Abstract
It is observed that the global business world has significantly diverted towards new technologies in terms of remote work as a result of digitalization, which forces organizations to adapt new normal during the COVID-19 pandemic. Maritime organizations that keep up with this change can manage to continue their existence; however, those who cannot adapt are eliminated by the system. Developments in the global business world, new ways of working, and their reflections inside and outside the organization force leadership to adapt to changing conditions by also affecting the understanding of “leadership.” This chapter aims to reveal the importance of merging new leadership paradigms and governance, digitalization, sustainable changes in global business, continuity of work, work-life balance, and the concepts of “work,” “workforce,” “workplace,” and “leadership.”
TopIntroduction
A successful digital transformation initiative starts with an organization's leadership instilling a culture that supports the idea of the entire business operating under one digital strategy. (Sajid Mohamedy, EVP, Nisum Technologies)
By 2030, it is expected that more than 70% of the structures that create new value in the economy will be provided through digital platforms (WEF, 2018). With the effect of recent phenomenon of Covid19 pandemic, the way of realizing global business has dramatically changed personal and corporate life. The sudden occurrence of the COVID19 pandemic has pushed the business world to find alternative working environments for their employees. The pillars of the global business and the maritime world have been shifted; thus, the priorities of organizations have changed to crisis management. Employers and broad-visioned leaders of the global organizations from small to big institutions have fought to take immediate action for remote work by organizational development. In particular, remote work - the new working model – officially entered our lives with the pandemic has seemed to have ended up with sustainable changes for the future of global business. Furthermore, changes to the priorities of the business world have been realized moving towards more sustainable management systems and development. In the wake of a major world emergency even many of the corporate organizations didn't have any back up plans leaving them to be seen as unprepared for such an influential development. Whilst the business world had assumed to be in a technology and digital era, the real digitalization and remote technology has taken a new term with the changing landscape of work environments amidst global change. The impact of digital technologies on our lives in such a way that has never been recorded in history leads to a transformation in the field of employment (Brynjolfsson and MacAfee, 2014). The current advancements during pandemic has started the writing of a book called “Introduction to the Remote Work in the Global Business”. As a percussion of this significant difference in reaction, the importance of the back up plans, emergency strategies, crisis and change management has been reexamined by the organizations. Recently remote work has pushed organizations into investing and working with internet, digitalization, virtual programs as well as video conference applications. Those who were quick to adopt new technologies and new occupational environments at the beginning of pandemic have been largely unaffected by their new set of circumstances.
Although technological progress and digitalization are thought as much the same, they actually have different expressions. Technological progress is a sustainable innovation effort. Digitalization is the act of detaching each system from the manual system; as such this difference the is quite substantial between the two concepts. Due to the long-term restrictions experienced in the Covid19 period, digitalization entered our business and private lives and initiated a rapid transformation (İrge, 2018). One significant example of that transformation was the a leadership skill - coined 'digital leadership' - that takes into account situations such as having an uninterrupted internet connection everywhere, using open source technology, and customizing mobile devices and technology accordingly (Sheninger, 2014).
TopLeadership
Where the leader occupies a high position, managers below him are likely to be well motivated and the organization's performance correspondingly impressive. In contrast, when leader personalities work under traditional managers, there is likely to be friction and frustration. (Craig M. Watson, Effective Talent Office)
Key Terms in this Chapter
Digital Culture: Digital culture is defined as a new form of culture in which the culture of humanity will digitalize and turn into a new form. Digital culture is the whole of the lifestyle and habits created by the innovations brought by the age in which human beings live, technology taking more place in daily life.
Digitalization: Information technology with Covid-19 has gained more strategic importance and the epidemic has become the “accelerator” of digital transformation. From remote teamwork to online learning, to sales and customer service, to critical cloud infrastructure and security, it is a digital world that works with business stakeholders every day, showing the ability to adapt and do business in a world where everything is done by digital platforms remotely.
Digital Leadership: Digital leaders are leaders who carry out tasks such as keeping people safe, analyzing the importance of workforce wellbeing, relying on and using technology more than ever, rebuilding logistics processes, developing new supply chains. Digital leaders see the pandemic as an opportunity for leaders to define a new future and identify three critical areas of action: sustainability, digitalization, reliability.