TY - JOUR
T1 - Rethinking the digital transformation in knowledge-intensive services: A technology space analysis
AU - van Meeteren, Michiel
AU - Trincado-Munoz, Francisco
AU - Rubin, Tzameret H.
AU - Vorley, Tim
N1 - Funding Information:
This paper was funded through the following grants. The UK's Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC): Innovating Next Generation Services Through Collaborative Design (Project ES/S010475/1) and Technology Driven Next Generation Insurance (TECHNGI) (Project ES/S010416/1)
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s)
PY - 2022/6
Y1 - 2022/6
N2 - The world is in the midst of a digital transformation. An intensified prevalence and use of digital technologies is fundamentally changing organizations and economies. However, the notion of 'digital transformation' is both theoretically and empirically underspecified. This paper rethinks the digital transformation narrative theoretically by embedding the concept in concurrent debates about technological revolutions and neo-Schumpeterian innovation theory. Empirically, the paper specifies the digital transformation by analysing the technological composition of key start-up and scale-up companies in the knowledge-intensive services sector. Undertaking a technology space analysis of 40,754 start-up and scale-up companies derived from the near real-time Dealroom.co database, we analyse which technologies and application domains are currently converging, distilling of key elements of the digital transformation. The paper concludes that the transmission of digital technologies is often indirect through ‘key enabling technology clusters’ that connect the technological vanguard to application domains.
AB - The world is in the midst of a digital transformation. An intensified prevalence and use of digital technologies is fundamentally changing organizations and economies. However, the notion of 'digital transformation' is both theoretically and empirically underspecified. This paper rethinks the digital transformation narrative theoretically by embedding the concept in concurrent debates about technological revolutions and neo-Schumpeterian innovation theory. Empirically, the paper specifies the digital transformation by analysing the technological composition of key start-up and scale-up companies in the knowledge-intensive services sector. Undertaking a technology space analysis of 40,754 start-up and scale-up companies derived from the near real-time Dealroom.co database, we analyse which technologies and application domains are currently converging, distilling of key elements of the digital transformation. The paper concludes that the transmission of digital technologies is often indirect through ‘key enabling technology clusters’ that connect the technological vanguard to application domains.
KW - Digital Transformation
KW - Technology Space
KW - Start-ups
KW - Technological Revolution
KW - Sector Coalescence
KW - Social Network Analysis
KW - Near Real-time Data
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85127337040&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121631
DO - 10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121631
M3 - Article
SN - 0040-1625
VL - 179
SP - 1
EP - 14
JO - Technological Forecasting and Social Change
JF - Technological Forecasting and Social Change
M1 - 121631
ER -