Acceleration of the digital economy as support for sustainable development

Abstract

Leading companies are increasingly using digital technologies to transform their business models with the aim of better solution of social challenges. However, there is not enough management data on whether it is a positive driver influencing innovation for both the economy and society. Research on the digital economy continues to develop but is limited to one country or area. From a bibliometric retrospective review, the paper deals with the current discussion on the alignment between sustainability challenges and innovation procedures based on the digitization of the economy. This study used bibliometric techniques using the VOSViewer program and the search results analysis function of the Springer database. This study analyzed 40,932 scientific documents published from 1841 to 2023. We further investigated the support of digital transformation and sustainability in EU countries by beta convergence and PCA analysis. The results confirm the convergence of EU countries and progress in the implementation of digital technologies in the field of digital transformation of sustainable development. The EU actively supports digital transformation and the Digital Single Market through various initiatives and policies.