Digital Transformation and IT: Current State of Research

Information Systems (IS) have never been more important as digital technologies are essential for business model innovation by developing new digital products and services. Digital transformation not only affects business, but also IT. While digital transformation and digital technologies are well established research areas, the implications of digital transformation on IT are rarely in focus. Taking this topic as a reference, the paper contributes to general IS research by assessing to which extent digital innovation is already subject to mainstream IS research. A bibliometric study analyzing all 2,833 articles published in the AIS Senior Scholars’ 'basket' of eight leading IS journals between 2007 and 2016 reveals that a mere 0.2% address the impact of digital transformation on IT while 2.3% cover topics of digital transformation, innovation, or digital technologies. In contrast to previous work, this study finds that digital innovation research is already present in primarily high-ranked IS journals.