Digital Convergence – Processing and Transfering Data Essay Example

of IT in enhancing a company's knowledge and flexibility, enabling it to respond to changes in the environment. The phrase 'digital options' refers to a company's capacity to utilize digitized work processes in order to capitalize on emerging opportunities, depending on its dynamic capabilities. In a high-speed competitive setting, companies must consistently take actions to acquire short-term competitive advantages, with those who possess a greater number and variety of competitive actions attaining a stronger position. Despite efforts being made to identify factors that contribute to competitiveness, there is currently no formal empirical study investigating the relationship between Digital Convergence and competitive advantage. This research aims to examine the correlation between a company's Adaptive, Absorptive, and Innovative capabilities and its ability to achieve competitive success.

There is existing research indicating that knowledge sharing and utilization by employees improves a company's ability to innovate. In the field of Information Systems (IS), it is understood that continuously generating competitive actions, managing knowledge, and demonstrating agility are crucial for achieving a competitive position. However, there has yet to be a formal empirical study on how innovation capability enhances business process agility or how digital convergence can leverage innovation capability for competitive actions. Calls have been made for research exploring the relationship between organizational capabilities, agility, digital systems, and competitive actions. This includes investigating the connection between digital systems and competitive actions, examining how firms and networks utilize digital systems for competitive actions, and identifying IT capabilities essential for success in today's digital environment. Moreover, research is necessary to analyze the emerging trend of mobile computing and its impact on organizations' ability to mobilize information, share information,and develop new forms of

structure,capability,and agility. One specific question worth exploring is whether a company's innovation capability contributes to increased agility. Another question pertains to how digital convergence affects the relationship between innovation capability and agility.The text discusses the impact of digital convergence on both external and internal digital collaboration, as well as the role of partner location in forming a digital consortium network. It also explores whether digital convergence facilitates or hinders collaboration between local and global partners, and how collaboration between competitors affects business process agility. The review suggests that improving a firm's business process agility enhances competitiveness. Lastly, it investigates which type of digital collaboration is considered most valuable for innovation activities within a company.

The prevalence of digitized information has led to the emergence of Digital Convergence (DC). Today, various technologies such as IP phones, IP cameras, IP televisions, point-of-sale systems, digital learning devices, portable medical devices, and more are interconnected within the digital network. These technologies enable integrated communication and collaboration tools for both stationary and mobile workers.

When all media is digital, bits effortlessly co-mingle, acquiring assorted uses and reuses, individually or collectively. In other words, DC facilitates the usage and reuse of information.

The definition of digital convergence (DC) has evolved over time. According to the review of literature, digital convergence refers to the combination of communications and computers. In 1977, Japan's NEC Corporation defined DC as the unification of communications and computers. To achieve digital convergence, powerful computers are needed to handle communications with digitized content. DC involves merging different types of content (such as characters, sound, text, gestures, and images) into a single stream and transmitting them quickly and efficiently in large volumes

using distributed computer science and internetworking. DC can also be categorized as network convergence: fixed to mobile convergence (FMC) allows for the seamless distribution of digitized content over both mobile and fixed technologies, eliminating the boundaries between fixed network operators and mobile network operators.

It provides access to the digitized service regardless of location and device. FMC enables a single device to connect and switch between wired and wireless networks. Digital convergence can also be seen as Business Process convergence or integration: It is the ability to represent sound, picture, text, and other media in digital form, manage this rich digital content, and connect it to transactional capabilities and interactive services. For example, in a doctor's office, the patient signature can be captured digitally. All the business transactions such as patient scheduling, recording of procedure information and service rates, payment collection, processing insurance claims, and managing patient medical records can be done digitally. Later on, these records can be accessed by management to efficiently track the clinic's performance.

Besides the concern procedure, convergence can assist concern supply personalized synergistic merchandises for the consumers. DC is the ability to incorporate and meet enterprise broad concern procedure with individual point of entree to it, 24x7, where digitized datas are stored in a shared depository and managed by endeavor broad package like the Enterprise resource planning ( ERP ) package. DC is Device convergence where the same digital device can be used for multiple forms of digital content used for complementary services like a mobile phone can be used as a video player, music player, and sound recording equipment, GPS, email, and web search. It is defined as the convergence

of computing, communication, and consumer electronics. In the current scenario, future digital convergence means generating digital environments that are aware, receptive, and adaptive to humans connected in a network. The interacting computational devices connected to such pervasive, human-centered computer science network are able to communicate with each other.

Digital convergence can facilitate remote work and conduct live meetings through video conferencing. Based on previous research, digital convergence can be defined as the convergence of digital content, network/transmission, business process/service, digital devices, and infrastructure supporting pervasive computing.

Innovation Capability

Previous research on innovation capability of a company has concluded that it encompasses the ability to have product innovation capability, process innovation capability, and market innovation capability, which are summarized below. The role of environmental innovation capability and organizational innovation capability in shaping company agility has not been studied yet. Product innovation capability refers to the ability to develop new products or services, be the first mover in the market, and introduce more new products than other companies.

The term Process Innovation capability encompasses the development of new production methods, organizational forms, and solutions to problems, along with the discovery of new supply methods and sources. In contrast, Market Innovativeness pertains to the ability to identify new markets. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), headquartered in Paris, is responsible for overseeing the Community Innovation Survey (CIS). In 2008, the CIS was expanded to incorporate Organizational Innovation Capability and Environmental Innovation Capability as additional measures of innovativeness.

Innovation studies have been conducted in various Western European states and have expanded to include multiple other countries such as Canada, all EU states, Switzerland, Russia, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, South

Africa, and most Latin American states.

Organizational Innovation Capability

CIS 2008 defines organizational innovation capability as a firm's ability to integrate new organizational methods into its business practices. These methods can encompass new patterns for organizing work or procedures (such as supply chain management, business re-engineering, lean production, quality management, education/training systems), knowledge management systems to enhance information exchange within and outside the enterprise, and new approaches to workplace administration for delegating responsibilities and making decisions (i.e. organization structure).

The text discusses two aspects of innovation capability: organizational innovation capability and environmental innovation capability. Organizational innovation capability refers to the ability of a company to implement new systems of employee duties, squad work, decentralization, and integrating or de-integration of sections. It also includes the ability to establish new methods of organizing external dealings with other companies or public establishments, such as partnerships, outsourcing, confederations, or sub-contracting.

On the other hand, environmental innovation capability is defined as the ability of a company to produce new or significantly improved products, processes, organizational methods, or marketing methods that generate environmental advantages compared to alternatives. According to CIS 2008, marketing innovation capability includes the ability to make significant changes to product design or packaging, develop new media or techniques for product promotion, create new sales channels, and devise new methods of pricing goods.

In addition to these capabilities, product innovation capability encompasses the ability of a company to develop products that are adaptable to customer demands.

Process invention capableness encompasses the ability to create new or enhanced supporting activities for business procedures. It also involves the ability to provide new methods for promoting staff welfare, such as offering incentives and encouraging employees to think creatively

and independently. Furthermore, key executives are encouraged to take calculated risks.

Competition

The theory of Knowledge Management (KM) and the Science of competition suggest that KM enhances competitive position through improvements in productivity, agility, innovation, and reputation (PAIR). In dynamic markets, knowledge assets become vital as a source of competition. Greater Agility, in conjunction with KM, fosters superior organizational performance. Both Entrepreneurial agility (the ability to anticipate and proactively make competitive moves) and Adaptive agility (the ability to sense and respond to change) are significant predictors of sustainable competitive advantage. A strong correlation also exists between sustainable competitive advantage and profitability.

Dynamic capabilities are essential in fast-changing markets for companies to gain a competitive edge. These capabilities include adaptive capability, absorptive capability, and innovative capability, as identified by previous research.

A literature review has defined competitive action as a specific and externally directed move made by a company to improve its relative competitive position. Previous studies have highlighted the importance of knowledge assets, agility, and dynamic capabilities in achieving competitiveness. However, this study aims to investigate the relationship between digital convergence and innovation capability, building innovation cooperation, business process agility, and competitive advantage.

Agility

The literature identifies various types of agility: operational (internally focused enterprise), partnering (supply chain enterprise), customer (demand side initiative), entrepreneurial and adaptive, strategic, and business-process agility. Operational agility is described as the ability to quickly sense and seize business opportunities with accuracy and cost-efficiency.

Customer agility refers to a business's ability to adapt to client needs, identify new opportunities, and effectively implement them alongside customers. IT aids customer agility by enabling the development of virtual customer communities for product design, feedback collection, and testing.

On the other hand, partnership

agility involves utilizing partner knowledge, skills, and assets to identify and pursue new business opportunities. Since individual companies may lack necessary resources for competition and value creation, pooling resources with partners can be advantageous. IT supports partnership agility through inter-organizational networks that promote collaboration, communication, and integration of business processes.

To achieve success, organizational agility is essential for any business. Operational capabilities significantly impact an organization's level of agility.

When an Inter-organizational system is integrated into an organization and widely adopted, it contributes to greater agility. Agile organizations, which continuously take competitive actions, tend to outperform those that do not. There are two forms of business-process agility: process-level agility, which refers to how quickly an organization can incorporate new capabilities into its standard procedures (e.g.,

The text talks about two types of capabilities in a company: AJAX capability and transaction-level agility. It also mentions the theory of Resource Based View (RBV) which states that valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable resources and capabilities are the source of competitive advantage. The extension to this theory is the concept of Dynamic capabilities, which emphasizes the development and constant renovation of organizational capabilities over time as a source of competitive advantage. Unlike the previous belief that IT infrastructure and investment are the source of competitive advantage, dynamic capabilities theory highlights the consistent development of the ability to use IT, allowing companies to be flexible and continuously innovate to stay ahead of competitors.The theory of capableness province competition lists dynamic capablenesss, nucleus competences, and resources as the foundation for achieving superior performance in a company. Based on the Dynamic capablenesss theory, it is not only the availability of resources that is important,

but also the effective performance systems operating within the company and incorporated into its processes that make use of these resources.

The theory suggests that while a house's IT system can be copied by other houses, the house's ability to strategically utilize IT cannot be easily replicated. According to this theory, a house's innovation capability cannot be easily duplicated by other houses and can help the house gain a competitive advantage. This capability was defined by Schumpeter (1934) as the development of new products, production methods, supply sources, market openings, and ways of organizing businesses. According to OECD's CIS 2008 report, innovation ability is the capacity to implement new or significantly improved products, processes, marketing methods, organizational methods, or environmentally friendly products or processes in business practices, workplace administration or external relations.

The text suggests that the invention capability of a house can drive its reaction to market changes. This survey aims to investigate this relationship through empirical observation and proposes the following idea:

Proposition 1: Organizational Agility is related to the capability of innovation.

Digitization has become widespread and provides accessibility to knowledge through intranets, digital repositories, and databases. It also enhances knowledge sharing through video conferencing and digital collaborative tools. The digitization process presents significant opportunities for companies to achieve greater agility. Additionally, digitized information can be transferred in various ways due to digital convergence.

Information theory provides rational explanations for competition: those with information will be more aware, motivated, and able to respond. The use of ICT on Multi-factor productivity (MFP growth) is typically associated with a firm's innovation experience. It has been proposed that capabilities such as a firm's digital platform are important for enabling agility.

Therefore, this study suggests that Innovation Capability will have a greater impact on agility for firms that have Digital convergence compared to those that do not.

Proposition 2: Relationship between Innovation capableness and organisational Agility will be moderated by digital convergence Firms that have digitized their procedure have digital options that can assist make new channels to entree clients, construct real-time integrating within supply concatenation web, addition efficiencies in internal operations and offering new digital merchandises or services. This survey proposes that houses that have digitized their procedures will hold digital convergence that can assist digital coaction with clients, other members in the supply concatenation web, other houses in the industry, rivals and other houses within the endeavor; both locally and globally.

Research Design

Data Sample The proposed research theoretical account will be through empirical observation tested utilizing a information gathered from directors of companies. The mark answering list will be compiled from the Dun ; Bradstreet database dwelling of big organisations both public and private operating in North America that has a certain degree of market uncertainness and competition.

According to the OECD, there are two types of industries that heavily rely on invention. The first type includes high tech industrial companies in manufacturing, while the second type consists of companies providing knowledge-intensive services such as IT consultancy, telecommunications, banking and financial services, retail, insurance, healthcare, and education. To ensure the generality of the survey results, a diverse sample from both the public and private sectors is being used. The main focus of this survey is on digital convergence. Although digital convergence is happening with varying intensity across all industry sectors and company sizes, this survey specifically targets

medium to large companies with a significant number of employees. This is because larger companies have easier access to finance, making it more feasible for them to invest in digital systems.

Methodology
A preliminary assessment of the proposed scale for each concept and identification of ambiguous questions and instructions will be conducted through a pilot survey involving IS faculty members and alumni students. The reliability of each multi-point scale will be tested using Cronbach's alpha (?) coefficient. A reliability coefficient above 0.7 is generally considered acceptable. It is important to evaluate the biases that result from using a single method, a mail survey administered at a single point in time, to measure the concepts proposed in this study due to Common Method Variance (CMV). CMV will be assessed using Harmon's one factor test. Efforts are being made to obtain information on all the variables under study.

Whatever possible bing graduated tables will be used but new graduated table to mensurate digital convergence will be developed. A seven point likert graduated table (1= really Weak, 7=Very strong) was used to mensurate the concepts. This survey adapts the antecedently validated graduated tables used in the yesteryear to mensurate organisational invention capableness. The altered graduated table in the survey consists of: Product invention which has 3 inquiries, Process Innovation has 4, organisational invention has 4, Marketing invention has 4 and Environmental invention has 2 inquiries as shown in the Appendix.

Digital Collaboration for invention is the active engagement with other endeavors or non-commercial establishments on invention activities utilizing a digital platform. It does not require the confederate to profit commercially. Pure undertaking out of work with no active co-operation is excluded

in defining digital collaboration for invention. This step is adapted from the OECD community invention study, 2008.

The text suggests using a previously validated instrument to measure eight steps of concern procedure legerity. These steps assess how quickly and effectively a business can respond to changes in demand, customize products for specific customers or markets, react to new product or service launches by competitors, adjust prices or product mix, enter or exit markets, adopt new processes, and redesign the supply chain. The proposed study aims to build on the existing literature on Digital Convergence to develop a practical understanding of the concept. The study breaks down Digital Convergence into six first order concepts: content convergence, transmission convergence, network convergence, business process convergence or integration, device convergence, and pervasive digital environment. The next step is to operationalize these variables and formulate formal hypotheses for empirical testing.

This survey aims to measure the competitive position of a company based on the performance of their company compared to their major rivals using a seven-point Likert scale (1 = significantly decreased, 7 = significantly increased) in terms of: Market share, Sales volume and Customer Satisfaction. The results obtained through self-reports will be validated by correlating them with the results obtained from accounting-related measures available from Financial Reports. Previous literature supports the use of accounting measures such as Tax return on Sales (ROS), Return on Assets (ROA) often used as proxies for efficiency, and operating income to assess a company's competitive position.

Data Analysis

This survey proposes to use PLS (Partial Least Squares) to estimate the research model, as it is common in behavioral literature to use multiple item measures for latent concepts. Path

model using PLS will be used to interpret the main findings of this survey because this survey uses perceptual measures provided by one respondent for concepts that require multiple item indicators.

This research holds significance, as it examines the connection between a firm's innovation capability and business process agility in the context of competitive advantage. The impact of digital convergence on a company's ability to compete in a dynamic and globally competitive environment is crucial for managers. The proposed study aims to offer guidance to managers on whether developing environmental, organizational, and marketing innovation capabilities can enhance agility. Additionally, it explores the potential benefits of investing in digital convergence for fostering digital collaboration and improving agility, including collaboration with competitors. Furthermore, the study investigates whether business process agility can provide a competitive advantage for larger companies. Overall, this research adds to the existing literature on the relationship between a firm's capability and agility, employing a resource-based perspective and dynamic capability theory to analyze the impact of innovation capability on competitive performance.This survey aims to test the relationship between agility in decision-making processes and competitiveness.

The survey also offers an explanation of Digital Convergence. Ultimately, the results of this proposed survey are important to respondents because they answer whether investing in Digital Convergence is necessary for gaining a competitive advantage through the acquisition of innovative capabilities.