Meta-Analysis of Digital Transformation in Organisations

Abstract: The ongoing surge in internet users worldwide and its complexity causes organisations to digitally transform to stay competitive. Previous research repeatedly emphasised the importance of digital transformation, but the authors see a gap in the literature regarding digital transformation. General change management models have been around, but a more focused framework for digital transformation is hard to find, aside from the solutions offered by consultancy companies. Even the frameworks available have a sole focus on a specific organisational case (Gimpel et al. 2018). On the other hand, the more generalised literature focuses on particular aspects of digital transformation. For instance, Verina & Titko (2019) offer a transformation framework circling the drivers of digital transformation. The authors identified a distinct lack of available literature that can be generalised to all industries of different scales. This research aims to conduct a retrospective analysis of the organisations that have undergone digital transformation using the meta-analysis method. Based on the findings from these cases, the authors have attempted to develop a framework for entrepreneurs, management board executives, change managers, consultants, and researchers to better understand the digital transformation process. We aim to answer two research questions: What similarities and differences were observed in organisations that underwent digital transformation in the past? And What steps can organisations take to undergo digital transformation? Elicited from these criteria, we conducted a meta-analysis on a diverse group of organisations (in terms of industry, location and scale) that have undergone digital transformation in the past. This was done to identify common traits visible in all the organisational change projects based on the research. All these observations were tabulated and then compared across organisations to determine the undercurrent of commonalities. These common trends were utilised to develop an initial framework. After which, all the existing cases were re-evaluated to test this hypothesis. This meta-analytic study was employed to establish the framework for Digital Transformation. On a closing note, the authors tried to discuss the implementation of the framework and the scope of future research. The authors expect that the framework will be helpful for entrepreneurs, managers, and executives looking to undertake a large-scale digital transformation in their organisations.