No longer at ease: How digital organizational followers in Kenya are challenging contemporary leadership
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REVIEW
No longer at ease: How digital organizational followers in Kenya are challenging contemporary leadership Harry Kipkemoi Bett1 · Betty Wangui Ngala1 · Timothy Mwangi Kiruhi2 Received: 21 August 2019 / Accepted: 5 December 2019 © The Author(s) 2019
Abstract The high internet penetration as well as the increasing digital platforms in Kenya has led to the transformation of many organizations in Kenya. Further, organizational followers are adopting digital technologies, and leveraging on digital platforms while working within organizations. Due to digitization, organizational followers are now collaborating, working flexibly (i.e. from home and other contexts away from work) and sharing content with people in different geographical locations. Consequently, many followers are influencing their organizational leaders. The digital transformation in the country, and among workers, suggest that organizational leaders should develop effective workable strategies and ensure they have conducive cultures that are in tandem with the digital transformation in place. This paper, based on Social Impact Theory (SIT) focuses on digitized organizational followers and their effect on firm leaders within Kenya. Keywords Digitization · Social impact theory · Followers · Leaders · Kenya
1 Introduction Organizations globally are changing: no longer are its followers passive and deferent as traditional organizations have portrayed them; they instead play an active role in the attainment of set goals and objectives (Kelly 1988; Malakyan 2014). Traditional organizations in this case are those that largely operate within the classical model of bureaucracy, hierarchy (with distinct roles of leaders and followers) and with basic IT adoption (Loonam et al. 2018; Malakyan 2014). According to Carsten et al. (2014), owing to the innovative and competitive nature of today’s organizations, it is prudent that organizational followers are proactive. Digital technologies have greatly contributed to making organizational followers active. Leclercq-Vandelannoitte * Harry Kipkemoi Bett [email protected] Betty Wangui Ngala [email protected] Timothy Mwangi Kiruhi [email protected] 1
Strathmore Institute, Strathmore University, P.O. Box 59857‑00200, Nairobi, Kenya
Strategy Development, International Leadership Foundation, P.O. Box 59857‑00200, Nairobi, Kenya
2
(2015, p 18) observed that while traditional organizations and their IT departments decided which technologies to adopt in the workplace, today’s workforce leads in deciding which technologies to use, why, how and when. Digital platforms now allow organizational followers to collaborate, for example through social media (Kane 2017; Köffer 2015), communicate across the set geographical boundaries (Joyce et al. 2018), among others. Technology today has generally re-shaped and re-organized organizations (Attaran et al. 2019). In developing countries, and Kenya to be specific, with a higher internet penetration, organizations must adjust to accommodate the pe
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