Book Review
Digital Business Leadership: Digital
Transformation, Business Model Innovation,
Agile Organization, Change Management.
By Ralf T. Kreutzer, Tim Neugebauer and Annette
Pattloch. Springer, Berlin, 2018, ISBN 978-
3662565476, hardcover, £70.50, pp. 263.
Through related business services, products, models,
processes, and other conditions, digitization has been
rapidly changing people and their markets. However,
owing to numerous challenges such as individual in-
dolence, organizational indolence, and others, digi-
tization has proved to be not quite enough. In this
token, it keenly requires digital business leadership,
facilitating not only related communication but also
value chains. To this end, the authors of the book
explain the fundamentals of digital transformation,
business opportunities, business model innovation,
agile organization, business risks, change manage-
ment, and new management methods, in particular, by
adequately utilizing a series of graphical illustrations.
Including various meaningful factors in the scope
of digital business, leadership is a positive aspect
of this book. Leadership includes establishing a
scientific vision, how to share that vision with others,
and how to coordinate conflicting issues. Namely,
the scope of leadership application is so wide. In
this context, the authors make considerable efforts
in describing the practical factors (e.g. the shape
of digital organization, open innovation, user cen-
tralization, information technology, action-oriented
management, and so on) as well as the theoretical
background (e.g. drivers of change, incremental
approach, new organizational concepts, the signifi-
cance of beginning, and so on) in the business field.
When digitization covers the whole business model,
the authors maintain, digital business is just com-
plete. Such as the development stages of a digital
business, including analog, web, e-business, and dig-
ital marketing, in particular before full implementa-
tion to a digital business. Hence, thanks to the book,
it has been easier to appreciate the grand picture of
digital business leadership.
Another positive aspect is that the authors demand
their readers to remain vigilant as they describe
© 2019 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
digital business leadership. Digital business leader-
ship has always been situated within a limit of time;
thinking about the window of related opportunity
is only open in a timely manner. At the same time,
business corporations have been able to replace their
indolence with the force of momentum.
Before describing digital business leader-
ship, the authors partially touch upon many afore-
mentioned challenges and four important cases
within European industries (Axel Springer, XING,
ImmovilienScout24, and Dalia Research). Certainly,
they indicate the difficulties of digital change or the
barriers around digital business leadership. As a spe-
cific example, since ImmovilienScout24 was founded
in late 1990s, all employees including the founders
have made efforts to facilitate the use of Internet for
real estate search. However, the advertising market
for real estate has not been highly transparent due to
many factors such as planning, furnishing, relocation,
financing, or real estate purchase. The necessity of
advertising market’s transparency has always been a
significant barrier. In another sense, the authors con-
sider how to overcome those difficulties. At any rate,
the authors focus on discussing the success cases (or
what is called ‘best practices’) of digitization without
including any failure case, particularly in Chapter 4,
despite them suggesting the lack of full representa-
tiveness on the four success cases.
The effect of the failure cases has been appreci-
ated in many fields, compared with that of success
cases: for example, individuals tend to learn from
their own success cases further more than from own
failure cases, whereas they learn from others’ fail-
ure cases much more than from others’ success cases
(Diwas et al., 2013). In light of this, the inclusion of
a few failure cases would have also provided some
informative insights to complement the success cases
presented in this book.
In conclusion, the authors could have provided a
large framework for digital business leadership more
systematically than many previous studies as a macro
perspective. While reading this book, researchers or
practitioners (in particular, company-wide leaders)
from both developed nations and developing nations
will surely grasp the complicated picture of digitization
171
Book Review

around business companies or the necessity of digital from minimally invasive cardiac surgery. Management
business leadership for their future actions. Science, 59, 11, 2435–2449.

Reference
Kyoo-Man Ha
Diwas, K.C., Staats, B.R. and Gino, F. (2013) Learning Korea Environmental and Safety Institute, Inje
from my success and from others’ failure: Evidence University, Gimhae, Korea

172  R&D Management 50, 2, 2020 © 2019 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd