Introduction
The contemporary world is filled with technological advancement in communication and information. These advancements have brought about a shift in how business operations are conducted to capture and create values, the working nature, the interaction and communication capabilities (Cascio & Montealegre, 2016). Emerging technology in an organization usually leads to the disruption of the existing relationships and routines within the firm. This yields to applying an implementation strategy with little reliance on the technological features itself rather than creating a complex interactive platform between the utilized technology and the organization adopting it (Alexiou, 2016). The disruptive tendency of emerging technology is brought about by the ability of humans to explore their creative nature of being involved with innovation. Despite the existing disruptive technological know-how, there still exists a sustaining form of these innovations (Rahman, Hamid, & Chin, 2017). The emerging technology has brought about tremendous changes within the operation of an organization, a fact proving to be troublesome to the firm.
An organization ability to effectively survive and compete relies on the indulgence of activities skewed towards efficiency and exploratory behavior. The exploratory behavior seeks to incorporate, experiment, search and vary its new knowledge in uncertain business environments (Khanagha, Volberda, & Oshri, 2017). Emerging technology is essential for considering whether is viable and worth being included within the set-up of an organization. These specific technological structures need development to support the emerging technology necessary to shape collaborating factors lying within the same paradigm (Soderholm et al., 2018). Therefore, adopting an emerging technology seeks a lot of deliberation relevant for ensuring the organization remains competitive and survives the turbulent existing times it may face.
Goal
This research aims to utilize the digital workplace, a selection of Gartner’s Roadmap of emerging technologies, and, therefore, perform an analysis of sustainability using the three dimensions of the techno-sustainability model. These three dimensions of the model essential for analyzing Gartner’s Roadmap include; economic, social, and environmental. Similarly, the analysis would be accomplished using the market and technological uncertainty scorecard. Furthermore, a review of the integrated techno-sustainability assessment analysis modeling method would be necessary.
Scope
Organizations desire and wish to reduce their production costs in their innovation and growth within their production line. The increase in competition prompts organizations to adopt new technological advancement in their workplaces. These transformations are essential for an organization seeking to shift its old utilized methods inhibiting competitive environment to sophisticated technological advancements. The necessity to adopt new technology in the workplace is a strategic marketing move aiming to execute tasks necessary for assisting an organization in enjoying a fair allotment of market share.
The revolution in digitalizing the workplace has left many organizations confused on how to define this trend. Similarly, these organizations perceive wrongly digital workplace transformations as simply integrating digitalizing technologies (Attaran, Attaran, & Kirkland, 2020). The digital workplaces emanate from the desire and focus on reducing wastage of time among employees seeking to access correct information within an organization. The utilization of new technological advancement has significantly impacted the incorporation of technology in workplaces (Janssen & merk, n.d). Despite the desire to utilize emerging technology in an organization’s workplace, it tremendously impacts and changes the working environment landscape. The digital workplace is necessary since it avails room for effective and new working designs; exploits exhaustively technologies and styles considered consumer-oriented; and boosts the agility and engagement of an employee (Haddud & McAllen, 2018). The digital workplace provides ease and an excellent environment for effective functioning by employees.
Digital workplace entails the technological advancements utilized by individuals in performing and ensuring work being done and to be implemented is complete. Similarly, a digital workplace can be perceived as assembling all provided digital tools by an organization to permit its staff to smoothly undertake their respective tasks (Haddud & McAllen, 2018). Digital workplaces are essential for organizations since it has been achieved due to technological advancements. Despite being significant for most organizations, researches show they have received little attention (Williams & Schubert, 2018). The features distinguishing digital workplaces entail perceptions such as the working environment are digitalized; measure for performance is output and not presence; and working is not a destination (Haddud & McAllen, 2018). These distinguishing features are essential in assisting one to grasp a depth understanding of the digital workplace environment.
The incorporation of technological advancement within a working environment seeks to change the organization’s means of operation. This is because organizations seek to find better methods of working, which can only be realized through adopting innovative, beneficial technologies (Haddud & McAllen, 2018). This desire to achieve better results leads to gradually layering workplace technologies to more advanced applications such as digitalized integration, email, sensing devices, advanced technology, robots, and social platforms (Baptista et al., 2020). Technological advancement is achieved within the workplace environment since it has incorporated the use of enablers’ pillars, including cloud computing, big data and related analytics, social media and connectivity of mobile phones (Moreira, Ferreira, & Seruca, 2018). An organization will possess a competitive advantage provided it utilizes and incorporates technological advancements in its operations.
Indicator Selection (PESTEL Analysis)
The PESTEL analysis entails the rigorous evaluation of environmental factors that affect the managers’ decision-making process in an organization. This analysis explores factors underlying the digital workplace’s political, economic, social, technological, and legal environments.
Political Factors
The political factors explore the policies outlined by a particular government under which the organization intended to adopt digital workplace operates. Political stability is an essential aspect of the operation of an organization within a particular country. Arising uncertainty, anxiety, and an unavailable conducive business environment become unsuitable to an organization’s operations. Political uncertainties scare away potential investors in a country (Soderholm et al., 2018). The initial phase of initializing a digital workplace is mindful of creating awareness within an organization about detecting any arising turbulence or anomalies related to the moderating factor of the environment. This ensures a timely response to any arising uncertainties likely to disrupt organizational operations (Alexiou, 2016). The political soberness of a country would form a conducive environment for the installation and working environment of emerging technology for the digital workplace.
Economic Factors
The economic factors relate to changing taxation policies, rates of interest, economic growth, rates of exchange, and inflation. The fluctuating economic period tremendously impacts the operations of workplace operations. A digitalized economy is essential in reducing costs while raising the deployment and widespread use among organizations globally. Similarly, employees’ compensations due to injuries received in workplaces or falling ill by work due to a performed task would be a matter of the past (Horton et al., 2018). Despite the invoked changes in the workplace technological advancements resulting in increased competitiveness, agility, and collaboration, the operations in an organization suffer technical glitches. For instance, the adoption of teleconferencing in workplaces as a platform for conducting meetings registered technical hardships resulting in the late commencement of meetings (Attaran, Attaran, & Kirkland, 2019). Reducing the costs of operations and boosting efficiency by global organizations have contributed significantly to the adoption of workplace technology.
Therefore, a digital workplace possesses various benefits only if its development, designing, building, implementation, and management are conducted effectively. This is achieved if the core reason behind establishing the digital workplace has been attained. The organization’s redesigning of its business using advanced digital know-how is essential (Moreira, Ferreira, & Seruca, 2018). The benefits drawn from a digital workplace include improving the employee’s productivity, increasing an organization’s performance, creating broader access to retaining scarce resources, maximizing customer contact, optimizing the costs, and leading to higher innovation levels (Haddud & McAllen, 2018). These benefits are the pillar behind the adoption of the digital workplace in global organizations across the globe.
Social Factors
The social factors entail the changing trends among the target market segment impacting demand for an organization’s products and their individual’s willingness to offer service in the firm. The emerging technologies in organizations are pivotal in witnessing innovations initiating change among various global firms. The desire for change is associated with intertwining within developing necessary capabilities to manage the emergent technological know-how into the workplace (Alexiou, 2016). Possessing the knowledge to understand sustainability in integrating a change in an organization relies on internal and external factors, which transparently sets the stage for practitioners’ managerial roles (Sroufe, 2017). Therefore, the advancement in technology triggered the witnessed change through altering non-relational tasks undertaken by employees of an organization (Cascio & Montealegre, 2016). Hence, change in the workplace becomes inevitable since organizations will seek to utilize the opportunity and incorporate the emerging technology to become relevant and gain a competitive advantage.
Technological Factors
New emerging technology leads to better and improved products by incorporating advanced technology. The desire by an organization to increase is to provide working practices seeking to meet the needs of employees and reduce the associated costs relating to the formation of a physical workplace. The digital workplace has seen the incorporation of internet advancement, mobile phones, and technologies in its operation, encompassing out of office services coupled with working remotely (Parry & Ballista, 2019). It is essential for organizations to engage users and understand their desires then articulate the importance of the digital workplace, which is essential to working productively (Attaran, Attaran, & Kirkland, 2019). Advancement in technology is necessary for ensuring the staff possesses relevant and appropriate skills critical for the operation of the digital workplace.
The governance of a digital workplace will require strategic planning by the human resource department. Despite their existing no clearly outlined guidelines for achieving effective governance, there are ways necessary to create a platform for the digital workplace. Since the digital frameworks dissect through different responsibilities and channels relevant for remitting functions among stakeholders, essential functional tools for setting rules and standards for outlining how the governing procedures would be accomplished (Haddud & McAllen, 2018). These structures are generated by the organization’s managers, who redesign and align policies regarding the work to be accomplished by advancing technology platforms (Baptista et al., 2020). Digital technological advancement affects both staff and administrative platforms since progressive integration requires designing and policies attracting civic demands requiring augmentation within public domains (Vallicelli, 2018). Digital workplace governance is essential to incorporating relevant emerging technology for ensuring efficiency and reducing the cost of operation incurred in the physical working environment.
Environmental Factors
Environmental factors tend to influence an organization’s ability to incorporate and use an emerging technological advancement. Any organization has the duty of responsibly taking care of the happenings around its grasp. The incorporation of new emerging technology needs to be aligned with being environmentally friendly. The emerging trends in technology necessary for the transformation of driving the global organizations such as sensors, machine learning, mobile computing, and advanced robotics have proven to be clean-energy technological advancements (Cascio & Montealegre, 2016). The proposed system for utilization and incorporation seeks environmentally friendly, pollution-free, and green (Masrur et al., 2020). Environmental degradation causes inequalities within an organization’s workplace accomplishment of tasks. Organizations seek to use and harness technological advancement considered to possess little gaps within their platforms of operations (United Nation, 2019). The goal of keeping the workplace environment free from any form of pollution seeks the incorporation and installation of a digitalized system relevant to assist the organization in reducing costs but increasing efficiency.
Legal Environment
Legal aspects are relevant for seeking redress legally in an organization’s business environment. The available and imposed legal mandates surrounding the workplace seek compliance with labor laws and international guidelines. The progressing period witnessed the tightening and strictly making the legal regulations stiffer. The planning and management of digital workplaces should comply with the relevant regulations and laws related to the storage and use of information and data. The digital workplace framework needs to adhere to the employment laws (Williams & Schubert, 2018). Globally, managers perceive laws and regulations as hurdles to their businesses since they tend to address the symptoms but overlook the real existing problems. This leaves the ability to adhere to laws more perplexing, but organizations do it as a formality to afford the matter from escalating (Sroufe, 2017). Similarly, respect for the rule of law is essential since it is tied to integrity which demands the ability to stick to made agreements and dutifully perform what is expected of you from the exact binding resolution (Janssen & merk, n.d). The legal framework is essential in eradicating elements of trade considered unhealthy within a market segment.
Technology Lifecycle Analysis (Sustainability of entire Lifecycle)
Sustainability entails the ability of an organization to overcome the many uprising business turbulence experienced in its cycle of economic periods while still showing signs of survival in the future. Sustainability is essential in nurturing economic development, stewardship environmentally, and the well-being of the society through pushing for technological advancement necessary to assure a continued improvement in the utilization of resources (Van Schoubroeck et al., 2021). This, in turn, has led to the integrated interaction encompassing natural and human systems. Therefore, sustainability can be economical, social, and environmental aspects. There arose an assessment technique developed aiming at measuring sustainability. The focus on sustainable development and an organization’s ability to move to sustain conditions relevant to meeting the desired goal requires a digital workplace (Sroufe, 2017). This paper will explore techniques such as techno-economic evaluating economic sustainability and life cycle assessment assessing social and environmental sustainability.
Environmental Aspects
The digital workplace seeks to adhere to the safety and health environmental features found within an organization. Ecological focus heavily relies on the organization’s functional units to utilize the digital workplace (Kiesnere & Baumgartner, 2019). An emerging technology contributes to the faster achievement of sustainable plans essential for replacing the existing workplace skills with an environmentally friendly production method. This technological know-how increases cooperation between stakeholders within varying set-ups. It, therefore, ensures the harnessing of sustainable advancements vital for the development and prevention of inequalities and degradation of the environment (United Nations, 2019). Organizations are opposed to the effects of the adopted digital workplace on its immediate surrounding environment since they ensure the instilled new technology is clean and friendly to its immediate areas.
Economic Aspect
The techno-economic evaluation provides an opportunity to identify the economic-related hurdles measured during low and high technology readiness levels. This would, in turn, provide an opportunity for feasibility evaluation processes. The need to realize a mental and economically healthy environment prompted the formulation of techniques for ensuring the quality of data is essential (Van Schoubroeck et al., 2021). A sustainable economic transition for a digital workplace requires an elaborative analysis of all the participants’ underlying networks in an inter-organizational setup. Similarly, the roles played by each inter-organizational structure are essential in providing support as a collective entity for building a digital workplace system which requires less focus (Soderholm et al., 2018). The considerations of all the employees within a corporate workplace would ensure the transition process would be smoothly achieved since the staff had already been informed of the intended change they purpose to undertake.
Social Aspect
The social evaluation dynamics consider the workers’ arising effects, the local community, and the digital workplace platform. This makes social dynamics rarely included in practicing within the platform for sustainability evaluations with emerging technology (Van Schoubroeck et al., 2021). The motive behind incorporating technology in workplaces is to improve communication and productivity. This eventually led to the use and incorporation of appropriate tools relevant for realizing a digital workplace (Attaran, Attaran, & Kirkland, 2020). The applied tools include video conferencing, robotics, and audio relevant for effective communications within the discussion forums between the employer and the employees (Cascio & Montealegre, 2016). The installation of relevant tools essential for ensuring instant conveyance of messages, virtual and web conferencing promote and encourage teamwork in work set-up, therefore, integrating and empowering collaboration within the social platform (Attaran, Attaran, & Kirkland, 2020). Communication is essential in a digital workplace platform since it creates a platform for interaction between the employers and employees, therefore, boosting productivity in an organization enjoying this emerging technology.
The social focus of an organization’s ability to incorporate and use a digital workplace is dependent on their involvement levels. The top management engagement in sustainable management relies on the strategic importance and their reputable ability to communicate on different platforms (Kiesnere & Baumgartner, 2019). The emerging digital workplace forums are essential in boosting the individuals and community’s collaboration and interaction in different utilized innovations (United Nation, 2019). Teamwork and faster interaction among different functional units facilitate and boost productivity within an organization employing a digital workplace.
Risk and Uncertainty Analysis (Tool Provided)
The adoption of new emerging technology requires an assessment to study whether there exists any risk caused by its incorporation. Risk identification and management require a specific ability to sense anomalies, threats, and change, resulting from an integrated approach for mitigation (Alexiou, 2016). It is recommended to comprehensively assess benefits and risks entangled within the interactive ability in technological parts to make an informed decision for an investment plan within an organization (Ivanova, Elsawah, & Fidock, 2020). Applying appropriate instruments relevant for creating a solution to a practical problem within the digital workplace ensures the policymakers are part of the team aiming to avail low risks associated with investment plans (Soderholm et al., 2018). The appropriate tool for strategically managing and controlling the digital system’s implementation and use is the seven-force model, a scorecard measurement system for making sound investment decisions. This model entails strategic alignments; competitive advantage of the product; market size; leverage; technical feasibility; potential rewarding; and risks (Cooper & Edgett, 2009). Scorecards are essential for facilitating the ability to ensure reviews are done to assist in making a life-changing decision to an organization’s operations.
Strategic alignment
Organizations have decided to apply sustainable strategies necessary to incorporate a new emerging technological advancement. The need to shift from undertaking tasks physically in an organization seems to be a thing of the past since there is an increased reliance on the technologies to get functions to be accomplished holistically (Cascio & Montealegre, 2016). Sustainability among key players within a digital workplace performs varying roles for initiating an operational strategy for adopting the befitting technology to their organizations (Sroufe, 2017). Strategies are essential in identifying the capacity requirements based on guidance serving to establish gaps, opportunities, develop, test, note likely risks, and design potential responses (Ivanova, Elsawah, & Fidock, 2020). Strategic alignment is essential for the digital workplace since it physically and mentally prepares an organization for the potential advantages and disadvantages of utilizing emerging technological know-how.
Product Competitive Advantage
Every organization fight to survive and compete appropriately through the engagement of activities skewed towards efficiency and exploration of new emerging technologies. The uncertainty of digital workplace environments has led to the transformations witnessed in technological advancements seeking to possess a competitive advantage over others (Khanagha, Volberda, & Oshri, 2017). The need to be sustainable and competitive by organizations has prompted them to adopt and develop their digital potentials targeted specific emerging technologies, which will allow the concentration of resources on a limited scale of options (Soderholm et al., 2018). Competitive businesses have drastically shifted and changed the landscape of working environments by incorporating technology, which is essential in ensuring cooperation and collaboration among employees (Attaran, Attaran, & Kirkland, 2019). Adopting new technological advancement by an organization is essential to reducing the possibilities of being locked out of the market segment by other worthy competitors.
Market Attractiveness
Digital workplaces avail workers with the relevant technologies to boost their abilities and empower them. The platform creates an environment for flexibility, inclusion, and support workers in the apposition to design and deliver innovative experiences. This is because of the extensive use of information technology in the digital workplace platform (Haddud & McAllen, 2018). The digital workplace possesses transformative work features such as the algorithm to provide an allowance to change swiftly and effectively (Baptista et al., 2020). These features which are available on the digital workplace platform make the entity attractive for incorporation into a system of an organization.
Leverage
The decline in physical workplace settings results in innovative technology practices seeking to consolidate and reduce competing agreements. The emerging new technology is significantly spearheaded by the commercial sectors upgrading rates. The incorporation of restrictive agreements between organizations yields to the pressure of applying leverage to use off-the-shelf advancements such as robotics essential to provide a competitive advantage. This design is necessary since it explores opportunities for improving economic standards and reducing operations costs (Ivanova, Elsawah, & Fidock, 2020). The competence is associated with the rate at which the structures of a digital workplace undertake different tasks successfully and resiliently to secure necessary resources required by an organization (Soderholm et al., 2018). This will achieve if the transformative technology has been utilised to invoke the required changes necessary for giving an organization a competitive advantage in the market (Khanagha, Volberda, & Oshri, 2017). Leverages are essential to providing an organization with insights on technology, competence and marketing aspects necessary for acquiring a competitive advantage.
Technical Feasibility
Sustainability is a fundamental goal aligning its corporate values and creation to customizing the desire to meet the organization’s needs. An iterative integrating process avails an opportunity for communicating and training (Sroufe, 2017). Designing integrative and iterative teamwork entails performing analysis on theories and researches on critical areas such as teamwork, selection, training, performance and motivation (Cascio & Montealegre, 2016). Therefore, organizations must ensure their employees have access to digital entities, which is an added advantage to accessing proper training. The training should be accompanied by the necessary training policies, which will safeguard and provide the guidelines on the type of information possessed by an employee (Attaran, Attaran, & Kirkland, 2019). Feasibility is essential before any technology has been adopted into an organization.
Potential for Reward
The transformation of the digital workplace properly is essential for business sustainability and success. The digital workplace impacts the physical working environment, workers, and technology. Therefore, a change incorporated in one area is essential in another section change (Attaran, Attaran, & Kirkland, 2019). Digital workplaces forms intrapreneurs essential for considering successful management of the transformative section (Baptista et al., 2020). The created platform within a digital workplace allows compelling, connective and faster communication among an organization’s stakeholders as they deliberate the best cause of action for the firm (Haddud & McAllen, 2018). These gains to an organization enable a firm to possess a competitive advantage over other likely competitors within the market segment.
Risk
The desire to distribute work functions is a threat to a digital workplace. Functions allocations between robots and humans have proven problematic and require appropriate attention because of automation. Issues arising from automation include decreased awareness situations, distrusting the process, complacency, vigilance decrements, misuse, disuse and abuse of human performance levels (Cascio & Montealegre, 2016). A problem would arise when investing in technology requires decision-making to support developmental capabilities seeking to focus on particular advancements that vary with specific options (Ivanova, Elsawah, & Fidock, 2020). The risks are a threat to the operation of the digital workplace. They may result in an organization suffering extensive losses if the issue has not been resolved within the appropriate timeframe.
Likely Future Outcomes
Innovation is the critical aspect pushing for the newly emerging technological designs in the workplace. The shift and trend brought about technological advancement would incorporate new advancements such as bitcoin, cloud computing, and 3D printing. These technologies are disruptive and are likely to alter and change how humans perform their tasks on the workplace platform. The human labor will be required to learn and be able to operate within the digital workplace (Rahman, Hamid, & Chin, 2017). The future will likely witness a shift in the operations of organizations as they seek to maximize their market and competitive advantage in the long run.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the world’s evolving ability to use advanced technology in the digital workplace has seen a shift from the physical performance of tasks to digitalized systems. Every organization seeks to be relevant, survive and effectively compete to possess a competitive advantage. The PESTEL analysis performed clearly outlined how the digital workplace can be realized. It has explored the political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal aspects of the concept. The risks and uncertainty analysis has utilized the seven-force model to explore digital workplace abilities to penetrate and be relevant in the market gap. The future of the workplace seems to be designed in a different dimension in future since the ever-incorporated technology because of innovation still witnesses the emergence of new advancements such as the bitcoin. Emerging technologies are essential for the changing dynamics and set-up of the workplace. Managers and business planners in an organization are required to perform a thorough assessment of advancement to understand the threats, weaknesses, strengths and opportunities it may possess in the functioning of the business.
References
Alexiou, A. (2016). Management of Emerging Technologies and the Learning Organization: Lessons from the Cloud and Serious Games Technology.
Attaran, M., Attaran, S., & Kirkland, D. (2020). Technology and organizational change. Advances in Human Resources Management and Organizational Development, 383-408.
Baptista, J., Stein, M., Klein, S., Watson-Manheim, M. B., & Lee, J. (2020). Digital work and organizational transformation: Emergent digital/Human work configurations in modern organizations. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 29(2), 101618.
Cascio, W. F., & Montealegre, R. (2016). How technology is changing work and organizations. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 3(1), 349-375.
Cooper, R. G., & Edgett, S. J. (2009). Generating breakthrough new product ideas: Feeding the innovation funnel. Product Development Institute.
Haddud, A., & McAllen, D. (2018). Digital workplace management: Exploring aspects related to culture, innovation, and leadership. 2018 Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET).
Ivanova, K., Elsawah, S., & Fidock, J. (2020). Technological ecosystems in capability development: A case study in emerging technologies. Systems Engineering, 23(4), 423-435.
Janssen, M., & Merk, J. (n.d.). How Digital Transformation Changes Work Design: A Butterfly Emerging from its Chrysalis? (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Linnaeus University, Sweden.
Khanagha, S., Volberda, H., & Oshri, I. (2017). undefined. Long Range Planning, 50(2), 221-242.
Kiesnere, A., & Baumgartner, R. (2019). Sustainability management in practice: Organizational change for sustainability in smaller large-sized companies in Austria. Sustainability, 11(3), 572.
Masrur, H., Howlader, H. O., Elsayed Lotfy, M., Khan, K. R., Guerrero, J. M., & Senjyu, T. (2020). Analysis of techno-economic-Environmental suitability of an isolated Microgrid system located in a remote island of Bangladesh. Sustainability, 12(7), 2880.
Parry, E., & Battista, V. (2019). undefined. Emerald Open Research, 1, 5.
Rahman, A. A., Hamid, U. Z., & Chin, T. A. (2017). EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES WITH DISRUPTIVE EFFECTS: A REVIEW. PERINTIS eJournal, 7(2), 111-128.
Sroufe, R. (2017). Integration and organizational change towards sustainability. Journal of Cleaner Production, 162, 315-329.
Söderholm, P., Hellsmark, H., Frishammar, J., Hansson, J., Mossberg, J., & Sandström, A. (2019). Technological development for sustainability: The role of network management in the innovation policy mix. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 138, 309-323.
United Nation. (2019). The impact of rapid technological change on sustainable development (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Economic and Social Council.
Vallicelli, M. (2018). Smart cities and digital workplace culture in the global European context: Amsterdam, London and Paris. City, Culture and Society, 12, 25-34.
Williams, S. P., & Schubert, P. (2018). Designs for the digital workplace. Procedia Computer Science, 138, 478-485.