What is digital transformation? A survey on the perceptions of decision-makers in business

René Riedl (), Mark Stieninger, Manuel Muehlburger, Stefan Koch and Thomas Hess
Additional contact information
René Riedl: University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria
Mark Stieninger: University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria
Manuel Muehlburger: Johannes Kepler University Linz
Stefan Koch: Johannes Kepler University Linz
Thomas Hess: University of Munich (LMU)

Information Systems and e-Business Management, 2024, vol. 22, issue 1, No 3, 95 pages

Abstract: Abstract In the past years we have observed enormous adoption and use of digital technologies in almost all domains of human life. In this context, researchers and practitioners have been using the term “digital transformation” (DT) to characterize phenomena related to the changes caused by increased use of digital technologies. The progression and contributions of corresponding discussions significantly depend on a common understanding and conceptualization of DT. Accordingly, the information systems research community has started working toward conceptual clarity. Importantly, the current debate focuses on theoretical contributions by academic researchers. Hence, data on the practitioners’ perspective on DT is missing. Against this background, we investigated general understandings of DT in practice. Our analysis comprises data of N = 529 business decision-makers in the UK. Our results show a significant discrepancy between science (i.e., conceptualizations and definitions of DT in the academic literature) and practice (i.e., business decision-makers’ perceptions and corresponding survey responses). Specifically, for a large proportion of the respondents their decision to classify concrete digitalization examples from the literature as DT or no DT was largely independent of the degree of organizational change caused by the use of digital technologies. This is a surprising result, as high-caliber academic literature proposes this degree to be a critical factor to characterize DT. Another key finding is that a remarkable number of practitioners consider a digitalization initiative as DT based on the mere occurrence of specific buzzwords related to digital technologies in the corresponding descriptions. In particular, the buzzword “digital technology” led the survey participants to classify a definition as instance for DT. We discuss implications of our results and limitations.

Keywords: Digitalization; Digital transformation; Buzzword; Definition; Semantic primitive; Survey study (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10257-023-00660-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:infsem:v:22:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1007_s10257-023-00660-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ystems/journal/10257

DOI: 10.1007/s10257-023-00660-0

Access Statistics for this article

Information Systems and e-Business Management is currently edited by Jörg Becker and Michael J. Shaw

More articles in Information Systems and e-Business Management from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().