Towards a framework for emerging technology management.

Rudman, Hannah

Abstract

Digital technologies are creating new opportunities for us to participate in, and engage with, traditional and new forms of art, culture, and heritage. Never before has there been such reach, and scale, and access to the arts. Information Technology - IT, or digital technologies, are creating a new culture - of culture.

However, disruptive digital technologies have had profound impacts on the whole value chain of the creative sector. All areas of creation and production, discovery and distribution, and consumption of cultural goods, experiences and services have changed. Arts, cultural, and heritage organisations and practices are under pressure to adapt to digitisation rapidly, so that they are fit for business in a digital economy. Here, they currently face a major significant challenge:

- how to adapt to and cope with emerging digital behaviours as they impact traditional artistic, audience development, organisational and business practices.

Over 25 Scottish enterprises across all business scales, and operational model have participated in an action research project over the past two years. The AmbITion Approach, a new change management methodology, has been applied to the enterprises. The approach is cross-discipline: combining participatory action research with design thinking and modern management consultancy methods, and is a framework for strategic organisational development and change, to help enterprises achieve core visions, purposes, and missions - in a world continuously impacted by disruptive digital technologies. Through action research, the application of The AmbITion Approach has enabled the transfer of theoretical knowledge about how to create change and development in businesses facing all these challenges into practical doing, and relevant knowing in the companies.

The doctoral research is studying the concepts, methodologies, and tools of The AmbITion Approach and aims to discover to what extent:
•may confidence, capacity, and capability in adaptation be built by businesses using the approach to deal with disruptive digital technologies;
•is new practical and theoretical knowledge generated; and
•could the concepts, methodologies and toolkits be a framework for the new field of cross-disciplinary research, Emerging Technology Management.

With the participatory action research study coming to a close in summer 2014, this paper will highlight aspects of participants’ experiences, showing case study examples (see http://getambition.com for examples of these) of where action research has become industrial/sectoral practice. The paper will identify and discuss the methods of how the new practices were shared more widely with the creative industries, and how research was therefore embedded in the outputs, outcomes, and new on-going practices of businesses within the sector. It is hoped that the doctoral research outcomes will be relevant to the emerging digital disruptions of big data, wearable computing, nano computing, digital currencies, and the internet of things (‘Web 3.0’), potentially becoming a framework for the nascent field of emerging technology management.

Citation

Rudman, H. (2014). Towards a framework for emerging technology management. In iFutures 2014 Conference Proceedings

• Conference Name: iFutures 2014
• Start Date: Jul 22, 2014
• End Date: Jul 22, 2014
• Publication Date: 2014
• Deposit Date: Aug 27, 2014
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Book Title: iFutures 2014 Conference Proceedings
• Keywords: Digital technologies; Information technologies; disruptive technologies; The AmbITion Approach; action research
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/7117