Disentangling Top Management Roles in Digital Transformation: Insights from a Master Thesis

In their award-winning thesis, Larissa Blau and Ruben Kimmig sought to unravel this ambiguity by investigating the roles and responsibilities of top management teams involved in digital transformation, with a particular focus on the fashion industry.

The Importance of Clarifying Digital Roles

Blau and Kimmig found that research into digital leadership has been fragmented. Most studies focused on individual roles, mainly in advanced industries, leaving gaps in understanding how these roles interact and evolve in sectors like fashion. Their goal was to provide a clear picture of how these roles have developed, their characteristics, and what the future might hold for them.

Research Methodology

The researchers took a multi-faceted approach. They analyzed 1,980 newspaper articles from the past 20 years to track the evolution of these roles, mapped the top management structures of the 63 largest European fashion companies using LinkedIn profiles and company reports, and conducted expert interviews to validate their findings.

Key Findings: Four Distinct Digital Roles

The research revealed four distinct types of top management roles related to digital transformation:

• Tech Genius: A leader with deep technical expertise, responsible for driving the innovation and development of digital solutions.
• Backend Safeguard: The role focused on maintaining and securing IT infrastructure to support the company's digital initiatives.
• Digital Evangelist: A visionary who champions digital innovation and inspires the organization to embrace change.
• Digital Orchestrator: The connector, responsible for ensuring alignment across all digital initiatives and coordinating efforts across departments.

Each of these roles operates along two key dimensions: ambidextrous capabilities (balancing both exploration of new opportunities and exploitation of existing resources) and role boundaries (the clarity or overlap of responsibilities with other C-suite positions).

The Future of Digital Leadership: The DT Power Couple

One of the most intriguing contributions of the thesis is the proposal of a “DT Power Couple” as a future leadership model for digital transformation. This concept suggests that, rather than having a single leader drive DT, organizations may benefit from pairing complementary roles—such as a Tech Genius and a Digital Orchestrator—who can jointly spearhead transformation efforts. This duo would combine technical depth with strategic oversight, offering a balanced approach to managing digital transformation challenges.

In such a setup, the Tech Genius operates within a protected innovation silo. This allows flexibility to explore future opportunities outside the constraints of traditional business units (e.g., hierarchies, culture, and incentive systems). It also shields the traditional units from the risks associated with innovation, enabling them to focus on generating stable revenues by exploiting the current business model. This way, the company can explore and exploit opportunities simultaneously, maintaining stability while innovating for the future.

Conclusion

The thesis offers a fresh perspective and clarity on the evolving roles of top management teams in the fashion industry’s digital transformation efforts. By defining four distinct leadership roles and proposing the DT Power Couple model, Blau and Kimmig offer a practical framework for companies to balance innovation and operational stability. Their framework highlights overlapping roles and suggests that merging tendencies over the past decade have created a need for a new management structure, referred to here as the power couple. Their research offers valuable guidance for businesses navigating the complexities of digital transformation, ensuring they remain competitive in an ever-evolving market.

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