Developing a unified definition of digital transformation

• Published in: Technovation Vol. 102; p. 102217
• Main Authors: Gong, Cheng, Ribiere, Vincent
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.04.2021; Elsevier Science Publishers
• ISSN: 0166-4972; 1879-2383
• DOI: 10.1016/j.technovation.2020.102217

Digital Transformation (DT) has become an imperative for most organizations in our world of emergent and continuous changes. The term DT has been so broadly used (and misused) that it becomes very confusing. Consequently, the need to provide some conceptual rigor to DT is urgently needed. The purpose of this article is to develop a unified definition of “digital transformation” based on a vastly rigorous/scientific review and analysis of 134 well-received, published definitions of DT that significantly differentiates from other related terms in the literature. The proposed unified definition will help researchers and practitioners to “advance the theory and practice” of the discipline. •We review 134 digital transformation definitions to provide insights into six core defining primitives of DT.•We identify the linguistic and conceptual clarity to differentiate the concept from other related terms.•We discuss two significant issues (conflation and conceptual stretching) that must be addressed in existing definitions.•We develop a unified definition of digital transformation using an eight-step theoretical approach, analyzing definitions in three levels.•We validate and illustrate the unified definition with empirical examples.