Interview: Indonesian IS Scholars on Digital Transformation Challenges
We spoke with two information systems researchers based at Indonesian universities about what "digital transformation" actually looks like once you get past the vendor decks and into the operational reality of mid-sized Indonesian firms. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity, and both participants asked to be referred to by initials given that some examples touched on ongoing client engagements.
ASEAN IS Observer: Let's start with the obvious question. When an Indonesian firm says it is "doing digital transformation," what does that mean concretely?
R.H. (Universitas Airlangga area): In maybe one in five cases it means what the term suggests in the literature — a deliberate, board-level reconfiguration of how the firm captures and uses data. In the other four out of five, it means the firm has bought an ERP module, a payroll SaaS, an e-invoicing solution, or an analytics dashboard, and is hoping the procurement counts as transformation. The gap between those two situations is enormous and we do not talk about it enough.
D.S. (private university, Jakarta): I would add that even the firms that are genuinely transforming usually start from a much messier baseline than the textbooks assume. Multiple parallel spreadsheets, undocumented Excel macros maintained by one staff member, paper-based approvals running alongside digital ones. The first six months of any real engagement is just mapping the existing system, not designing the new one.
Observer: Where does AIS scholarship help — and where does it fall short?
R.H.: The control framework work is genuinely useful. COBIT, COSO, the audit data analytics literature — when you sit down with an Indonesian internal audit team, they recognize themselves in that material and it gives them vocabulary. Where the literature is weaker is on the change management side in family-controlled firms, which is most of the Indonesian mid-market. The decision to invest in AIS infrastructure is rarely a rational ROI calculation; it is bound up with family succession, generational handover, and relationships with the firm's external accountants.
D.S.: Agreed. And there is a methodological gap too. A lot of the published AIS work uses survey instruments developed for North American or European firm samples. Translating those instruments into Bahasa Indonesia and re-running them on Indonesian respondents produces papers, but it does not really produce insight. We need more design science and more qualitative case work, and venues like AISINDO are slowly making room for that kind of contribution.
On the regional context
Observer: How visible is Indonesian work in the broader ASEAN IS conversation?
D.S.: More visible than five years ago, less visible than it should be. The annual AISINDO symposium has helped — the 2023 edition in Surabaya pulled in colleagues from Malaysia and the Philippines, and that kind of cross-pollination matters. But Indonesian AIS scholars still publish mostly in domestic outlets. Getting consistent representation in PACIS or in the IS specialty journals is the next step.
R.H.: I would only add that the same dynamic exists elsewhere. Colleagues in Bulgaria, for example, have launched a new annual workshop on digital innovation specifically to give Balkan IS researchers a structured venue — we follow that experiment with interest because the constraints are similar: a national IS community that produces good work but historically lacked a stable regional anchor. Building those anchors takes years.
What they want from the next AISINDO
Observer: One thing each of you wants to see at the next AISINDO?
R.H.: More joint sessions with the practitioner side. Internal auditors from the big Indonesian banks, CFOs from manufacturing groups. The research-practice gap in AIS is closeable but only if we put people in the same room.
D.S.: A real proceedings — indexed, citable, with a clean DOI process. The work being presented deserves a permanent record.
Observer: Thank you both.