Four scenarios for digital transformation: a neo-Schumpeterian perspective

There is considerable uncertainty regarding the future trajectory of the digital transformation, and to understand and bound that uncertainty, our study builds on the work of neo-Schumpeterians (e.g. Perez 2002). In this perspective, such trajectories are shaped primarily by the interaction of forces in three loosely-coupled spheres—technology, organisation, and public policy. We extend this neo-Schumpeterian perspective by building on Hughes’ notion of reverse salient (RS), which we define as a feature of the technology, organization, or public policy spheres that is holding back the further development of the new technologies and their wider deployment.

We argue that the digital transformation portends a new phase—deployment—in the wider arc of the ICT revolution, and that the path of this deployment will depend on the choices made in overcoming the RSs in the organizational (see Bodrožić and Adler 2018) and public policy (Mazzucato 2021) spheres. Combining the two pairs of alternative resolutions of these RSs, we identify four scenarios for the future trajectory of the digital transformation: digital authoritarianism (e.g. Lanchester 2019), digital oligarchy (e.g. Zuboff 2019), digital localism (e.g. Morozov and Bria 2018), and digital democracy (e.g. Mazzucato 2015).

• Chair: Rainer Kattel  IIPP
• Discussant: Rosie Collington IIPP

Background material linked to this seminar

• LSE blog post: What explains the evolution of management models over the last two centuries. by Paul S. Adler and Zlatko Bodrožić

Read more about the IIPP seminar series 2020-2021