Developing a Culturally-Aligned Digital Transformation Framework for Iranian Organizations: "GreenTech Digital Transformation (GDT) Framework"

Purpose: In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, driven by technological advancements such as artificial intelligence, organizations and businesses must promptly embark on their digital transformation journey to ensure survival and growth. For developing countries like Iran, digital transformation presents an opportunity to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of businesses within their economic ecosystem, particularly amid economic challenges. This article aims to examine digital transformation models and develop a framework that fits Iran's cultural and economic conditions. Methodology: This article addresses digital transformation challenges by drawing from global models, experiences, and the Grounded Theory while also considering organizational experiences and the unique cultural, social, technological, and economic context of Iran. Findings: The recent approval of the Iran vision document for artificial intelligence development marks a significant milestone, paving the way for further progress in the digital age. However, findings show organizations and businesses face barriers to digitalization, including organizational culture, technological infrastructure, and a shortage of expert and innovative human capital with digital skills. Therefore, sharing creative human capital with digital skills in the form of innovation centers can solve this challenge in Iranian organizations. Originality/value: This article emphasizes the importance of cultural context for successful digital transformation. A lack of expert human capital in digital technology is a global challenge, especially in Iran. We propose a holistic framework for successful digital transformation, aiming to establish digital innovation hubs within organizations. The results demonstrate that the proposed framework effectively facilitates the establishment of digital innovation hubs in organizations' digital transformation journey.