An Interaction-Driven Perspective on Digital Transformation and Managerial Guidelines

In the past 40 years, the world has experienced a massive change. The increased usage of digital technologies has impacted every aspect of our society. This has not only created a myriad of novel opportunities, but also a myriad of challenges. This process is frequently referred to as digital transformation. Organizations are pressured to review their operations and verify their validity in the new world. Often, entire business processes and business models can be digitalized or drastically changed. This thesis dives deeper into the phenomenon of digital transformation.

The first part of the thesis investigates the digital transformation literature with the aid of a scientometric analysis. Graphical overviews of the structure of the research field are given, such as keyword co-occurence graphs, that allow one to easily grasp the growth, breadth, and depth of the research field. In addition, a closer look at the collaboration in the research field is given.

In the second part, a novel definition and conceptualization of digital transformation is proposed by reviewing and consolidating 41 digital transformation frameworks and various terminologies. It expands upon existing frameworks by explicitly including the role of society, the evolution over time, consolidating terminology, and including the driving factors that steer this evolution. This way, progress was made toward a unified definition of digital transformation.

The next part includes three case studies on digital transformation. The impact of digital transformation on two underresearched industries, the insurance and notary industry, were investigated as well as how they manage the digital transformation. Next, the role of trade associations in the digital transformation of their industry members was analyzed at the hand of 20 interviews.

In the last part, the various guidelines and best practices for companies embarking on digital transformation are summarized and classified into eight categories: digital strategy, business agility, innovation, organizational structure, digital culture, top management support, IT infrastructure, and digital skills.

To conclude, this thesis analyzed and consolidated a large part of the digital transformation literature and investigated underresearched industries.