Management of Emerging Technologies and the Learning Organization: Lessons from the Cloud and Serious Games Technology

The scope of this dissertation is twofold. On the one hand, it looks into how specific organizational capabilities contribute to the successful management of emerging technologies. In this context it enhances our understanding of the role of absorptive capacity and organizational resilience in the processes of adoption and management of disruptive technological change. Moreover, it reveals the important role of organizational energy (the shared experience and demonstration of positive affect, cognitive arousal, and agentic behavior among unit members) as an enabler of absorptive capacity.

On the other hand, it explores the potential of an emerging learning technology (i.e. Serious Games) in facilitating learning and training in organizations. To this regard, it provides with a roadmap for future research by highlighting the role of the different technological aspects in supporting user engagement and motivation and consequently learning. At the same time, it explores the moderating role of user personality and discusses the various opportunities and challenges for organizations from a learning theory perspective. Finally, it provides empirical evidence for the important but usually neglected role of narrative and aesthetics in facilitating learning in game-based learning applications.