Digital Religion: How Religious Organizations Derive Value from Technological Innovations

Strategic management of IT examines how organizations can improve their performance or derive value from information systems. Organizations around the world are undergoing various forms of digital transformation, and religious organizations are no exception. However, these organizations have received limited consideration in the strategic management and IT literature. At the same time, these organizations have been undergoing digital transformations at different rates, some in response to critical situations such as the covid-19 pandemic, and others more slowly over the past decades. Using a phenomenological approach to the study of religious organizations, this conceptual paper seeks to understand why different religious organizations may use IT differently, and how characteristics of religions might inform the ability of religious organizations to derive value from IT.