Engaging with Digital Transformation in Practice

I study digital transformation where it is actively constructed — not just theorized after the fact. Whether working with municipalities, startups, or industry partners, I engage with organizations navigating digital change in real time. These collaborations inform not only my empirical insights but also the way I frame research questions. Rather than analyzing from a distance, I embed myself in live challenges to understand how digital innovation unfolds — and to contribute meaningfully to shaping its course.

Combining Action and Reflection

I treat research as both a way of shaping practice and a means of interrogating it. My work blends pragmatic design with critical inquiry—I aim to develop tools and frameworks that can guide decision-making, while also examining the values, assumptions, and tensions embedded in digital interventions. This dual stance draws from design theory, critical realism, and systems thinking, enabling me to stay grounded in practical outcomes without losing sight of broader societal consequences and theoretical depth.

Investigating the Work of Digital Artefacts

Digital artefacts do more than support tasks — they define how problems are framed, how people coordinate, and how institutions evolve. I examine the roles that software systems, algorithms, and platforms play in shaping organizational practices and expectations. This includes looking at how artefacts encode assumptions, redistribute authority, or enable new forms of control and interaction. Understanding digital transformation requires attention not just to strategy or intention, but to the material and technical structures that silently shape the possible.

Clarifying Complexity through Conceptual Work

Digital transformation is messy, fast-moving, and often conceptually overloaded. I contribute by developing frameworks that help make sense of this complexity — not by reducing it, but by organizing it more clearly. Whether I’m writing about rationality in design science or the futures imagined in AI discourse, I aim to offer intellectual tools that support clarity, critique, and collective understanding. Conceptual work, for me, is not abstract theorizing — it’s a practical craft that sharpens how we think

My dissertation explores the organizational and managerial challenges that arise from systematic involvement of digital technologies in innovation using case studies. It contributes to the literature on digital innovation, which identified systematic involvement of digital technologies as an occasion to revise or problematize existing theoretical perspectives on management of technology and innovation.

Innovation Drift

Hron, Michal, Nikolaus Obwegeser, and Sune Dueholm Müller. “Innovation drift: the influence of digital artefacts on organising for innovation.” Innovation (2021): 1-33

Scrum adaptations

Hron, Michal, and Nikolaus Obwegeser. “Why and how is Scrum being adapted in practice: A systematic review.” Journal of Systems and Software (2021): 111110.

Being and becoming yourself

Learning happens throughout life as a space for reflection and self-formation. Where we come from and where we want to go is unique. I start from the premise that during learning we bring our own perspective, history, and ambitions. I try to provide learning opportunities with sufficient space for relating the learning experience to shaping of individual identity.

Good citizenship

Classrooms as communities of inquiry are co-created by all participants. By basing learning on group work, discussion or peer-to-peer activities, each class can be unique. The quality of the experience however also derives from what each participant brings as insight, preparation and collegial behaviour. I hope for participation that makes the experience both pleasant and meaningful.

Research as tool for thinking

Being able to drive a structured analysis and form well-grounded arguments is a key skill for life. To structure an insightful analysis, leaning on developed theories is helpful as they can become tools that allow to go beyond our intuition. To be robust, an analysis or an argument is strengthened by research methods. In teaching, I draw on academic skills of theory and methods because they strengthen the key skills of analysis and argumentation.

Making your own connections

In business and social sciences, many angles for approach a situation are available. While working with arguments grounded in data is a key skill, forming creative insights on top of the data is sometimes even more valued. Any original insight comes from making connections between different data points and abstract concepts. I aim for each of us to leave the learning experience with a shared core of understanding but a slightly different network of concepts. That way, we can discuss a shared topic but contribute with a unique angle.

•   Introduction to planning, presentation techniques and teaching, Mandatory teaching course for PhD students, 2019
•   Teaching with simulations seminar with Rob Austin from Ivey business school , 2019
• Case method in teaching seminar with Rob Austin from Harvard Business School, 2020