•Reviewing a comprehensive body of IS literature on digital transformation.•Building a conceptual definition of digital transformation.•Offering a research agenda for future research on digital ...transformation.
Extant literature has increased our understanding of specific aspects of digital transformation, however we lack a comprehensive portrait of its nature and implications. Through a review of 282 works, we inductively build a framework of digital transformation articulated across eight building blocks. Our framework foregrounds digital transformation as a process where digital technologies create disruptions triggering strategic responses from organizations that seek to alter their value creation paths while managing the structural changes and organizational barriers that affect the positive and negative outcomes of this process. Building on this framework, we elaborate a research agenda that proposes 1 examining the role of dynamic capabilities, and 2 accounting for ethical issues as important avenues for future strategic IS research on digital transformation.
•Limited research exists on SMEs’ DT use to address COVID-19 consequences.•Relates DT deployment by SMEs to secure business continuity.•Outlines research on the SMEs’ use of DT to deal with COVID-19 ...issues.•Reflects on managerial implications SMEs’ use of using DT to deal COVID-19 issues.
Scholars have highlighted the role of Digital Technologies (DT) in enhancing productivity and performance in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). However, there is limited evidence on the use of DT for dealing with the consequences of extreme events, such as COVID-19. We discuss this gap by (i) outlining potential research avenues and (ii) reflecting on the managerial implications of using DT within SMEs to deal with the repercussions of COVID-19 and securing business continuity.
•Technological innovation has a profound impact on entrepreneurship and venture creation.•A new model of Digital Entrepreneurship Ecosystem (DEE) can be investigated.•DEEs are shaped by the ...affirmation of digital technologies as enablers and/or outputs.•Collective Intelligence provides a framework to describe the building blocks of a DEE.•Success cases can be found of process-driven, resource-driven, and product-driven DEEs.
Digital technologies have nowadays a significant impact on how new business ventures are imagined and created. The arising technology paradigm is leveraging the potential of collaboration and collective intelligence to design and launch more robust and sustainable entrepreneurial initiatives. However, although the topic of digital entrepreneurship is relevant and timely, there is a limited literature discussion on the real impact of digital technologies and collaboration on the entrepreneurial process. Further research is needed to describe the nature and characteristics of the entrepreneurial ecosystem enabled by the new socio-technical paradigm. Based on extant literature, this article proposes a definition of digital entrepreneurship ecosystem by highlighting the integrated digital-output and digital-environment perspectives. A collective intelligence approach is then adopted to define a descriptive framework and identify the distinguishing genes of a digital entrepreneurship ecosystem. Four dimensions associated to digital actors (who), digital activities (what), digital motivations (why), and digital organization (how) are defined and discussed. The framework was also applied to describe 9 real cases of companies and initiatives, which are analyzed as digital entrepreneurship ecosystems along the four key dimensions presented. The article ends with a discussion about the results and a research agenda for future studies.
•The study highlights that digital technologies capability, relational capability and innovation capability are three antecedents of organizational agility.•Organizational agility has a positive ...impact on SMEs’ performance (in terms of financial and innovation performance).•The effects of this agility are on three outcomes, namely financial performance, product innovation and process innovation.•The development of these three capabilities is of strategic importance for SMEs to build enduring businesses.•The research suggests that SMEs should nurture a relational and innovative culture, as well as transform their business culture starting from digital technologies.
Organizational agility, that is the ability to anticipate or respond quickly to external changes, is essential to survive and compete in today's turbulent landscape, characterized by technological advancements and digitalization. Research on capabilities that enable firms to be agile in the so called VUCA environments, is still nascent. Hence, it is important to explore the antecedents of firm agility and to identify the factors enabling them to better compete. Even more so in the case of SMEs, as they are more vulnerable in hypercompetitive business environments and, at the same time, agility has been less studied in this context. Focusing on SMEs, the study investigates three antecedents of agility, namely digital technologies capability, relational capability and innovation capability, and the effects of agility on three outcomes, namely financial performance, product, and process innovation. Our findings indicate that these capabilities contribute to build organizational agility in SMEs and that, in turn, agility has a positive impact on performance, thus confirming that agility contributes to the success of SMEs and that digital technologies play a central role in this process. Thus, it is of strategic importance for SMEs to increase their efforts to develop these capabilities to build enduring businesses. They should nurture a relational and innovative culture, as well as transform their business culture starting from digital technologies.
One of the fundamental components of the United Nations’ sustainable development 2030 agenda is quality education. It aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all. Digital ...technologies have emerged as an essential tool to achieve this goal. These technologies are simple to detect emissions sources, prevent additional damage through improved energy efficiency and lower-carbon alternatives to fossil fuels, and even remove surplus greenhouse gases from the environment. Digital technologies strive to decrease or eliminate pollution and waste while increasing production and efficiency. These technologies have shown a powerful impact on the education system. The recent COVID-19 Pandemic has further institutionalised the applications of digital technologies in education. These digital technologies have made a paradigm shift in the entire education system. It is not only a knowledge provider but also a co-creator of information, a mentor, and an assessor. Technological improvements in education have made life easier for students. Instead of using pen and paper, students nowadays use various software and tools to create presentations and projects. When compared to a stack of notebooks, an iPad is relatively light. When opposed to a weighty book, surfing an E-book is easier. These methods aid in increasing interest in research. This paper is brief about the need for digital technologies in education and discusses major applications and challenges in education.
Today's digital technologies, such as social media, business analytics, the Internet of Things, big data, advanced manufacturing, 3D printing, cloud and cyber-solutions and MOOCs, permeate every ...private and public organization. However, even if this phenomenon has been analyzed for entrepreneurship in general, to the best of our knowledge, the impact of digital technologies on academic entrepreneurship remains not only slightly addressed. With the aim of filling this gap, this paper proposes a novel contribution regarding the emerging concept of Digital Academic Entrepreneurship. Based on a qualitative literature review, an interpretative framework for Digital Academic Entrepreneurship is deductively proposed that is composed of the following components: the rationale for the adoption of digital technologies for academic entrepreneurship (why), the emerging forms of digital academic entrepreneurship (what), the stakeholders involved through the digital technologies to achieve the academic entrepreneurship goal (who), and the processes of academic entrepreneurship supported by digital technologies (how). The discussion section provides a conceptualization of Digital Academic Entrepreneurship. The paper closes with the identification of a research agenda for this promising and under-researched field.
•Digital Academic Entrepreneurship is the result of the impact of digital technologies on academic entrepreneurship•An interpretative framework for Digital Academic Entrepreneurship is proposed.•New stakeholders are involved in academic entrepreneurship due to digital technologies.•Emerging forms of digital academic entrepreneurship are supported by digital technologies•A research agenda for the digital academic entrepreneurship conceptualization is discussed
The emergence of new digital technologies has transformed entrepreneurship and, very likely, enabled many new and established ventures to avoid bankruptcy throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital ...technologies are key to identifying, evaluating and exploiting opportunities, scaling a venture's competitiveness, improving efficiency and innovating, especially during uncertain times. We explore how digital technologies reinvented entrepreneurial resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic and distill the digital artifacts, platforms and infrastructures used by entrepreneurs to demonstrate entrepreneurial resilience. We analyzed 42 reflective interviews featuring successful entrepreneurs from How I Built This “Resilience Series” podcast that explore how entrepreneurs responded to the COVID-19 crisis. We adopted a systematic approach to identify and describe the behaviors, actions and strategies related to digitalization to reinvent the business in the uncertain and resource-constrained context of COVID-19. The data analysis yielded thirteen first-order codes categorized into five second-order themes: creative digital pivoting, digital infrastructures, social impact through digital technology, burdens to digital adoption, and growth through digitalization. These second-order themes reveal to function as both enablers and barriers to entrepreneurial resilience in this adverse context. Our exploratory analysis suggests how digitalization influences entrepreneurial resilience.
•We capture how digital behaviors and strategies adopted during the pandemic by entrepreneurs affect resilience.•Our results pinpoint how digital technologies shape resilience as both a strategic and operational aspect of the business.•Findings revealed that digital pivoting, digital infrastructure, and social impact are enablers of resilience.•One theme pointed to digital technologies as a barrier to entrepreneurial resilience.•Digital technologies supported organizational performance throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Past research has focused on understanding the characteristics of work that are fully virtual or fully collocated. The present study seeks to expand our understanding of team work by studying ...knowledge workers' experiences as they were suddenly forced to transition to a fully virtual environment. During the height of the US lockdown from April to June 2020, we interviewed 51 knowledge workers employed on teams at the same professional services firm. Drawing from in situ reflections about teams' lived experiences, this paper explores how the shift to virtual work brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic illuminated the fundamental activities that team work requires, facilitated and undermined the performance of team activities, and prompted employees to adapt and reflect on their use of digital technology to perform these activities. Using the shift to virtual work as a unique learning opportunity, our findings demonstrate that team work entails several core activities (task, process, and relationship interactions) that require additional adjustments to successfully enact in the virtual (vs. collocated) environment.
•The shift to virtual work created an unprecedented opportunity to study teams.•During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, we conducted 51 interviews.•Informants were knowledge workers within the same professional service firm.•Learning from the shift to virtual work illuminated essential team work activities•Informants reflected on and adapted their technology use for team work activities
The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the current state of research and the key aspects and implications of the relationships between Information and Digital Technologies (IDT) of ...Industry 4.0 and Lean Supply Chain Management (LSCM), with the identification of the lines of research developed and an analysis of the main findings. A Systematic Literature Review methodology has been used for the identification, selection, and evaluation of the published research. A set of 78 papers deduced from the most relevant scientific databases, including Web of Science, Scopus, and ABI/Inform, from 1996 to December 2019, has been analyzed and synthesized. The analysis and evaluation of these papers has enabled a new classification of the literature to be offered that identifies four lines of research based on the Life Cycle of Technology: obsolete IDT in LSCM; mature IDT in LSCM; emerging IDT in LSCM; and an Information Systems and IDT general approach in LSCM. The paper goes on to discuss the gaps found in the literature and proposes new opportunities and challenges for future research. A series of implications are presented intended to be useful from not only an academic point-of-view but also from a management focus, including recommendations for industrial managers and policymakers.
The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Digital technologies (DT) is proliferating a profound socio-technical transformation. Governments and AI scholarship have endorsed key AI principles but ...lack direction at the implementation level. Through a systematic literature review of 59 papers, this paper contributes to the critical debate on the ethical use of AI in DTs beyond high-level AI principles. To our knowledge, this is the first paper that identifies 14 digital ethics implications for the use of AI in seven DT archetypes using a novel ontological framework (physical, cognitive, information, and governance). The paper presents key findings of the review and a conceptual model with twelve propositions highlighting the impact of digital ethics implications on societal impact, as moderated by DT archetypes and mediated by organisational impact. The implications of intelligibility, accountability, fairness, and autonomy (under the cognitive domain), and privacy (under the information domain) are the most widely discussed in our sample. Furthermore, ethical implications related to the governance domain are shown to be generally applicable for most DT archetypes. Implications under the physical domain are less prominent when it comes to AI diffusion with one exception (safety). The key findings and resulting conceptual model have academic and professional implications.
•An ontological framework of digital technologies (DT).•Identified digital ethics at the core of eight ethical research domains in DTs.•Systematic literature review to create a taxonomy of AI digital ethics implications.•Instrument outlining fourteen ethical considerations mapped to seven DT archetypes.•Conceptual model of the impact of AI digital ethics implications on societal impact.
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