Dijital Dönüşüm’ün Son On Yılı: Web of Science’de Taranan Çalışmaların Bibliyometrik Analizi
Künye
Baysal, C. (2023). Dijital Dönüşüm'ün Son On Yılı: Web of Science'de Taranan Çalışmaların Bibliyometrik Analizi. Turkish Studies-Economics, Finance, Politics, 18(1).Özet
Abstract: With technological advances, companies have had to change their business models and adapt to
new technologies in order to maintain their competitive advantage and protect themselves from the
destructive effects of technology. This situation has emerged as a "digital transformation" phenomenon in the
discipline of business and management and has attracted intense attention by both researchers and
practitioners. The aim of this research is to examine the articles on "digital transformation" in terms of
different parameters. In order to achieve this aim, publications with articles between 2011 and 2021 were
filtered and included in the research. While scanning, attention was paid to include the keyword "digital
transformation" in the title, keyword and abstract, and that the obtained data set reflects the content in the
context of digitalization. As a result of the search, 3,000 articles on "digital transformation" between 2011
and 2021 were included in the analysis. In the study, secondary data obtained through document review were
used and the study was analyzed by bibliometric analysis method, one of the qualitative research methods.
The journal in which the most articles on the subject were published and the most cited was the journal
"Sustainability". The most cited author in terms of the number of citations on the subject was Thomas Hess
1083), while the most productive author in terms of the number of documents was Clair Sullivan (13). The
university and country that published the highest number of documents were “Politecnico di Milano” and
Germany, respectively. The study is important in terms of showing the current situation and trends in the
literature on digital transformation and informing researchers.
Structured Abstract: A digital transformation is on the agenda, which emerged with the concept of Industry
4.0, which expresses the fourth Industrial Revolution we are in, and which affects both economic areas and
public and social areas as well as personal lives (Klein, 2019; Schwab, 2017). In particular, in an economic
environment where the permeability of commercial borders increases by becoming virtual and where
competition is experienced at a global level, businesses need to follow technological developments closely
and make the necessary transformations in order to compete with their competitors and maintain their
existence. It is seen that this transformation is expressed as "digital transformation" as a concept in today's
technology world, where the philosophy of industry 4.0 has begun to be discussed (Çark, 2020). “Digital
transformation” refers to digitization and its economic and social impacts. Digitization is the conversion of
analog data and processes into a machine-readable format. Digitization is the use of digital technologies and
data, as well as the resulting changes in new or existing activities (OECD, 2018).
In the digital transformation process, the use of information and information technologies in almost
all areas of our lives such as production, marketing, education, health, media, retail, logistics has shifted the
attention of researchers and academics to this direction, and many studies have been carried out on digital
transformation. Considering that the evaluation of scientific research has become an increasingly important
need, the lack of bibliometric studies on the subject draws attention. Bibliometrics is a research method that
includes techniques based on the measurement of features related to documents. Bibliometric analysis; it is
based on analyzing the obtained documents or articles according to certain characteristics and revealing the
findings. Studies specific to a particular field or studies published in a specific journal are examined
according to different parameters and provide the presentation of findings according to these parameters.
These findings may include data such as keywords, number of authors, citations and research topics.
The aim of this study is to make a bibliometric analysis of the articles scanned in web of science in
the last ten years. In this context, filtering was done by using the keyword "digital transformation" from the
WoS database on 20.06.2020 and the articles published between 2011-2021 were subjected to content
analysis. The VOSviewer package program was used to reveal the mapping of keyword network, citation
network, co-citation network, co-authorship (country and institution cooperation) analyzes in the obtained
data.
When examined in terms of the journal in which digital transformation studies were published, it
was determined that the journal "Sustainability" was the leading journal in this field with 145 publications
and 1281 citations. It can be said that this situation is due to the policy of the magazine that focuses on
publications on digital transformation. When we look at the joint citation analysis at the journal level,
“Technological Forecasting and Social Change”, “Strategic Management Journal”, “Organization Science”,
“Journal of Business Research” are among the prominent journals. When we look at the most frequently used
keywords in articles on digital transformation, it is seen that keywords such as “Digital Transformation”,
“Digitalization”, “Industry 4.0”, “Covid-19”, “Digital Economy”, “Big Data” are used frequently. In the cooccurrence map of the keywords, “Digitalization”, “Management”, “Strategy”, “Digital İnnovation”,
“Dynamic Capabilities”, “Sustainability”, “Covid-19”, “Pandemic”, “Digital Skills”, “E-Goverment”, “ELearning”, “Artifical Intelligence”, “Big Data”, “Industry 4.0”, “Smart Manufacturing”, “Cybersecurity”
keywords are included. This supports the conclusion that the concept of digital transformation is associated
with these keywords. The frequency of studies dealing with Covid-19 and digital transformation together
shows that digital transformation has been intensively researched during the pandemic process. In terms of
productivity, “Clair Sullivan” ranks first with 13 documents, while “Thomas Hess” ranks first in terms of
number of citations. The Politecnico di Milano (30 documents, 545 citations) is the most productive, while
Germany (402 documents, 5421 citations) is the most productive.
The research includes articles published between 2011-2021. The exclusion of conference titles and
book titles constitutes the limitation of the study, since it is aimed to examine only the articles within the
scope of the research. In addition, this research is limited to topics that include a topic related to digital
transformation. All additional works related to digital transformation but not explicitly mentioned in the
document were likewise excluded. Analyzing the study with data from the Web of Science database is
another limitation. This study provides a general evaluation opportunity on digital transformation and
provides a preliminary preparation opportunity for researchers in the study. Researchers can examine
different databases and compare the results of this study. They may reach conclusions that either support or
reject the asserted findings.