Digital transformation: towards new research themes and collaborations yet to be explored

Abstract

This study aimed at providing an overview of research themes and collaborations in the digital transformation scholarship. The methods of co-word analysis, co-author analysis, and network analysis were employed to network-analyze the keywords, countries, and institutions of 2820 research articles published on the digital transformation topic and indexed by the Web of Science database. Our main results indicated that researchers have mostly focused on three aspects of the digital transformation phenomenon including Technological and Industrial View, Organizational and Managerial View, and Global and Social View. Also, it was realized that Technology, Sustainability, Big Data, Information and Communications Technology, Innovation, Industry 4.0, Artificial Intelligence, Business Model, Social Media, and Digitization are the most recurring themes in this field of research. Besides, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, Blockchain, Machine Learning, Knowledge Management, and Sustainable Development were respectively identified as the five hottest issues in the digital transformation scholarship. The contribution of our study highlights that European countries and specially the institutions of northern Europe have had better performance in the research collaborations in digital transformation.