Abstract

     This exploratory study explores perceptions of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and organizational readiness to adopt AI, in the exhibition sector of the events industry. A theoretical framework synthesizing the Technology – Organization – Environment framework and the Technology Readiness Index was developed to guide this qualitative study. Seventeen senior managerial representatives from exhibition organizations across nine Western European countries were interviewed, and a reflexive thematic approach was adopted to analyse the data. The findings suggest that the European exhibition industry is a slow adopter of AI, which may impact its future competitiveness, despite the stimulus provided to AI adoption during the COVID-19 pandemic. The degree of confidence in organizational technological practices, financial resources, the size of the organization, and issues of data management and protection, as well as the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, motivate or inhibit readiness for AI adoption in the event industry. A new Exhibition Sector Readiness for AI Adoption Model is presented in this research that managers and researchers can use to analyze inhibitors and motivations for AI adoption, which is contextualized for the current challenges facing the exhibitions sector.

Introduction

     Artificial Intelligence (AI), as an emerging technology, is widely discussed by scholars and professionals across industries, including Automotive, Transportation & Logistics, Pharma, Agriculture and Manufacturing (Colins et al., 2021; Davenport, Guha, Grewal, & Bressgott, 2019; PWC, 2020; Towers-Clark, 2019). The event industry has not been excluded from this trend, and trade publications refer to the revolutionizing of event management through AI (CVENT, 2020, Gartner, 2019). These reports identify potential AI applications in events such as chatbots, facial recognition, matchmaking, and service robots, and suggest positive impacts such as better return on investment (ROI), higher efficiency and cost-cutting effects. However, there have been difficulties in implementing AI in the event industry, and the adoption of AI has been relatively slow in event businesses (Davidson, 2019, Ogle and Lamb, 2019).

Conclusion

     This exploratory research aimed to explore organizational readiness to adopt AI in the Western European exhibition industry. This research has shown that although the majority of the participants have come across some form of AI in their organization, their understanding of the application of AI is rather limited and reserved, supporting the findings of previous studies which have found that technology adoption is relatively slow in this industry. Exhibition organizations are largely behind in digitalization, and their technological infrastructure is not ready for AI adoption. Although exhibition organizers believe that AI will increase efficiency, reduce costs and enhance customer experience, most organizations do not have a future strategy to implement AI, despite the recent spike in technology adoption in the industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we also revealed that the confidence level of technological practices, financial resources, the size of the organization, and issues of data management and protection, to some extent, motivate or inhibit the readiness of AI adoptions in the organization. This research has shown that COVID-19 could act as an enabler for the adoption of AI technologies in the Western European exhibition sector, as it recovers from the restrictions on gatherings and meetings with an enhanced level of technological readiness and innovativeness.

Abstract

     The use of digital financial innovations (DFIs) in firms is widespread for supply or demand reasons. Successful realization of DFIs requires a digital transformation of the organizations. To date, there is hardly any study that discusses the organizational or strategic antecedents of DFIs in organizations. This study uses the organizational readiness and strategic alignment theories to understand how various dimensions of organizational readiness (change valence, change efficacy, and contextual factors) influence DFIs. The study also informs about the moderation effect of digital technology – business strategy alignment on the relationship between organizational readiness and DFIs. We find that the organization’s change efficacy (comprising of resource readiness, IT readiness, and cognitive readiness) and contextual factors (comprising of culture readiness, strategic readiness, and partnership readiness) positively influence DFIs. However, no support is found for the moderation effect of digital technology – business strategy. We also find that DFIs positively impact the firms’ financial performance and resilience (robustness and adaptability). The results are informative for practitioners and theoreticians. For practitioners, the study informs that realizing DFIs in organizations requires reconfigurability and flexibility of resources, IT, strategy, collaborations, and organization culture. Moreover, DFIs offer financial resilience to the firms to absorb financial shocks. For theoreticians, one crucial finding is that in a developing economy context, digital technology – business strategy alignment does not play a moderation role in realizing DFIs, which may not be the case in the developed economies and merits further research.

Introduction

     Digital financial innovations (DFI) make use of digital technologies to realize financial solutions that support businesses in executing their operations (Khin and Ho, 2019). The DFI encompasses various essential and emerging technologies and concepts such as block chains, big data analytics, social networks, near field communications, peer to peer technologies, crowdfunding, the internet, and artificial intelligence (Dozier and Montgomery, 2019; Du et al., 2020; Gomber et al., 2017; Hua et al., 2019) to name a few. The conceptualization of DFI utilized in this study relates to how well the DFIs of a firm are compared to its competitors in terms of quality, features, distinctness, application, or novelty. The use of DFI promises several benefits to firms including, better customer experience and profitability (Mbama and Ezepue, 2018; Nasiri et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2021), supply chain financial performance (Du et al., 2020), market value (Lam et al., 2019); financial inclusion of stakeholders in the value chains (Aisaiti et al., 2019); crowdfunding for social venturing (Mollick, 2014); and managing risk under natural disasters (Barnes, 2020) such as COVID-19. While DFI provides various cost and efficiency benefits, it also nurtures risks to all stakeholders (Longworth, 2020). The requisite digital transformation of firms for adopting digital technologies, with the changing nature of the technologies and the competitive landscape, makes firms particularly vulnerable, and organizations must be ready to adapt to these changes. Besides the growing recognition that DFI enables the organization’s digital transformation, the empirical work in this domain is still scant, and there is a strong need for practical investigation (Khin and Ho, 2019).

Discussion and conclusion

Association between organizational readiness and digital financial innovation

     In today’s time, DFIs provide responsiveness, accuracy, convenience, and risk management that are valuable for their stakeholders (Lam et al., 2019; Mbama and Ezepue, 2018; Wang et al., 2021) but also result in profitability for the firms. We posited that successful realization of DFIs in firms might require a digital transformation of the firms, which in turn may raise a need of reviewing business models, business strategy, organization design, operations, and processes, or even the values of the firms (Balakrishnan and Das, 2020; Saarikko et al., 2020; Schallmo et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2020). We find positive support for the effect of change efficacy and contextual factors on DFI, which is in accordance with the findings of Lokuge et al. (2019). Change efficacy refers to the knowledge and confidence of the organization (and its members) to execute change activities in timelines, understand the challenges and intricacies that they may face on the way, and their ability to address those challenges for a successful change. Since we tested the hypothesis for service industry firms in a developing country like UAE, we find organizations are flexible and reconfigurable to accept DFIs in terms of their resource competencies, IT infrastructure, and mindsets. This is evident since the service industry in the UAE makes significant investments in deploying the latest information and communications technologies to stay ahead of the other Middle Eastern countries (Hatem, 2020).