Strategy in the digitalization era

Abstract

Ever since the rise of the Internet, digitalization has been increasingly shaping firms’ business processes and models. The rapid rise of digital technologies has perhaps even changed some of the fundamentals of strategy, including strategic decision-making, cognition, discourse and practices. However, limited effort has been made to structure the strategy-oriented academic discourse in the digitalization era. This essay begins by defining and positioning the digital transformation from a strategic perspective. We provide grounds for this essay based on the existing research on a literature search and review to add theoretical structure to the field through the bibliometric mapping of 626 digital transformation studies from high-quality academic journals (AJG3 and AJG4 journal quality levels). Based on the analysis, we identify four clusters of research perspectives: (1) digital transformation, (2) digital strategy, (3) digital business model innovation and (4) digital marketing. Our essay contributes to the emerging digital transformation literature by positioning these different perspectives in digital phenomena that are relevant and adjacent to strategy and strategizing. Finally, we position the special issue papers in the research perspectives identified, and we suggest potential avenues for future research.