We are delighted that our paper, “Co-Producing Digital Change: A Digital Transformation Case Study of the Third Sector,” received the Best Developmental Paper Award in the E-Business and Information Systems Management track at the British Academy of Management (BAM) 2026 Conference.
The award recognises work undertaken by Professor Marie Griffiths, Dr Jonathan Lord, Marc Harrison and Michelle Anderson, bringing together colleagues from the University of Salford and the organisation at the centre of the research.
What makes the award particularly rewarding is that the research grew directly from a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) and demonstrates how knowledge exchange can generate practical organisational change alongside academic research.
An important part of the success of the KTP was the contribution of our professional services team, Vicky Russell and Alejandro Garcia-Miranda Ferrari. Projects of this scale depend not only on academic and organisational expertise, but also on the professional support that enables partnerships to develop and operate effectively. Vicky and Alex’s contribution was particularly important in supporting the KTP process, helping to bring together the different partners and providing the coordination and institutional support needed to move the project forward. Their work illustrates the often under-recognised role that professional services colleagues play in successful knowledge exchange.
The challenge of digital transformation in the third sector
Digital transformation is often presented as a question of acquiring the right technology. Our research suggests that, particularly for smaller charities, the reality is considerably more complex.
Small voluntary and community organisations can face limited resources, low levels of digital confidence and fragmented information systems. At the same time, they operate in an environment of increasing expectations around transparency, efficiency, regulatory compliance and demonstrating impact to funders.
Our research examined this challenge through the experience of a community-based charity in Greater Manchester supporting older and vulnerable adults, with a particular emphasis on reducing social isolation, enhancing wellbeing and promoting independent living.
Before the project, the charity relied heavily on paper records, spreadsheets, physical files and even Post-it notes. Information was dispersed across disconnected systems, creating duplication, administrative inefficiencies and difficulties in reporting and strategic decision-making. This provided the starting point for a two-year digital transformation journey.
A two-year Knowledge Transfer Partnership
The research was undertaken through a two-year KTP running from March 2024 to March 2026. This gave us something particularly valuable from a research perspective: the opportunity to examine organisational transformation longitudinally, as it was actually happening, rather than reconstructing events retrospectively. The KTP became much more than a technology implementation project. It provided the framework through which academic knowledge, technical expertise and organisational experience could be brought together.
The project involved senior leaders, frontline staff and adults with learning difficulties and autism. Interviews, focus groups, surveys, workshops, field observations, organisational documents and system usage data allowed us to understand not simply whether technology was being adopted, but how people’s attitudes, confidence, working practices and organisational culture changed over time.
This was central to our approach. We adopted a deliberate “with rather than on” ethos, positioning staff and service users as contributors to the transformation rather than passive subjects of either research or technological change.
Co-producing digital change
At the centre of the transformation was the co-production of a bespoke Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system using Microsoft Power Platform technologies.
The new system centralised service-user information, streamlined workflows and introduced dashboards and automated reporting. This was accompanied by staff and volunteer training, digital governance development and the integration of data analytics tools, including Power BI. However, one of the most important findings from the research was that the technology itself was only part of the story.
Staff and service users contributed directly to the design and implementation of the new systems. The paper includes some excellent examples of this co-production in practice. Staff suggested using QR codes linked to instructional videos to help people use new technologies, while service users proposed using GoPro cameras to create digital content. These ideas were incorporated into the project through iterative co-design.
That participation mattered. It created collective ownership, helped reduce resistance to change and meant that systems were designed around the reality of people’s everyday work rather than being imposed upon them.
Digital transformation is not really a technology story
Perhaps the most significant conclusion from the research is that sustainable digital transformation is fundamentally a socio-technical and organisational process.
The CRM provided the infrastructure, but the effectiveness of the transformation depended upon leadership commitment, staff engagement, participatory design, training, peer support and collective problem-solving. Digital capability developed gradually as people experimented, learned and incorporated new practices into their everyday work.
The project therefore challenges the idea that organisations become digitally mature simply by purchasing or implementing technology. The charity moved from what we characterise as a digitally emergent organisation, with fragmented systems and relatively low digital confidence, towards the characteristics of a digitally enabling organisation, with more integrated systems, stronger governance, greater leadership engagement and increasing data capability.
Importantly, this did not happen overnight. Training, experimentation and peer learning gradually increased confidence. Internal change champions helped translate technical knowledge into everyday working practices. Digital maturity therefore emerged through cumulative organisational learning rather than a one-off investment in technology.
The importance of the KTP model
The findings also demonstrate the wider potential of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, particularly for smaller organisations that may not possess substantial technical or project-management resources internally.
The KTP provided the charity with access to technical expertise, project management capability, academic insight and structured governance that would have been difficult to secure independently. The sustained nature of the partnership also enabled the organisation to pursue a longer-term transformation rather than relying on short-term technological fixes.
This is an important point about knowledge exchange. It should not be understood simply as universities transferring academic knowledge into organisations. The relationship is reciprocal. Academic expertise can help organisations understand and address practical challenges, but organisational experience simultaneously creates new research questions, challenges existing theory and provides opportunities to develop new knowledge.
Our paper argues that these university-charity partnerships can therefore act as mechanisms for capacity building, combining academic expertise with practical organisational knowledge to support sustainable innovation in resource-constrained environments.
Making a tangible organisational difference
The transformation produced practical outcomes as well as theoretical insights, as the new digital infrastructure reduced data duplication, accelerated reporting and strengthened workflow coordination. Staff reported greater clarity in tracking services and outcomes. The organisation also strengthened governance through centralised records, improved auditability and better oversight of service delivery, resource allocation and impact measurement.
These findings reinforce one of the central arguments of the paper: technology works best when it enables organisational capability rather than becoming an end in itself.
For charities, that means connecting digital transformation to organisational mission, investing continuously in people’s capabilities, involving staff and service users in design, and developing governance alongside new technologies. For universities, it demonstrates the value of sustained partnerships that move beyond short-term consultancy towards genuine collaborative knowledge exchange.
From KTP project to BAM award
Receiving the Best Developmental Paper Award at BAM 2026 therefore feels particularly significant.
The journey began with a very practical organisational challenge: how could a small, community-rooted charity move from fragmented and heavily paper-based ways of working towards a sustainable digital future?
What emerged was not simply a new CRM system. It became a two-year process of organisational learning, co-production and knowledge exchange, and ultimately a research project that offers wider insights into how smaller third-sector organisations can approach digital transformation.
There is more work to do. As we acknowledge in the paper, an important question is whether the capabilities developed during the KTP remain sustainable once structured university support ends. Future research also needs to examine other charities and follow organisations beyond the formal partnership period.
But the project has already reinforced a principle that sits at the heart of our research: technology should not substitute for the human relationships at the centre of community organisations. It should enable and strengthen them.
We are delighted that this work has been recognised by the British Academy of Management, and particularly pleased that a project rooted in knowledge exchange and real organisational practice is now contributing to a wider academic conversation about digital transformation, co-production and the third sector.