The social construction of and dealing with digital transformation by Chief Digital Officers

While mastering digital transformation is seen as critical to the survival of established companies, understanding of the strategic leader, the Chief Digital Officer (CDO), who drives this organisational transformation remains limited. Previous research on the CDO has mainly focused on the structures, configuration and outcomes of the CDO role. We still need to better understand how the strategic leader holding this CDO position views the environment and its challenges. This study draws on sensemaking theory to understand how CDOs perceive their critical task - digital transformation - and the resulting challenges in established organisations. We investigate this in a qualitative study based on 53 expert interviews with CDOs. Our analysis shows that CDOs unanimously perceive digital transformation as a challenge of cultural change that requires a change of mindset. Depending on their framing, CDOs choose a different sensebreaking approach to digital transformation, namely a struggle, collaboration and persuasion approach. We expand the current understanding of digital transformation as a cultural challenge and contribute to theorising about sensemaking, sensebreaking and the literature on digital transformation.