Digitalization and globalization in a turbulent world: Centrifugal and centripetal forces

Research Summary

Digitalization has three fundamental characteristics, reprogrammability infrastructural elementality, and intangibility. Based on these characteristics, it is transforming how firms organize for value creation, delivery, and capture. Its intangibility and infrastructural character largely free economic and business activities from the constraints of physical geography like those imposed by transportation and collocation. Digital communication technologies typically reinforce the centrifugal forces that favor dispersing the firm's high knowledge activities. Digital in situ technologies strengthen the centripetal forces toward concentrating the firm's low knowledge activities. Location dependence and product modularity are crucial moderators for tangible products, while institutional barriers are important for intangible ones. Finally, digital technologies increase the resilience of firms during disruptive events that impose restrictions on the movements of people and goods, as during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Managerial Summary

Digitalization is a general purpose technology on the scale of the steam engine and electricity, and affects every aspect of business and society. It is transforming how firms organize for value creation, delivery, and capture. Freeing businesses from the constraints of transportation and collocation, it increases their resiliency in the face of global disruptions like those associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital communication technologies typically reinforce the centrifugal forces that favor dispersing the firm's high knowledge activities. Digital in situ technologies like advanced robotics strengthen the centripetal forces toward concentrating the firm's low knowledge activities. Location dependence and product modularity are crucial moderators for tangible products, while institutional barriers are important for intangible ones.