient funding, leadership, and effective implementation to make digital diversity accessible to all Americans equitably in the years to come. As a matter of fact, Chakravorti (2022) writes that: Right now, half of Americans aren’t using broadband internet. In an effort to close this digital divide, the Biden administration has launched the Internet for All initiative: a massive investment of funds to expand access to high-speed internet in the world’s most valuable and second most evolved digital economy. However, the initiative faces three problems: the funding prioritizes covering miles over covering people; it lacks a national strategy and coordination framework, and many execution roadblocks will get in the way.

In today’s modern age in a developed economy of the United States, nearly 50% of the “population  is not using the internet at broadband speeds, either because broadband internet infrastructure does not reach them, they can’t afford the service, or they don’t have the skills or knowledge to use it” (Chakravorti, 2022). In a digitally diverse culture, inclusion can be created more easily through intentional strategy. For example, we know that about 25% of people in society seem to have some sort of disability. As such, one in four of the digital team’s members could have a visible or invisible (unknown/unseen) disability despite their success on the job performance. However, less than 50% of differently abled workers disclose their disability due to fears of harassment or discrimination in the department (Pegues, 2020).

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4.3 Privacy Laws Digital diversity does include the proper and legal collection, retention, sharing, and distribution of personally identifiable information from employees, consumers, patients, etc. Privacy laws are designed to protect individual employees, patients, consumers, and their data, and these regulations often achieve this outcome, but they can also make information sharing more time-consuming without the proper authorization beforehand (Wilkinson & Reinhardt, 2015). Digital diversity applies to healthcare facilities and public institutions, just much as it does to education and private sector establishments. To review and reflect on the chronological history and purposes of a few complex and “convoluted” laws, let us briefly summarize a few that emphasize the protection of an individual’s data. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as the healthcare law, and/or “Obamacare,” was initially signed during President Barak Obama’s administration on March 23, 2010. While the Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides certain rights and protections that make health coverage easier to understand, it also expanded the Medicaid program to cover more individuals in the lower-income ranges (Sonfield & Pollack, 2013). The Act also requires that all covered entities and their associated facilities follow very strict guidelines regarding the collection, protection, and sharing of client data. It is good to see that ACA emphasizes data protection as we don’t want millions of people who are covered under this act to become victims of identity theft. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was first signed into law during President Barak Obama’s administration on February 17, 2009. HITECH Act’s purpose was to promote and encourage the adoption and consequential use of health information technology (Sonfield & Pollack, 2013). The HITECH Act does address the privacy and security matters related to the electronic transmission of a person’s health information. As a result, we see that many healthcare entities require the use of complex password-protected entries on their website. Sometimes it can be a hassle if we are only visiting a specialist physician every few years for periodic illnesses as we might forget the login information or the password we used, but ultimately it is for each person’s privacy and data protection as we don’t want our digital footprints to be tracked by hackers and criminals. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), which is a federal law, involved the establishment of national standards to protect patient health information from being disclosed without their consent (Hsieh, 2014). HIPAA’s Security Rule protects a subset of information covered by the Privacy Rule. The Privacy Rule criteria address the use and disclosure of a person’s health information by entities subject to the Privacy Rule, also known as “covered entities.” The Privacy Rule clarifies an individual’s right to understand and control how his/her health information is used. The goal of the Privacy Rule is to protect an individual’s health information as well as its accuracy. Of course, the Privacy Rule does allow for the proper flow of digital health information to relevant entities that

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need it to provide just-in-time high-quality healthcare to each person. Overall, this rule authorizes the use of relevant data by entities that need it while protecting the privacy of patients who need care and healing. One example of digital data security is that if one goes to a dentist or a hospital for emergency care, the staff will often ask the patient to sign a form that it is okay for the doctor’s office to share the visit, assessment, or diagnosis of the illness with the patient’s family physician or other recommended healthcare professionals. If one is switching dentists, the patient is often required to sign a form to request his/ her history from the former dentist. So, the Privacy Rule, while slightly slowing down the process of sharing data at times, generally does function as it was intended to protect digital data. Eventually, technology will make it possible to allow for instantaneous availability of these important health data information to relevant entities without sacrificing privacy rights. According to the US Department of Justice, the Privacy Act makes it possible to penalize an agency official that willfully and improperly releases data or records of American citizens with individually identifiable information. Furthermore, an agency official that willfully and improperly maintains records without proper notice would be guilty of a misdemeanor and can be fined by any amount up to $5000 (Justice Department, 2020). Every professional, firm, and government agency must be extremely careful in complying with both the letter and intention of the privacy laws. Sometimes, audits are necessary to ensure compliance because a “court ruling found that the government’s warrantless surveillance of emails routinely violated the Fourth Amendment” (Goitein, 2019). In another example, the Meta corporation had been on the news about privacy as they were allegedly sharing customer data and not following their own mandates. Supposedly, Meta obtained information without permission and used customers’ health data from hospital websites for commercial purposes. It has been reported that “the Meta Pixel, a portion of JavaScript code that allows websites to track visitor activity, was being used on hundreds of hospital websites…. allegedly sent packets of data to Facebook whenever someone clicked a button to schedule a doctor’s appointment”. The claim is that Meta had been using automated technology to receive consumer data without obtaining permission from the hospitals or the consumers. As such, any use of this data would be in violation of existing privacy policy laws and the company’s own policy. Of course, it should be noted that the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution states that “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized” (Garon, 2020). The Fourth Amendment’s protection is linked to the workplace in terms of a worker’s freedom, private space, and thereby “privacy,” being respected. Of course, there are some limitations because this sense of privacy can be breached if there is “probable cause” in any given situation to protect the collective well-being of everyone in the community, department, or company. For example, if there is a suspected shooter in or around the company building, then it is reasonable

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for law enforcement to walk into every office and closet throughout the organization without asking for permission to search and seize any item that can be considered a weapon. So, if there is no “reasonable cause” to violate a person’s personal space, then as per the Fourth Amendment rights, the person should be left alone to live peacefully. Goitein (2019) explains that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (also known as the FISA Court) and the FISA Court of Review (FISCR) held that the FBI’s procedures for accessing Americans’ communications that were “incidentally” collected violated both the statute and the Fourth Amendment. The agency was asked to revise its procedures so they can be in alignment with the court’s ruling. This can be seen as a success story of auditing internal procedures for accuracy and compliance. The case came about because the Department of Justice’s audit detected some “instances of FBI non-compliance with legal requirements, and the Department reported those instances to the FISA Court” (Goitein, 2019). The case revealed that the FBI was conducting millions of backdoor searches—including so-­ called batch queries that rest on the discredited legal theory used to justify the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records. Despite the enormous implications on Americans’ privacy and the government’s dismal record, the remedy imposed by the court was just more record-keeping (Goitein, 2019). Under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was passed in 2008, the National Security Agency (NSA) is authorized to gather and save communications of foreigners overseas for foreign intelligence reasons. No warrant from any court or other government agencies is needed since non-­Americans cannot claim Fourth Amendment rights. However, the US Congress has required the NSA to “minimize” the collection and use of “incidental” data on American citizens. Nonetheless, it appears that the US government was acquiring data containing communications from thousands of wholly domestic communications from American citizens. The government’s handling of the data from American citizens violated the Fourth Amendment. Sometimes, officials interpret the laws based on their own view of what is good for the nation and people, which can be totally wrong. The court has stated that “Regardless of how persuasive the FBI’s considerations may be, the court is not free to substitute its understanding of sound policy— or, for that matter, the understanding of the Director of the FBI—for the clear command of the statute.” The law cannot and should not be ambiguously interpreted. Goitein (2019) mentions the following specific issues: • On a single day in December 2017, the FBI conducted over 6800 US person queries using Social Security Numbers. • Between December 7 and 11, 2017, an FBI official improperly reviewed raw FISA information resulting from 1600 US person queries. • On more than one occasion, the FBI conducted dozens of US person queries to gather information about potential informants. Apparently, these errors were due to misunderstandings by some FBI personnel. More specifically, the standard of what “reasonably likely” means was left open to

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interpretation by specific directors and department leaders. The court cited the following problems and sources of concern: • FBI personnel are fundamentally confused about what “reasonably likely to return foreign intelligence or evidence of a crime” means. • Oversight is limited because overseers review only a tiny fraction of queries. • Oversight is limited because overseers lack documentation of the justification for queries. • There is a mismatch between the FBI’s querying procedures, which purport to place substantive limits on queries, and the FBI’s policy of encouraging routine use of those queries at the earliest stage of every investigation. • “Batch” queries are seemingly inconsistent with the text of the FBI’s querying procedures (Goitein, 2019). Eventually, to protect the digital footprints of citizens, the agencies agreed that access to Americans’ data should be restricted to competent agents who were carefully trained in the laws and limitations. Of course, ultimately, it is the job of each agency’s leadership and management to ensure all personnel are fully trained on the laws which can impact people’s lives and access to their private data. Otherwise, the government authorities in various agencies will enforce the existing laws to punish violators. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) acted against online payment platform Dwolla, Inc., as they were supposedly deceiving people about their company’s data security practices and the safety of its online payment system. Dwolla is in the City of Des Moines, in the state of Iowa, which has operated as an online payment system organization. Dwolla was accused of collecting and saving consumers’ personal data to serve their financial transactions. The company promised to protect personal data in a “safe” and “secure” manner. However, the CFPB alleged that Dwolla misrepresented or falsified its data security practices as they falsely claimed that their data security protocols actually “exceed” or “surpass” industry standards. They also claimed that their “information is securely encrypted and stored” which apparently was false. In their “consent order,” the CFPB required Dwolla to stop misrepresenting its data security practices and to properly train its employees. They were also required to fix any security flaws while paying a penalty of $100,000 to the bureau’s Civil Penalty Fund. It is important for all firms to be truthful, and transparent, and honor their promises to all employees and consumers. One must also be aware that there is the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) of 1968, which is a federal law in the United States to promote the informed use of consumer credit. TILA requires full disclosures on the terms and cost of loans. It gives consumers the right to cancel certain credit transactions that involve a lien on a consumer’s principal residence. Also, it regulates credit card practices while providing a means for fair and timely resolution of credit invoicing challenges. Overall, TILA’s goal is to have a uniform or standardized disclosure process for all costs and charges so that consumers can shop strategically without worrying about any additional or hidden payments.

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Research has demonstrated that privacy policies, which might be clear, can be misinterpreted and implemented in such a way that they violate some rights of citizens. As such, all government laws and organizational policies should be written clearly and unambiguously while providing training and education to all personnel to provide clarity regarding each context. Furthermore, using a third or neutral party, each firm and agency should proactively audit its own records, procedures, and outcomes annually to ensure compliance with both the letter and intention of the law. These audits should also be assessed for digital diversity to make sure no specific group of employees is being adversely impacted due to their belonging to a protected group (such as gender, disability, and age). If any violation or disparate impact is observed, relevant actions should be taken immediately to remedy the situation and procedures.

4.4 Digital Diversity and Internet Because of the Internet, e-commerce is the norm for most people in this twenty-­ first-­century marketplace, and it has increased the importance of digital diversity. However, e-commerce is still not a common practice in poorer and developing nations. Nonetheless, modifications and shifts are coming in every corner of the globe, and these “Disparate populations, once separated by distance and time, will experience these changes as part of a global community” (Clinton & Gore, 1997). As mentioned by former President William J.  Clinton and Vice President Albert Gore (1997), “No single force embodies our electronic transformation more than the evolving medium known as the Internet. The Internet has emerged as an appliance of everyday life, accessible from almost every point on the planet.” As a typical online user, most people would agree that the Internet is now regularly used not only to reinvent government and reshape our lives, but it is also to impact how communities are interacting and communicating with each other. It is true that the Internet is empowering citizens of each locality to accept or reject certain regulations. The Internet is democratizing diverse societies as people can more easily and instantaneously voice their common disagreements with their political leaders. Through the Internet, both small- and large-scale entrepreneurs can capitalize on new business opportunities more easily by accessing highly segmented customers worldwide in just a matter of hours and days through email distribution or website promotions. There are certain common themes and principles that will continue to influence policymakers, entrepreneurs, and consumers in the e-commerce business. The five principles discussed in the document entitled The Framework for Global Electronic Commerce by Clinton and Gore Whitehouse (1997) are as follows: • The private sector should lead. • Governments should avoid undue restrictions on electronic commerce.

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• Where governmental involvement is needed, its aim should be to support and enforce a predictable, minimalist, consistent, and simple legal environment for commerce. • Governments should recognize the unique qualities of the Internet. • Electronic commerce over the Internet should be facilitated on a global basis. E-commerce is still a developing industry, and most transactions are handled by the private sector. So, the private sector will continue to lead; however, the private sector leaders must act in a socially responsible manner to keep all relevant or digitally diverse stakeholders happy. Otherwise, the “invisible hands” of the government will have to impose more restrictions to protect everyone’s data and create inclusion. During the COVID-19 pandemic, e-commerce became the norm in most developed economies because it offered flexibility, convenience, speed, and few restrictions. As such, irrelevant public sector restrictions and impositions on e-­commerce should be avoided in this developing e-commerce industry. Government involvement in e-commerce should focus on the creation of certainty and a fair legal framework for this growing industry. Most experts agree that “The genius and explosive success of the Internet can be attributed in part to its decentralized nature and to its tradition of bottom-up governance” (Clinton & Gore, 1997). The decentralized framework enables and empowers creative entrepreneurs to capitalize on their innovations, hard work, and persistency in meeting specific consumer needs locally, nationally, and globally. As such, the bottom-up form of governance needs to continue in the decades to come. Since the Internet is changing and will continue its amorphous format as it becomes the more common means of commerce around the world in all nations, the international community will have to create certain common regulatory provisions that are good for all. As such, “Regulation should be imposed only as a necessary means to achieve an important goal on which there is a broad consensus…Existing laws and regulations that may hinder electronic commerce should be reviewed and revised or eliminated to reflect the needs of the new electronic age” (Clinton & Gore, 1997). Finally, as mentioned in the fifth principle, “The Internet is emerging as a global marketplace” (Clinton & Gore, 1997) which will increase the digital diversity of all human beings as their “footprints” get recorded in cyberspace during each transaction. Of course, much development has taken place over the past two decades, yet the e-commerce framework is still in its infancy and, therefore, needs further improvement, consistency, and governance of data security from hackers and the misuse of personal records. As such, many experts continue to support Clinton and Gore’s statement that “The legal framework supporting commercial transactions on the Internet should be governed by consistent principles across the state, national, and international borders that lead to predictable results regardless of the jurisdiction in which a particular buyer or seller resides” (1997). It is true that Internet technologies are having a profound effect on global trade in the various services being offered to businesses and consumers.

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4.5 The Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent bureau or organization in the United States to enforce civil US antitrust laws and protect digitally diverse consumers from fraudulent business transactions. More specifically, their role in any form of commerce is critically significant and very important as “The Federal Trade Commission works to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices. They also provide information to help consumers spot, stop, and avoid scams and fraud” (FTC, 2022). There are millions of identity theft victims each year in the United States. As such, one of the main goals of the Federal Trade Commission is to prevent identity theft which hurts consumers’ confidence in doing business face-to-face and especially online, where digital data and information can be collected using “cookies” on each website. When this data is not kept private and protected well, a person can fall victim to identity theft. Of course, identity theft is a crime. The Identify Theft Act (ITA) sees the identification of a digitally diverse person by such elements as a name, Social Security number, date of birth, government-issued driver’s license, biometric data such as fingerprints. Of course, a person can be identified, targeted, and even harassed by personal informational identifiers like his/her phone number. As of 2003, Americans have had the option to opt out of receiving most telemarketing calls if one is able to enter his/her phone numbers on the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry. The National Do Not Call Registry has over 200 million telephone numbers on it to protect people from receiving commercials from companies at odd hours during the day, evenings, or nights (Do Not Call Registry, 2022). The good news is that the DNC Registry website can be accessed by anyone at any time (at www.donotcall.gov). Many online users are time-impoverished and tend to quickly agree with any disclosures made by various entities as they are in a hurry to make their purchases and receive their products. Nonetheless, it is the duty and responsibility of advertisers to make sure digitally diverse consumers fully understand what they are agreeing to when purchasing products online. Advertisers should make their disclosures transparent, clear, and readily available to consumers to ensure that their personal data (i.e., personal phone numbers) will not be made available publicly for others to use.

4.6 Conclusion New and innovative information technology is impacting the modern workplace more than ever before. The reality is that not everyone has equal access to digital diversity, and thereby some populations cannot fully benefit from modern online technology. As such, the impact of digital diversity should be assessed holistically on all populations by relevant authorities and strategically integrated in the training

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and development curriculums of all organizations as reasonably possible to accommodate the needs of diverse workers across the country. At the meantime, while keeping all data secure and respecting consumers’ privacy rights, the federal government and political leaders must do all that is possible to provide equal access to high-speed Internet and, thus, to digital diversity for all Americans. After all, we know that: The challenge of getting the internet to all Americans has been compared to earlier transformational initiatives, such as bringing electricity to every U.S. household or the interstate highway system which changed the country. Broadband internet saves lives and there is no better time to close the gap as we look towards a post-pandemic future. For a change, we have a substantial sum of money to be invested and there will be competing demands on it. It is essential we make good choices, especially given the scale of the investments at stake and of the problem. Future generations will thank us for it. (Chakravorti, 2022)

As mentioned in this chapter, digital diversity is about the availability of different online contents and platforms, as well as its access, awareness, protection, integration, usage, and inclusion of everyone’s apparent and hidden talents, electronic footprints, and interactions through face-to-face, online, and telecommuting modalities synchronously or asynchronously in an integrated manner throughout each organization. Digital technology is also about making good use of all the available online applications and communication platforms to better accommodate the diverse learning styles and preferences of the organization’s human resources asset. Human resource professionals must create digital diversity awareness and literacy through their training programs so that all policies, actions, and sharing practices can be fully aligned with the relevant laws while creating an inclusive work environment for all.

References Chakravorti, B. (2022). How Biden’s “Internet for All” initiative can actually fulfill its mission. Harvard Business Review. Online. https://hbr.org/2022/07/ how-­bidens-­internet-­for-­all-­initiative-­can-­actually-­fulfill-­its-­mission Clinton, W.  J., & Gore, A. (1997). The framework for global electronic commerce. Clinton Whitehouse. Source: https://clintonwhitehouse4.archives.gov/WH/New/Commerce/ Do Not Call Registry. (2022). Federal Trade Commission: Protecting America’s Consumers. https://www.ftc.gov/news-­events/topics/do-­not-­call-­registry FTC. (2022). https://www.usa.gov/federal-­agencies/federal-­trade-­commission Garon, J. M. (2020). A short & happy guide to Privacy and Cybersecurity Law. West Academic Publishing. https://subscription.westacademic.com/Book/Detail/26942 or at Amazon: https:// www.amazon.com/Short-­Happy-­Privacy-­Cybersecurity-­Guides-­ebook/dp/B08BG6GX93/ref= sr_1_1?crid=2AHPI2W9WSVOC&keywords=A+Short+%26+Happy+Guide+to+Privacy+an d+Cybersecurity+Law&qid=1657037170&sprefix=a+short+%26+happy+guide+to+privacy+ and+cybersecurity+law%2Caps%2C419&sr=8-­1&asin=B08BG6GX93&revisionId=609498b c&format=1&depth=1 Goitein, E. (2019, Oct 22). How the FBI violated the privacy rights of tens of thousands of Americans. Brennan Center for Justice. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-­work/ analysis-­opinion/how-­fbi-­violated-­privacy-­rights-­tens-­thousands-­americans

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Hsieh, R. (2014). Improving HIPAA enforcement and protecting patient privacy in a digital healthcare environment. Loyola University Chicago Law Journal, 46, 175–223. https://lawecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1706&context=luclj Justice Department. (2020). Overview of the Privacy Act: 2020 Edition. Criminal Penalties. The U.S.  Department of Justice. https://www.justice.gov/opcl/overview-­privacy-­act-­1974-­2020-­ edition/criminal#:~:text=The%20Privacy%20Act%20allows%20for,if%20the%20official%20 acts%20willfully. Maziriri, E.  T., Nyagadza, B., Mapuranga, M., & Maramura, T.  C. (2022). Habitual Facebook use as a prognosticator for life satisfaction and psychological well-being: Social safeness as a moderator. Arab Gulf Journal of Scientific Research., online first. https://www.emerald. com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/AGJSR-­04-­2022-­0011/full/html. https://doi.org/10.1108/ AGJSR-­04-­2022-­0011 Mujtaba, B. G., & Cavico, F. J. (2022). Organizational romance policies and sexual favoritism in the #MeToo workplace. ILEAD Academy. Pegues, Y. (2020, Sept 23). Digital diversity begins with human diversity. Diversity Inclusion: LeadDev.com. Access on 10 Aug 2022, at: https://leaddev.com/diversity-­inclusion/ digital-­diversity-­begins-­human-­diversity Rubenstein, G. (2006, Oct 19). Digital Diversity: Engaging All Students in Education. High tech tools shift from special to universal. EduTopia. Accessed on 13 Aug 2022 at: https://www. edutopia.org/digital-­diversity-­engaging-­all-­students-­in-­education Sonfield, A., & Pollack, H. A. (2013). The affordable care act and reproductive health: Potential gains and serious challenges. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, 38(2), 373–391. Wilkinson, T., & Reinhardt, R. (2015). Technology in counselor education: HIPAA and HITECH as best practice. Professional Counselor, 5(3), 407–418.

Chapter 5

The Validity and Reliability of the Measure for Digital Leadership: Turkish Form Elif Bilginoğlu and Uğur Yozgat

Abstract  Digital transformation is forcing the business world to rethink leadership. Organizations now need a new form of leadership, and these leaders need to be better equipped to navigate this extraordinary kind of change. The role of the leaders is now crucial to capture the real value of digitalization for they are the ones who manage and retain talent by better reaching for, connecting, and engaging with employees. Leaders are therefore faced with the challenge of putting these different ideas into practice and reinventing themselves as digital leaders. Unfortunately, most of the studies addressing digital leadership are conceptual, and empirical evidence addressing this subject is scarce. In the future, a significant share of conceptual material and experience reports will emerge because digital leadership is still a very new subdiscipline of leadership research, in part because of the field’s extremely high speed. Digital leadership continues to have numerous outcomes at the conceptual level; it also needs to be operationalized and investigated empirically. In order to move research on digital leadership forward, it is now time to explore new ideas and theories, which are empirically based, to reaffirm digital leadership. To fill these gaps, this chapter introduces a theoretical framework for digital leadership and tests the validity and reliability of the Turkish form of the Measure for Digital Leadership which is developed by Claassen et al. (J Occup Med Toxic 16, 2021). Within the scope of the scale validation process, a total of 363 employees were reached from two different samples to evaluate the psychometric properties of the scale. Descriptive and confirmatory factor analyses and test-retest analyses were performed on the collected data. The findings showed that the scale has a one-factor structure, like the original. The researchers of this chapter believe that the validity

E. Bilginoğlu İstanbul, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] U. Yozgat (*) Nişantaşı University, İstanbul, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Vardarlıer (ed.), Multidimensional and Strategic Outlook in Digital Business Transformation, Contributions to Management Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23432-3_5

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and reliability of the Measure for Digital Leadership: Turkish Form will make contributions to the literature on leadership research. Keywords  Digital leadership · Digital technology · Digitalization · Chief digital officer

5.1 Introduction There is a rapid development of digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, blockchain, and the industrial Internet. Organizations are going through a digital transformation to achieve breakthrough innovation and sustainable development (Zhu et al., 2022). The digital revolution is here, and there is no sector that is exempt from its effects (Swaminathan & Meffert, 2017). Consequently, digitalization is on the agenda of most organizations (Vardarlıer, 2020). Digitization does not only change the structures, processes, and information technology (IT) of organizations; it changes the people who live and work in this new reality as well (Swaminathan & Meffert, 2017). As leadership is an essential factor that may shape digital transformation processes and outcomes in work teams and organizations (Trenerry et al., 2021), digitalization will require a cultural change for leaders. This change will be even more challenging than the technological challenges organizations will be facing (Zimmermann, 2018). Digital transformation is forcing the business world to rethink leadership. Digital leaders need to evolve faster than this pace of change; they need to improve their skills and capabilities for the continuous success of their organizations (Brett, 2019). Brandes-Visbeck (as cited in Teichmann & Hüning, 2018) argues digital leadership stands for everything that a lot of organizations currently lack: an innovative spirit, value orientation, the potential for disruption and contradiction, flexibility in the matter at hand, but also steadfastness, in essence, a high level of social competence, and a great deal of courage. Since they are experimenting with combined human and robotic workforces, digital leaders have the potential to shape the future of many organizations (Joy, 2020). This chapter tests the validity and reliability of the Turkish form of the measure for digital leadership which is developed by Claassen et al. (2021). Within the scope of the scale validation process, a total of 363 employees were reached from two different samples to evaluate the psychometric properties of the scale. Descriptive and confirmatory factor analyses and test-retest analyses were performed on the collected data. The findings showed that the scale has a one-factor structure, like the original. The researchers of the present study believe that the validity and reliability of the Measure for Digital Leadership: Turkish Form will make contributions to the literature on leadership research.

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5.2 Literature Review 5.2.1 Digital Technology and Digitalization of the Working Environment Digitalization has moved to the center stage and is changing the whole game, and digital technologies, trends, opportunities, and threats are creating a brand-new competitive frontier (Gartner, 2015). The changes brought about by increasing digitization are immense – both from an economic and a social perspective: information technologies, digital business models, machines with artificial intelligence, and new media are transforming markets and industries, organizational structures and cultures, value creation processes, and customer relationships, as well as forms of collaboration (Zeichhardt, 2018). The ongoing repercussions and consequences of digitalization control the digital transformation (Pelters, 2021) which involves using digital technologies to remake a process to become more efficient or effective (Samuels, 2021) and is defined as “an ongoing and far-reaching process of change for society, the economy, and politics based on digital technologies that have a fundamental impact on information, communication, and transactions between the players involved in each case and leads to a new understanding and behavior in the social, economic and political spheres of life” (Kollmann, 2020). The role of the leaders is now crucial to capture the real value of digitalization for they are the ones who manage and retain talent by better reaching for, connecting, and engaging with employees (Cortellazzo et  al., 2019). Leadership 4.0 is therefore faced with the challenge of putting these different ideas into practice and reinventing themselves as digital leadership (Eggers & Hollmann, 2018)  – also referred to as e-leadership (Avolio et al., 2000; Gurr, 2006). For the purposes of this chapter, the researchers use the term digital leadership as broadly as possible to capture the many perspectives found in the literature.

5.2.2 Digital Leadership Digitalization has profoundly altered leadership styles and competencies in the digital economy (de Araujo et al., 2021) and presents new challenges to leaders. They must adjust to the uncertain climate and increase their digital literacy in order to lead organizations effectively. The principles of digital leadership have emerged as the most pertinent leadership philosophies to address demands that are changing and becoming more complex (Zhu et al., 2022). Although previous research reveals that the digital business environment is fundamentally different from the traditional one (Kane et  al., 2018) and it takes a renaissance of leadership (Zimmermann, 6), in parallel, there is an ongoing debate about whether digital leadership distinguishes from traditional leadership (Kane

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et al., 2019; Wirtz, 2021). While some researchers suggest that current leadership theories are outdated and not keeping pace with continual change and vast technological advancements (Martin, 2017) and they do not sufficiently address the opportunities and challenges arising from digitalization (Klein, 2020), some argue that digital leadership is not different from traditional leadership (Morgan & Papadonikolaki, 2022), and it has been existing for more than 150 years (Bach & Sulíková, 2021). In parallel, Stott (2016) asserts that in essence, wherever a leader is on the spectrum of digital transformation, or if he/she is facing tectonic demographic shifts, economic volatility or else leadership is still leadership, and the fundamentals do not change. Living in an increasingly complex world and having to cope with technology that is evolving so rapidly create a challenge for all organizations to confidently and safely navigate the digital world (Benbya et al., 2020; Lewis, 2020). Overall, the demands on leaders in a digital world are immense (Teichmann & Hüning, 2018). The leadership literature tackles the issue of the growing prevalent diffusion of information and communication technologies that have profoundly changed relationships among employees. Therefore, leadership needs to adapt to develop through the support of these technologies (Torre & Sarti, 2020). This emerging phenomenon has been labeled digital leadership (also referred to as e-leadership in academic research). It is defined by various researchers as “the new or adapted roles/activities required of leaders to effectively lead digital transformation and digital business” (Busulwa & Evans, 2021), “doing the right things for the strategic success of digitalization for the enterprise and its business ecosystem” (El Sawy et al., 2016), “the leadership abilities to manage the staff’s online activities (e.g., posting product descriptions and handling customer queries), leading marketing activities, problem-­ solving, and decision-making concerning online activities of the business” (Borah et al., 2022), “leaders who have initiated a massive process of digitalization in their organizations” (Cortellazzo et al., 2019), “the systematic use of an organization’s digital data to accomplish corporate objectives” (Antonopoulou et  al., 2021), or “leadership in the core sectors of the knowledge society – the three ‘C’s of computing, communications and content (broadcasting and print), and now multi-media” (Wilson, 2004). Digital leadership is not defined consistently in literature (Benitez et al., 2022; Claassen et al., 2021; Eberl & Drews, 2021; Teichmann & Hüning, 2018), and there is no patent recipe for the successful establishment of a digital leader (von Boeselager, 2018). Besides, some researchers made a list of the competencies and characteristics that digital leaders should possess. While Kane et al. (2018) name the five most important traits needed to be a digital leader as direction (providing vision and purpose), innovation (creating the conditions for people to experiment), execution (empowering people to think differently), collaboration (getting people to collaborate across boundaries), and inspirational leadership (getting people to follow you), Antonopoulou et al. (2021) argue that digital leadership skills include all of the expertise and abilities necessary for a person to initiate and direct IT-related creativity at all levels of the organization, from the smallest to the largest, both private and public. Prince (2018) asserts

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that digital leadership is multidimensional; it comprises elements of authentic leadership, transactional leadership, and transformational leadership. Chandrasekar and Mallis (2021) compile nine digital leadership roles which provide a holistic picture of what is really required to make digital transformation happen. Those are identified as future seekers (setting direction: scanning the environment to frame digital opportunities and make strategic decisions); business shapers, customer champions, ecosystem builders, organization transformers, and innovation accelerators (creating alignment: developing the learning environment and innovation infrastructure for rapid execution); and talent maker, culture catalyst, and engagement energizer (scaling commitment: engaging talent across the organization to enable change, new ways of leading and working). Møller et al. (2022) claim that digital leaders who have achieved outsized value creation by investing heavily in foundational capabilities and building their teams, technology, and data platforms have taken four key actions to accelerate their digital strategies which are having focused digital investments on innovation and new products and services; having maintained a fail fast and agile culture; having centralized operating models with a strong, outcome-driven incentive system; and having empowered team leads or change agents to socialize and champion digital projects requiring more scrutiny. Hüsing et al. (2015) argue that these leaders drive successful innovation and capitalize on advances in information and communication technologies. Research reveals that high-performing leaders today need different skills and expertise than in generations past, yet most organizations have not moved rapidly enough to develop digital leaders, promote young leaders, and build new leadership models (Abbatiello et al., 2017).

5.3 Chief Digital Officer (CDO) As quickly developing digital technologies continue to change the business landscape, a new position has evolved at the top table of many businesses: the Chief Digital Officer (CDO) (Kunisch et al., 2022). In fact, the head of data (Chief Digital Officer), the trustee, the data management executive, and the leader of information governance are among the new jobs that are currently emerging in many businesses to address digital management concerns. All of these positions are vying to fill the present leadership gap in organizations that exists to guarantee the accuracy and utility of information (Dolan, 2021). However, the organization’s overall digital agenda falls under the purview of the Chief Digital Officer (Swaminathan & Meffert, 2017). Thus, more and more organizations are hiring CDOs to manage their digital transformation (Hermes & Riedl, 2022). Although the job of CDO is increasing in popularity, it is still not widespread enough. Nevertheless, researchers believe that this change is soon to come. More boards and executive teams today recognize that the Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Information Officer, Chief Strategy Officer, and Chief Executive Officer all have a

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role in driving digital transformation. However, the Chief Digital Officer has the exceptional capacity to bring together an executive team as an enabler who supports the missions of their peers (Deloitte, 2015). Today, digital leadership means mastering the triad of digital transformation of digital mindset, digital skills, and digital execution (Kollmann, 2020). As the establishment of the CDO role denotes the strategic nature of the organization’s digital transformation (Firk et al., 2021; Rakovi’c et al., 2022), the CDO has been dubbed by McKinsey and Co. (2015) as the transformer in chief. Creusen et  al. (2017) emphasize that the competence factor will become increasingly important in the context of digital transformation and state “A Chief Digital Officer (CDO) is important, not because of the title on the business card, but because of the competence to implement the digital transformation in a company.” von Boeselager (2018) states that true to the word the CDO as Chief Digital Officer assumes the highest leadership position in the company for the digital theme world, but the CDO bears the responsibility, particularly for the digital transformation for the sustainable anchoring of digital in the organization. He adds that CDO replaces the CEO. However, as Swaminathan and Meffert (2017) claim that digital transformation starts with the CEO of an organization because he/she is the one who triggers the change in the corporate culture and the one who takes responsibility for the digital change, research also reveals that 41% of digitally mature companies and 31% of digitally developing companies put the responsibility of digital transformation with the CEO (Kane, 2018).

5.4 Research on Digital Leadership Even though digital leadership was broadly defined nearly two decades ago as an overlapping concept of e-leadership (Avolio et al., 2000), there has been surprisingly little progress (Avolio et al., 2014). The findings of the study of Abbatiello et al. (2017) revealed that the most critical need for organizations is for leaders to develop digital capabilities and that only 5% of organizations feel they have strong digital leaders in place. Nonetheless, the findings of the same study also revealed that 72% of respondents are developing or starting to develop new leadership programs focused on digital management, and this may be regarded as a sign of positive change. Previous research revealed that digital leadership has a relatively favorable association with the leadership outcome, which is translated as a high level of performance and satisfaction coexisting with a high level of digital leadership execution (Antonopoulou et al., 2021), promotes learning organization on individual performance (Artüz & Bayraktar, 2021) and employee creativity (Zhu et  al., 2022), improves an organization’s innovation performance by digitalizing the organization’s platform (Benitez et al., 2022), has a positive impact on exploratory innovation (Wang et  al., 2022), fosters timely and open communications (Abbu et  al., 2020), and supports communication and collaboration (Zhong, 2016).

5  The Validity and Reliability of the Measure for Digital Leadership: Turkish Form

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The findings of the study by Zeike et al. (2019) showed that well-being is significantly correlated with digital leadership. The results of the study of Dewi and Sjabadhyni (2021) reveal that as a unidimensional variable, digital leadership is a strong predictor of psychological well-being. However, as a multidimensional variable, the digital leadership–skill dimension has significant and positive effects on psychological well-being, whereas the digital leadership–attitude, competencies, and behavior dimension do not have a significant effect on psychological well-being. Previous research also reveals that leadership attributes, strategic priorities, organizational focus areas for exploration, and digital governance practices for exploitation are significant antecedents of effective digital leadership (Karippur & Balaramachandran, 2022). The study of Claassen et  al. (2021) presents an instrument for measuring the construct of digital leadership competence at the computer workstation.

5.5 Research Method In the context of the process proposed by Brislin (1970), the English form of the scale was translated into Turkish by a commission consisting of five academicians with good command of English, and then the consistency between the Turkish and English forms was examined. Later, the Turkish form was examined in terms of meaning and grammar by three academicians in Turkish language and necessary corrections were made, and the Turkish form was obtained for trial. In the next step, the Turkish trial form was applied to ten doctoral students who took a leadership course, and some minor changes were made in line with the opinions of these students. To protect all participants, all subjects read informed consent before participating in this study and voluntarily made their decision to complete surveys. The protocol was approved by an institutional review board at Nişantaşı University.

5.5.1 Sample The data of the scale validation study consist of samples collected at two different times. The first sample of the study consists of 225 employees between June 5 and 28 2022, and the second sample consists of 138 employees who answered the questionnaire twice in June and September 2022. The entire sample of the research consists of 363 people.

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5.5.2 Digital Leadership Scale Digital Leadership Scale, developed by Claassen et  al. (2021), consists of seven items. First question “I am involved in decisions that affect my work and my digital work environment” in the original scale into two questions as “I am involved in decisions that affect my work environment” and “I am involved in decisions that affect my digital work environment” where “work” and “digital work” in one question have a potential to confuse the respondents (Appendix A). The participants were asked to evaluate the items with a 6-point Likert-type scale (1  =  Strongly Disagree, 6 = Strongly Agree). As a result of the analysis carried out by the authors, none of the questions was removed from the scale.

5.5.3 Scale Validation Process According to Hinkin (1995), the “scale evaluation” phase, which is recommended to focus on scale development studies, includes the validity and reliability analysis of an improved scale. In this context, factor analyses, internal consistency, and test-­ retest analyses were generally used. The first sample was used for factor and internal consistency analysis, and the second sample was used to test test-retest reliability. The scales used in the social sciences are expected to have medium or high correlations within a certain time frame. Because the concepts shaped by socialization processes are expected to lead people for a long time, and it is assumed that this is a concept that will not change situationally. For this reason, scale’s time consistency was examined.

5.5.4 Findings Confirmatory factor analysis was applied in the first stage of the study, and items of the scale were collected under one factor like in the original study. In the second stage, data were subjected to exploratory factor analysis. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to determine the factor structure and the distribution of items by factors. Before conducting the exploratory factor analysis, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) coefficient was analyzed, whether the number of samples was sufficient, and whether the correlation between the items was appropriate was examined by the Bartlett test. Data set shows that Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value of .910 (> .60) is very good for performing CFA analysis and that the Bartlett test [𝓧2 = 1.208,412; df = 28; p  0.60) in all sub-dimensions, so it is at the “highly reliable” level. In the composite reliability values, since all CR values were (CR > 0.70), the composite reliability condition was met. Since the average variance extracted values for all variables (AVE  >  0.50), the necessary condition for convergence validity was met.

Table 14.1  Correlation, reliability, and discriminant validity values of the scales Comp F L I P A E C O N CA CR AVE

MN 3.8 3.9 3.9 3.9 3.5 4.0 3.9 3.8 3.2 – – –

SD 1.01 1.02 .91 .90 .72 .72 .93 .87 .81 – – –

F (.786) .760** .728** .719** .151** −.006 .398** .382** .211** .853 .830 .619

L

I

P

(.799) .768** .759** .061 .039 .388** .279** .265** .778 .780 .639

(.780) .771** .093 −.007 .390** .333** .224** .823 .824 .610

(.813) .086 .056 .360** .313** .303** .853 .854 .661

A

(.767) .312** .348** .461** .028 .749 .589

E

C

O

N

(.747) .116* .190** −.027 .765 .716 .559

(.737) .374** .154** .689 .702 .544

(.745) .161** .754 .789 .556

(.807) .790 .788 .652

MN Mean, Comp Component, CA Cronbach’s alpha, CR composite reliability, AVE average variance extracted, F flexible environment, L learning culture, I intentional content, P professional educator, E extraversion, A agreeableness, C conscientiousness, N neuroticism, O openness to experience ***p