Exploiting business archives in the era of digital transformation

The importance of business records has been historically acknowledged however, business archives as strategic assets in the digital age is underexplored. Contemporary archive research has often focused on digitisation and digital preservation, while business and management research has largely ignored the archives. This gap and the background of the researcher and experience in Digital Business and Management, inspired this research into business archives as strategic assets in the era of Digital Transformation (DT).

To achieve these, a pragmatic research philosophy was adopted, using a sequential exploratory mixed-method approach with emphasis on qualitative methods. The study began with an in-depth review of archive and strategic management literature. Subsequently, twenty-eight interviews were conducted in two phases, the first with archive experts to gather insider knowledge, and the second with business managers, for a user perspective and to complement the expert viewpoints. Informed by these phases, a questionnaire was distributed to business archivists to verify findings from the expert and business manager interviews and for insight from a practical perspective. Thematic analysis, combined with qualitative and quantitative analyses and visualisations were used to identify stakeholders, drivers, and dimensions of DT.

The findings indicate ongoing DT in business archives and the factors driving this include wider business digital strategies, increased volumes of digital records, evolving user expectations, and the need for data-driven insights which give a voice to the archive. The archive collections are increasingly seen as strategic assets. For example, they support brand management, legal compliance, and innovative research by users. In addition, they are an important source of social media content and data for Machine Learning. Ten stakeholder groups and eight core dimensions fundamental to DT in business archives were identified. These dimensions and the relationship between them were developed into a unique conceptual framework with theoretical underpinnings in Archival Theory, Resource-based View (RBV) and Stakeholder Theory (ST). A comparative analysis between this conceptual framework and other contemporary DT frameworks in archival science and strategic management is conducted to highlight its novel contribution.

These findings contribute to archive and strategic management literature and theory by clarifying DT concepts in the archival context. The novel framework enriches the academic discourse on the evolving nature of archives, providing an extensive lens for further research. Practically, the framework provides a well substantiated approach to help businesses manage and exploit their archive collection.