Digitalisation brings radical changes to the economy both globally and locally. To adapt to these changes and develop sustainably, businesses must leverage the opportunities and tackle the challenges that digital technology represents. Businesses in rural areas face specific challenges, and this is no less true when it comes to digitalisation. This thesis contributes to an understanding of digitalisation in small businesses located in rural areas. The overarching research question is how and why the spatial context matters for the digitalisation of rural companies.
The first main part of the thesis is a systematic and interdisciplinary scoping review of the relevant research literature. The descriptive findings of the review show how a broad array of research fields address the topic of the thesis, with great theoretical and conceptual variety and little systematic theory building. The thematic findings of the review form the basis for an initial theoretical framework. In the second main part of the thesis, this framework is developed through an in-depth abductive case study drawing on ecosystem, process, and structuration theory.
The research finds that rurality, as a spatial context, entails structural conditions that, in combination, nudge or even force companies to engage in interorganisational activities to seize digitalisation opportunities and tackle digitalisation pressures, barriers, and vulnerabilities. This typically leads to collective digitalisation efforts that may help companies circumvent rural drawbacks and therefore transform rurality. Moreover, these efforts contribute to sustaining companies and the local business community, thus reproducing rurality. At the same time, collective digitalisation introduces new interdependencies that create vulnerabilities and challenges for the companies involved.
Prosjektet har skapt ny kunnskap som vil kunne gi leiarar, næringsstøtteaktørar, beslutningstakarar og andre aktørar ny innsikt og nye perspektiv på kva som skal til for å oppnå avansert digitalisering i små rurale verksemder. Dette kan potensielt føre til meir og betre digitalisering i dei verksemdene som vel å nytte seg av kunnskapen. Dette kan igjen medvirke til positiv utvikling i rurale område.
Prosjektet har styrka relasjonen og samarbeidet mellom prosjekteigar og det regionale universitetet og legg grunnlaget for nye framtidige samarbeidsprosjekt.
Prosjektet har tilført prosjekteigar verdifull kunnskap, kompetanse og erfaring og eit større nettverk.
The ongoing digital transformation, i.e. adopting digital technologies in enhancing processes, activities and competencies of companies (Bohnsack et al. 2018; Pesch et al. 2018), not only improves the companies’ resilience under drastic economic change but also enhance companies’ competitiveness for sustainable growth and outreach to new market segments. Digital technologies and devices such as smartphones, smart products, the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence, and deep learning are significant elements in the transformation. Digital transformation of rural businesses is a special theme due to the complex combinations of geographical, cultural, social, technical and personal attributes, such as location, business culture, business domain, education, age, digital skills, etc., which can influence the adoption of digital technologies. In this context, the business environment of the regional business plays a vital role in supporting and enabling the stable operations and sustainable growth of the business. This includes local authorities, i.e. multicipalities, local investor network, research and development institutes and other governmental units. In any geographical case, it is important to understand the digital transformation under the influence of these contextual factors. In this proposed project, we focus: a) on an interdisciplinary theoretical development of digital transformation process for rural businesses, b) iteratively develop a conceptual framework mapping ecosystem-level and business-level factors for performing the transformation, c) empirically evaluate the approach in a longitudinal case study.
