Digital Transformation: A Systematic Literature Review from the Theoretical Lenses of the TOE Framework

Abstract

Digital Transformation (DT) is a topic of the digital world that is not stable nor clear, because it is a complex concept of diffuse understanding that remains under discussion. This article aims to analyze the academic literature on this topic, through the theoretical lenses of the technological, organizational, and environmental (TOE) framework, for unveiling the scope of DT in a business context. Through a systematic literature review we found the TOE factors, barriers and drivers involved in DT, and we analyzed the TOE orientation of research in this field. The main results that emerge from this study suggest that most of the research in DT is focused on organizational and technological issues while the environmental factors have received less attention in the analyzed literature. The findings of this research provide a broader view of the TOE factors that mediate in the DT, and they emphasize three actions to give way the DT in a company. Finally, this study provides some elements for a better understanding and conceptualization about this phenomenon. Our results come from a variety of organizational circumstances that have been presented in the selected literature. Even if we did not focus on a single industry, we were able to get some tendencies about the research in DT.

Keywords

• barriers
• digital transformation
• drivers
• systematic literature review
• TOE framework