Understanding the intrinsic nature of the trends of digital innovation: A main path analysis

Abstract

Digital innovation plays an increasingly important role in an organizational context. During the past two decades, IS scholars have witnessed a rapid growth of research interest in digital innovation. However, its nature and implications are still vague. More specifically, the intrinsic nature of digital innovation is changing with the development of technology and society. The purpose of this article is to examine digital innovation from various perspectives and thus provide potential research directions for future research. This study adopts main path analysis, a citation-based systematic review method, collecting and analyzing 848 digital innovation-related academic articles. It traces the most significant paths and reveals seven popular research themes, including digital innovation management, recombination approach, entrepreneurship, transformation, institution and management control, and data-driven value capture. This study furthers the understanding of digital innovation in the current IS research and presents research opportunities that are valuable for future work.