Conference PaperPDF Available

Evaluating the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Sustainable Success of Digital Entrepreneurship A Mixed Method Research Approach

Authors:

Abstract

The objective of this study is to analyze the effect of AI on the success of digital entrepreneurship through a hybrid approach, studying how AI technologies influence innovation, improvement in efficiency and productivity, and making strategic decisions in digital start-ups. This study investigates this by integrating quantitative data analysis and qualitative case studies. The quantitative analysis focuses on the extent of AI adoption, organizational performance improvement, customer satisfaction, and revenue growth. In contrast, the qualitative analysis, through in-depth interviews and case studies, has identified strategies and challenges for the implementation of AI. This study, while identifying key success factors and effective strategies for leveraging AI, highlights its role in optimizing business operations, personalizing customer experience, and accelerating product development. It also shows the need for organizations to adopt AI responsibly, considering ethical issues such as data privacy and algorithmic bias. Comprehensive analysis implies deep insight with actionable solutions that can be used by entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers to create sustainable growth, drive innovation, and maintain competitive advantage in the area of digital entrepreneurship. This study deepens the general discussion of the place of AI in shaping the future of entrepreneurial activity while developing the notion of its business performance impact.


*


a.mansouri@khu.ac.ir
sajjadkarbalaei@gmail.com
toozandjanimohamadreza@gmail.com






 


       










Nambisan, 2017



Sussan & Acs, 2017


Pittaway & Cope, 2007

Neck & Corbett,
2018
Anderson, 2012
 


Maritz & Brown, 2013

Jones, Matlay, & Maritz, 2012
Rasmussen & Sørheim, 2006

   
Giones &
Brem, 2017
      
Kraus, Palmer, Kailer, Kallinger, & Spitzer, 2018
Brush,
Greene, & Hart, 2001



Vuorikari et al., 2016


Gibb, 2002



Autio
et al., 2018
Hisrich
et al., 2017



Rasmussen & Sørheim, 2006


Bridge et al., 2010


 


Elia et al., 2020; Parida et al., 2019



Huang et al., 2017; Vial, 2019
Autio et al., 2018




Fichman, Dos Santos, & Zheng, 2014

IoT

Henfridsson & Bygstad, 2013
Nambisan, Wright, & Feldman, 2019

Ratten & Usmanij, 2021
Toniolo, Belli, &
Parente, 2020

Lamine, Mian, & Fayolle, 2021


Giones & Brem, 2017

Kraus,
Palmer, Kailer, Kallinger, & Spitzer, 2019; Scuotto, Del Giudice, & Carayannis, 2017

Nambisan, 2017

Younis, Zhou, & Aslam, 2020




Elia, Margherita, & Passiante






Fichman, Dos Santos, & Zheng





Huang




Nambisan, Wright, & Feldman






Ratten & Usmanij










Nambisan et al., 2019; Kraus, Palmer, Kailer, Kallinger, & Spitzer, 2019



Secundo et al., 2020
IT
Steininger

Sahut




Rippa and Secundo


Zaheer et al., 2019

Satalkina & Steiner, 2020a, b
Secundo


Lamine, Mian, & Fayolle, 2021
DE


Kollmann, Stöckmann, Hensellek, & Kensbock, 2022

SatalkinaSteiner





 





Nambisan, 2017; Kraus, Palmer,
Kailer, Kallinger, & Spitzer, 2019


Aldrich, 2014

 
 
Bell
& Kozlowski, 2008).     
Means et al., 2013
 
Redecker, 2017). 
Law et al., 2018
 
Autio et al., 2018). 
          
Giones & Brem, 2017
 
 
 
Redecker, 2017


Bell & Kozlowski, 2008

 
  

 
Ndubisi &
Kamarulzaman, 2020; Tawfik et al., 2018
     
Giones & Brem, 2017
 
               
Brown & Mason, 2014). 

Jones & Iredale, 2010). 
Li, Fay, & Cai, 2021




Kim & Hall, 2019

Peters & Vissers, 2004



Means et al., 2013; Allen & Seaman, 2017
 
Anderson, 2008
   
McLoughlin & Lee, 2010


       





Laurillard, 2012
Ertmer & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010


Kirkwood & Price, 2014). 
Redecker,
2017). 
Vescio, Ross, & Adams, 2008

Kolb, 1984

Coghlan & Brydon-Miller, 2014

. 

Autio et al., 2018
Zahra & Nambisan, 2012 

Davidson & Vaast, 2010

. Neck &
Greene, 2011 
Ratten, 2020
Bharadwaj et al.,
2013
Porter & Heppelmann, 2014
.


. 
:

.

Cohen, 2013

Ertmer & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010

Davidson & Vaast, 2010

.






.


 









[1] Aldrich, C. (2014). Learning online with games, simulations, and virtual worlds: Strategies for online
instruction. John Wiley & Sons.
[2] Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2017). Digital learning compass: Distance education enrollment report 2017. Babson
Survey Research Group.
[3] Anderson, A. R. (2012). The entrepreneurship educator: back to school. Journal of Small Business and
Enterprise Development, 19(3), 435-446.
[4] Anderson, T. (2008). The theory and practice of online learning. Athabasca University Press.
[5] Autio, E., Nambisan, S., Thomas, L. D. W., & Wright, M. (2018). Digital affordances, spatial affordances, and
the genesis of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 12(1), 72-95.
[6] Autio, E., Nambisan, S., Thomas, L. D., & Wright, M. (2018). Digital affordances, spatial affordances, and the
genesis of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 12(1), 72-95.
[7] Bell, B. S., & Kozlowski, S. W. J. (2008). Active learning: Effects of core training design elements on self-
regulatory processes, learning, and adaptability. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(2), 296-316.
[8] Bharadwaj, A., El Sawy, O. A., Pavlou, P. A., & Venkatraman, N. (2013). Digital business strategy: Toward a
next generation of insights. MIS Quarterly, 37(2), 471-482.
[9] Bridge, S., Hegarty, C., & Porter, S. (2010). Rediscovering enterprise: developing appropriate university
entrepreneurship education. Education + Training, 52(8/9), 722-734.
[10] Brown, R., & Mason, C. (2014). Inside the high-tech black box: A critique of technology entrepreneurship
policy. Technovation, 34(12), 773-784.
[11] Brush, C. G., Greene, P. G., & Hart, M. M. (2001). From initial idea to unique advantage: The
entrepreneurial challenge of constructing a resource base. The Academy of Management Executive, 15(1), 64-
78.
[12] Coghlan, D., & Brydon-Miller, M. (2014). The SAGE encyclopedia of action research. SAGE
Publications Ltd.
[13] Cohen, S. (2013). What do accelerators do? Insights from incubators and angels. Innovations:
Technology, Governance, Globalization, 8(3-4), 19-25.
[14] Davidson, E., & Vaast, E. (2010). Digital entrepreneurship and its sociomaterial enactment. 25th
Information Systems Research Conference in Scandinavia, IRIS 2010.
[15] Deng, Z., & Chi, L. (2019). Entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance: Is product innovation the
missing link? Journal of Business Research, 103, 304-315.
[16] Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., & Nacke, L. (2011). From game design elements to gamefulness:
Defining "gamification". Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning
Future Media Environments.
[17] Elia, G., Margherita, A., & Passiante, G. (2020). Digital entrepreneurship ecosystem: How digital
technologies and collective intelligence are reshaping the entrepreneurial process. Technological Forecasting
and Social Change, 150, 119791.
[18] Ertmer, P. A., & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, A. T. (2010). Teacher technology change: How knowledge,
confidence, beliefs, and culture intersect. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 42(3), 255-284.
[19] Fichman, R. G., Dos Santos, B. L., & Zheng, Z. E. (2014). Digital innovation as a fundamental and
powerful concept in the information systems curriculum. MIS Quarterly, 38(2), 329-343.
[20] Gibb, A. A. (2002). In pursuit of a new ‘enterprise’ and ‘entrepreneurship’ paradigm for learning:
Creative destruction, new values, new ways of doing things and new combinations of knowledge. International
Journal of Management Reviews, 4(3), 233-269.
[21] Giones, F., & Brem, A. (2017). Digital technology entrepreneurship: A definition and research agenda.
Technology Innovation Management Review, 7(5), 44-51.
[22] Hamari, J., Koivisto, J., & Sarsa, H. (2014). Does gamification work?--a literature review of empirical
studies on gamification. Proceedings of the 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.
[23] Henfridsson, O., & Bygstad, B. (2013). The generative mechanisms of digital infrastructure evolution.
MIS Quarterly, 37(3), 907-931.
[24] Hisrich, R. D., Peters, M. P., & Shepherd, D. A. (2017). Entrepreneurship. McGraw-Hill Education.
[25] Huang, J., Henfridsson, O., Liu, M. J., & Newell, S. (2017). Growing on steroids: Rapidly scaling the
user base of digital ventures through digital innovation. MIS Quarterly, 41(1), 301-314.
[26] Jones, B., & Iredale, N. (2010). Enterprise education as pedagogy. Education + Training, 52(1), 7-19.
[27] Jones, P., Matlay, H., & Maritz, A. (2012). Enterprise education: for all, or just some? Education +
Training, 54(8/9), 813-824.
[28] Kim, P., & Hall, A. (2019). Use of digital simulation in entrepreneurship education: Enhancing students'
entrepreneurial skills. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 48(2), 181-199.
[29] Kirkwood, A., & Price, L. (2014). Technology-enhanced learning and teaching in higher education: What
is 'enhanced' and how do we know? A critical literature review. Learning, Media and Technology, 39(1), 6-36.
[30] Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development.
Prentice-Hall.
[31] Kollmann, T., Stöckmann, C., Hensellek, S., & Kensbock, J. (2022). Digital entrepreneurship: How
digital technologies create market opportunities and new business models. Business Horizons, 65(2), 249-258.
[32] Kraus, S., Palmer, C., Kailer, N., Kallinger, F. L., & Spitzer, J. (2018). Digital entrepreneurship: A
research agenda on new business models for the twenty-first century. International Journal of Entrepreneurial
Behavior & Research, 25(2), 353-375.
[33] Kraus, S., Palmer, C., Kailer, N., Kallinger, F. L., & Spitzer, J. (2019). Digital entrepreneurship: A
research agenda on new business models for the twenty-first century. International Journal of Entrepreneurial
Behavior & Research, 25(2), 353-375.
[34] Lamine, W., Mian, S., & Fayolle, A. (2021). How digital affordances shape entrepreneurship education
practices. Education + Training, 63(5), 745-764.
[35] Lanzolla, G., & Giudici, A. (2017). Pioneering strategies in the digital world. Journal of Business
Research, 70, 287-291.
[36] Laurillard, D. (2012). Teaching as a design science: Building pedagogical patterns for learning and
technology. Routledge.
[37] Law, N., Woo, D., de la Torre, J., & Wong, G. (2018). A global framework of reference on digital literacy
skills for indicator 4.4.2. UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
[38] Li, Y., Fay, J., & Cai, W. (2021). Digital entrepreneurship ecosystem as a new form of organizing: The
case of Zhongguancun. Management and Organization Review, 17(1), 111-141.
[39] Maritz, A., & Brown, C. R. (2013). Illuminating the black box of entrepreneurship education programs.
Education + Training, 55(3), 234-252.
[40] McLoughlin, C., & Lee, M. J. W. (2010). Personalized and self-regulated learning in the Web 2.0 era:
International exemplars of innovative pedagogy using social software. Australasian Journal of Educational
Technology, 26(1), 28-43.
[41] Means, B., Toyama, Y., Murphy, R., Bakia, M., & Jones, K. (2013). The effectiveness of online and
blended learning: A meta-analysis of the empirical literature. Teachers College Record.
[42] Nambisan, S. (2017). Digital entrepreneurship: Toward a digital technology perspective of
entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 41(6), 1029-1055.
[43] Nambisan, S., Wright, M., & Feldman, M. (2019). The digital transformation of innovation and
entrepreneurship: Progress, challenges and key themes. Research Policy, 48(8), 103773.
[44] Ndubisi, N. O., & Kamarulzaman, Y. (2020). Digital entrepreneurship: Impact on SMEs performance
and sustainability. Journal of Small Business Management, 58(1), 38-51.
[45] Neck, H. M., & Corbett, A. C. (2018). The scholarship of teaching and learning entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy, 1(1), 8-41.
[46] Neck, H. M., & Greene, P. G. (2011). Entrepreneurship education: Known worlds and new frontiers.
Journal of Small Business Management, 49(1), 55-70.
[47] Parida, V., Sjödin, D., & Reim, W. (2019). Reviewing literature on digitalization, business model
innovation, and sustainable industry: Past achievements and future promises. Sustainability, 11(2), 391.
[48] Peters, V. A. M., & Vissers, G. A. N. (2004). A simple classification model for debriefing simulation
games. Simulation & Gaming, 35(1), 70-84.
[49] Pittaway, L., & Cope, J. (2007). Entrepreneurship education: A systematic review of the evidence.
International Small Business Journal, 25(5), 479-510.
[50] Porter, M. E., & Heppelmann, J. E. (2014). How smart, connected products are transforming competition.
Harvard Business Review, 92(11), 64-88.
[51] Rasmussen, E. A., & Sørheim, R. (2006). Action-based entrepreneurship education. Technovation, 26(2),
185-194.
[52] Ratten, V. (2020). Coronavirus (COVID-19) and entrepreneurship: Changing life and work landscape.
Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship, 32(5), 503-516.
[53] Ratten, V., & Usmanij, P. (2021). Entrepreneurship education: Time for a change in research direction?
International Journal of Management Education, 19(1), 100367.
[54] Raymond, L., Bergeron, F., & Blili, S. (2005). The assimilation of e-business in manufacturing SMEs:
Determinants and effects on growth and internationalization. Electronic Markets, 15(2), 106-118.
[55] Redecker, C. (2017). European framework for the digital competence of educators: DigCompEdu.
Publications Office of the European Union.
[56] Rippa, P., & Secundo, G. (2019). Digital academic entrepreneurship: The potential of digital technologies
on academic entrepreneurship. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 146, 900-911.
[57] Sahut, J. M., Iandoli, L., & Teulon, F. (2021). The age of digital entrepreneurship. Small Business
Economics, 56(3), 1159-1169.
[58] Satalkina, L., & Steiner, G. (2020a). Digital entrepreneurship and its role in innovation systems: A
systematic literature review. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity, 6(3), 87.
[59] Satalkina, L., & Steiner, G. (2020b). Digital entrepreneurship: A theory-based systematic review.
Electronic Markets, 30(3), 349-368.
[60] Scuotto, V., Del Giudice, M., & Carayannis, E. G. (2017). The effect of social networking sites and
absorptive capacity on SMES’ innovation performance. Journal of Technology Transfer, 42(2), 409-424.
[61] Secundo, G., Del Vecchio, P., Schiuma, G., & Passiante, G. (2020). Entrepreneurial learning dynamics
in knowledge-intensive enterprises. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 26(3), 331-
349.
[62] Steininger, D. M. (2019). Linking information systems and entrepreneurship: A review and agenda for
IT-associated and digital entrepreneurship research. Information Systems Journal, 29(2), 363-407.
[63] Sussan, F., & Acs, Z. J. (2017). The digital entrepreneurial ecosystem. Small Business Economics, 49(1),
55-73.
[64] Tawfik, A. A., Reeves, T. D., & Stich, A. E. (2018). Digital game-based learning in higher education: An
example from a graduate course in instructional design. TechTrends, 62(1), 71-79.
[65] Toniolo, K., Belli, A., & Parente, R. (2020). Knowledge transfer in entrepreneurial ecosystems: An
investigation of incubators. Journal of Technology Transfer, 45(1), 245-264.
[66] Verhoef, P. C., Broekhuizen, T., Bart, Y., Bhattacharya, A., Dong, J. Q., Fabian, N., & Haenlein, M.
(2021). Digital transformation: A multidisciplinary reflection and research agenda. Journal of Business
Research, 122, 889-901.
[67] Vescio, V., Ross, D., & Adams, A. (2008). A review of research on the impact of professional learning
communities on teaching practice and student learning. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(1), 80-91.
[68] Vial, G. (2019). Understanding digital transformation: A review and a research agenda. Journal of
Strategic Information Systems, 28(2), 118-144.
[69] Vuorikari, R., Punie, Y., Carretero, S., & Van den Brande, L. (2016). DigComp 2.0: The digital
competence framework for citizens. Update phase 1: The conceptual reference model. Luxembourg:
Publications Office of the European Union.
[70] Yoo, Y., Henfridsson, O., & Lyytinen, K. (2010). Research commentarythe new organizing logic of
digital innovation: An agenda for information systems research. Information Systems Research, 21(4), 724-
735.
[71] Younis, A., Zhou, L., & Aslam, M. (2020). Entrepreneurial orientation, network capability and
digitalization in SMEs. Journal of Small Business Management, 58(5), 805-827.
[72] Zaheer, H., Breyer, Y., & Dumay, J. (2019). Digital entrepreneurship: An interdisciplinary structured
literature review and research agenda. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 148, 119735.
[73] Zahra, S. A., & Nambisan, S. (2012). Entrepreneurship and strategic thinking in business ecosystems.
Business Horizons, 55(3), 219-229.
[1] Dicleli M, Bruneau M. Seismic performance of single-span simply supported and continuous slab-on-girder
steel highway bridges. Journal of Structural Engineering, ASCE; 121(10): 1497-1506, 1995.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
Article
Full-text available
The purpose of this commentary article is to focus on how the covid-19 crisis has affected cultural, lifestyle, and social entrepreneurship. In doing so, I address the current lack of integration between crisis management, entrepreneurship, and covid-19 literature. This commentary article systematically synthesizes the current literature by linking key concepts within crisis management and entrepreneurship. Covid-19 has had an enormous effect on global society, so this article is amongst the first from an academic standpoint to examine it from a cultural, social, and lifestyle entrepreneurship perspective. This enables micro, macro, and meso environmental effects originating from the covid-19 crisis to be better understood in terms of the entrepreneurship literature. Currently, the effects of covid-19 on entrepreneurship remain unexplored so this article provides a more inclusive and integrative framework.
Article
Full-text available
Digital entrepreneurship is an essential driver within the innovation system. It changes the structure, aims, and networking mechanisms of the overall business system and, ultimately, affects the various levels and dimensions of the innovation system. Bringing inevitable changes to the innovation system, digital technologies may not only provide new business opportunities but also be disruptive and cause new vulnerabilities. In order to gain a rigorous understanding of the hybrid concept of digital entrepreneurship and its role within the transformation of the innovation system, we conducted a systematic literature review. The results of 52 core papers allow for the identification of key categories of digital entrepreneurship and also its differentiation from other types of business activities. The analysis leads to the distinction of the determinants of digital entrepreneurship within three core dimensions of the innovation system, which encompass the entrepreneur (including, e.g., behavioral, competence. and mentality patterns, as well as personal outcomes and consequences of entrepreneurial activity), the entrepreneurial process (including activities that concern digitalization in organizational management processes, transformations within strategic and operational activities, and digital start-up establishment), and its relevant ecosystem (which encompasses, among others, the influence that external infrastructure and institutions have on digital entrepreneurship development). The systematization of the existing literature is highly relevant for future research that aims to understand the interrelations between the transformation of entrepreneurial structures within innovation systems as well as the socioeconomic system in general. Such understanding requires further extended research in fields related to method, content, and theory.
Article
Full-text available
Digital transformation and resultant business model innovation have fundamentally altered consumers’ expectations and behaviors, putting immense pressure on traditional firms, and disrupting numerous markets. Drawing on extant literature, we identify three stages of digital transformation: digitization, digitalization, and digital transformation. We identify and delineate growth strategies for digital firms as well as the assets and capabilities required in order to successfully transform digitally. We posit that digital transformation requires specific organizational structures and bears consequences for the metrics used to calibrate performance. Finally, we provide a research agenda to stimulate and guide future research on digital transformation.
Article
Full-text available
Understanding the circumstances and reasons which facilitate digital entrepreneurship (DE) is of interest to academic research, and guides business practice, as well as public policies aiming at supporting this phenomenon given its positive impacts in terms of job creation and economic growth. We define some relevant concepts and briefly map current research using a perspective that focuses on the way digital entrepreneurs create digital value by acquiring, processing, and distributing digital information. Through the adoption of a digital information processing perspective, we provide a micro-level approach to research on digital entrepreneurship (DE) that complements existing literature on DE focused at the systemic level (digital entrepreneurship ecosystems and in the digital platforms economy). We show how these two approaches can be jointly used to identify major research streams on DE: digital business models, the digital entrepreneurship process and the creation of digital start-ups, DE in digital platforms, and entrepreneurial digital ecosystems. As is the case with existing DE frameworks, our approach concurs in putting emphasis on the new collaborative and social dynamics enabled by digital tools to support knowledge sharing and facilitate opportunity recognition.
Article
Entrepreneurship education has blossomed as an area of research due to its practical significance and role in expediting the economic wellbeing of the global economy. Despite its popularity there is still some way to go before we fully understand the nature and ability of entrepreneurship education to transform society. The goal of this article is to highlight the current trends in entre-preneurship education by providing some paths for future research that take an anthropcosmic view of education. This will help more researchers embrace the distinctive nature of entrepre-neurship by tying it to new emerging employment trends such as the gig economy and the digital transformation of the workplace. Suggestions for how entrepreneurship education needs to further progress are given as a way of shaping the future development of the field.
Article
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.
Article
This paper provides a structured literature review of digital entrepreneurship to generate insights into recent developments in the field, critique the research to date, and identify opportunities for future research. We have applied the three aspects of critical research – insight, critique, and transformative redefinition – to analyse and synthesise the literature. We distil the definitions of the key constructs and identify three research development phases corresponding to practice development. Analysis of 133 scholarly articles by discipline, time, methodology, geography and theoretical focus informs that digital entrepreneurship research has been fragmented, divergent and slow to respond to practice. However, the field is now rapidly acquiring legitimacy and an identity, growing rapidly and is becoming more interdisciplinary. We explore how established views of entrepreneurial processes and clusters are being upended in a digital world. In outlining the future of the field, a preponderance of single case study and conceptual articles need to be supplemented with longitudinal, mixed methods, multiple case study and quantitative research. More integrative research, preferably presented as dynamic models, would advance the field. Design and action research output, and collaborations with practitioners will yield practice-driven insights. This paper will facilitate an interdisciplinary dialogue for evidence-informed policy and practice.
Article
The emergence of novel and powerful digital technologies, digital platforms and digital infrastructures has transformed innovation and entrepreneurship in significant ways. Beyond simply opening new opportunities for innovators and entrepreneurs, digital technologies have broader implications for value creation and value capture. Research aimed at understanding the digital transformation of the economy needs to incorporate multiple and cross-levels of analysis, embrace ideas and concepts from multiple fields/disciplines, and explicitly acknowledge the role of digital technologies in transforming organizations and social relationships. To help realize this research agenda, we identify three key themes related to digitization—openness, affordances, and generativity—and, outline broad research issues relating to each. We suggest that such themes that are innate to digital technologies could serve as a common conceptual platform that allows for connections between issues at different levels as well as the integration of ideas from different disciplines/areas. We then summarize the contributions of the 11 papers presented in this Special Issue relating them to one or more of these themes and outlining their implications for future research.
Article
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.