Doubts about Digitization: An Explorative Case Study

With the continuing development of information and communication technologies, organizations in almost every industry have adopted digitization as a strategic tool to improve their business operations and gain a competitive advantage. In traditional industries, like broadcasting, new business opportunities and digitization investments are very important and continue to generate interest worldwide, along with the development of digital television (DTV) and the switch-off of analog TV. Despite intensive development of DTV over the last twenty years in Taiwan, the huge investments by five terrestrial broadcasters have not delivered the expected results. Discussions about the ¿digitization myth¿ and ¿terrestrial broadcasters´ plight¿ are common in the industry because many managers no longer believe in the benefits of digitization. In this study, our objective is to understand the context of the discussions and analyze broadcasters´ doubts. Our research results suggest that the attitudes and perspectives of managers may actually be the major obstacles to DTV development. Hence, the Ensemble view of technology and a situated change perspective could help managers make a breakthrough in the digital environment.