Paper: arXiv 2412.19817

Authors: Ping Zhang, Yiru Wang

Abstract

Digital transformation significantly impacts firm investment, financing, and value enhancement. A systematic investigation from the corporate finance perspective has not yet been formed. This paper combines bibliometric and content analysis methods to systematically review the evolutionary trend, status quo, hotspots and overall structure of research in digital transformation from 2011 to 2024. The study reveals an emerging and rapidly growing focus on digital transformation research, particularly in developed countries. We categorize the literature into three areas according to bibliometric clustering: the measurements (qualitative and quantitative), impact factors (internal and external), and the economic consequences (investment, financing, and firm value). These areas are divided into ten sub-branches, with a detailed literature review. We also review the existing theories related to digital transformation, identify the current gaps in these papers, and provide directions for future research on each sub-branches.

Complexity vs Empirical Score

  • Math Complexity: 1.5/10
  • Empirical Rigor: 4.5/10
  • Quadrant: Philosophers — conceptual discussion, limited math and data

Why this score: This paper is a qualitative and bibliometric literature review synthesizing corporate finance research on digital transformation without introducing new mathematical models or empirical econometric testing. It excels in clarity and systematic thoroughness, offering a well-organized categorization of existing literature, though its direct quantitative rigor and methodology novelty are limited by design.

Research Flowchart

  flowchart TD
    A["Research Goal: Systematically review Digital Transformation from a Corporate Finance perspective (2011-2024)"] --> B["Data Collection: Literature corpus from 2011 to 2024"]
    B --> C["Methodology: Combined Bibliometric Analysis & Content Analysis"]
    C --> D["Computational Clustering & Analysis"]
    D --> E["Findings: 3 Main Categories & 10 Sub-branches<br/>(Measurements, Impact Factors, Economic Consequences)"]
    E --> F["Outcomes: Identified Research Gaps & Proposed Future Research Directions"]

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0 of 139 cited works are in the corpus; resolved via arXiv source bundles, Semantic Scholar and OpenAlex. Corpus-wide: 2518 linked papers.