A study on how digital twin technology enables executives to fulfill their responsibilities in businesses

The main aim of this research is to understand whether digital twin technology can fulfill the duties of business executives and in this process, to identify in which tasks digital twin technology can assist executives. The reason for choosing the research topic is the absence of any research in the literature regarding whether digital twin technology can fulfill the responsibilities of business executives. To achieve the objectives and sub-objectives of the research, a qualitative research method and a semi-structured interview technique were employed. The phenomenological (phenomenon-oriented) design was followed in the research.The universe of the research consists of academicians who have conducted research and worked as executives in the fields of digital twin, Internet of Things, cloud computing, management, and artificial intelligence in universities operating in Turkey. The theoretical sampling method, one of the purposeful sampling methods, was used in the research. As a data collection tool, 7 open-ended questions and supportive qualitative probing questions were prepared. Data were collected through face-to-face and electronic interviews with the participants. After in-depth interviews with 10 participants, collected data underwent inductive qualitative content analysis. As a result of content analysis, 35 codes, 8 categories, and 3 themes emerged. The obtained themes are Digital Twin, Management and the Art of Communication, and Human Manager. Regarding the main research question "Can digital twin technology fulfill the tasks of managers?" it was observed, based on in-depth interviews with 10 participants, that managers divide their duties into routine (procedural) and strategic tasks. While digital twin technology can take over the routine tasks of managers, which are more based on numerical data, it was revealed that due to the current infrastructure inadequacy and the impossibility of integrating emotional intelligence into a machine, strategic tasks requiring emotional intelligence cannot be performed by digital twin technology. If the routine tasks of managers are delegated to the digital twin, it is believed that it will benefit the manager in many ways.