Industry 4.0 is transforming how businesses innovate and, as a result, companies are spearheading the movement towards ‘Digital Transformation’. While some scholars advocate the use of design thinking to identify new innovative behaviours, cognition experts emphasise the importance of top managers in supporting employees to develop these behaviours. However, there is a dearth of research in this domain and companies are struggling to implement the required behaviours. To address this gap, this study aims to identify and prioritise behavioural strategies conducive to design thinking to inform the creation of a managerial mental model. We identify 20 behavioural strategies from 45 interviewees with practitioners and educators and combine them with the concepts of ‘paradigm-mindset-mental model’ from cognition theory. The paper contributes to the body of knowledge by identifying and prioritising specific behavioural strategies to form a novel set of survival conditions aligned to the new industrial paradigm of Industry 4.0.

In this article, we first derive design principles for mHealth application development for rural parts of developing countries based on scientific literature and field studies. The design principles are then instantiated in a design science project focused on treating noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in rural parts of Kenya. Designing and implementing mobile health (mHealth) applications is a difficult task, and even more so when done in application domains such as rural parts of developing countries or low-resource communities. The resulting mHealth application assists community health workers (CHWs) in the recording of diabetic and hypertensive patients’ vital measurements. Additionally, in-person disease support communities for the patients and CHWs were formed, enhanced by an SMS-based community messaging feature to assist in increasing health-seeking behavior. The study's contribution is both the development of a functioning mobile application and collaborative socio-technical support community for patients as well as the development and instantiation of design principles for designing mHealth applications for rural parts of developing countries.

Managing Digital Transformation (DT) has become a top priority for executives as technological advancements and increasing decision-making complexity accelerate challenges in navigating through DT. Acknowledging that cognition (e.g., in the form of thoughts, beliefs, and emotions) is fundamentally relevant during organizational transformation processes, we address the maturing body of DT research from a cognitive perspective. While the study of cognition in management and strategy can look back to decades of investigation, research on the role of cognition in DT is fragmented and still in its infancy. Addressing this gap, we systematically review existing research from information systems, management, and psychology on the role of cognition in DT. Based on identified antecedents, contextual factors, and consequences, and a conceptualization of cognition, we provide an integrative framework for cognitive DT research and derive four promising research avenues. We thereby provide guidelines to develop strategies for successful DT and organizational action.

Inertia is a crucial challenge in firms’ ambitions to create digital value in their digital transformation endeavors. Building on research evidence from different digital transformation journeys of incumbent companies, we present a framework for practice. The framework displays the various tensions between the organization’s established way of doing things and the critical challenges required to generate value around digital innovation in different domains. We further outline implications for managing inertia occurrences to enable executive teams to cope with inertia and resulting tensions.