Innovations and Organizational Resilience 1

THE IMPACT OF THE DIGITALIZATION PHENOMENON ON

MANAGEMENT PRACTICES BEFORE AND AFTER THE COVID-19
PANDEMIC. A LITERATURE REVIEW

Valentin STOICA
National University of Political Studies and Public Administration
30A Expoziției Blvd., District 1, 010324 Bucharest, Romania
[email protected]

Abstract. Digital transformation is a topic that was already having a significant

popularity in organizations in the last decade, with C-level managers understanding that
in order to stay competitive and avoid the disruption happening in many industries they
will have to adapt their businesses and have a more digital approach. The COVID-19
pandemic only accelerated this existing process, not only by forcing organizations to
adopt new digital tools and technologies, but also by changing mindsets and accelerating
processes that would usually take at least a couple of years to happen in an organic
environment. Remote work is only an example of change that happened during the
COVID-19 pandemic and is currently becoming normality for employees and
organizations, although before 2020 one day of remote working each month was a
benefit that only a small part of the organizations was offering. The aim of this paper is
to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on researches about digital
transformation in management practices before and after the COVID-19 pandemic by
using text mining and visual mapping conducted with the help of VOSviewer software. A
change in research topics regarding digital transformation and its implications after the
beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic was observed with the help of a bibliometric
analysis conducted with the help of Web of Science libraries and VOSviewer software.

Keywords: COVID-19; digital transformation; digitalization; management practices;

pandemic;

Introduction

Although the digital transformation literature was already developing at a high rate
before 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic produced a significant increase in the number of
studies published, as one of the major impacts of the restrictions imposed by the
authorities all over the world was the adoption of digital tools on all levels in
organizations. Starting from the premise that in order to explore major information
trends, categories and to identify existing research gaps, relevant and recent literature
was reviewed by doing a literature review on materials published in the Web of
Science libraries and by using VOSviewer in order to analyze and visualize the
similarities and differences in materials published until 2020, after and during the
COVID-19 pandemic. During crises like the COVID-19 pandemic when everything is
happening faster than usual and we are surrounded by an avalanche of information
with research publications already expanding, literature reviews serve a crucial
function (Stanley, 2001, p. 131). The Web of Science database was used in August 2022
2 Strategica 2022

to find materials containing “digital transformation” and/or “COVID-19” as keywords,

returning 7.835 materials.
In Figure 1 is presented the number of published digital transformation materials by
years, indicating that almost 38% of the materials were published in the last two years
(2021 and 2020), equaling the number of materials published in 2014-2019. And
although 2022 is not over, there is already a number of 2.183 materials published,
almost as much as in 2020.

Figure 1 Number of digital transformation materials published in 2014-2021. Source: Web

of Science, August 2022

The research area in which the majority of the materials were published was
Engineering, with almost a quarter of the total published materials. However, the high
number of materials published in research areas related to technology and computer
science can be explained by the fact that digital transformation has a strong
technological component as being driven and focused on digital tools. The level of
interest for this subject in business is proven by the number of materials published in
research areas related to management (898 materials published, 6% of the total) and
business (675 materials published, 4.5% of the total).

Figure 2 Number of digital transformation materials published by categories in 2014-2021.

Source: Web of Science, August 2022
Management, Organisations & People 3

However, restricting the publishing years to 2020, 2021 and first half of 2022, the
percent of digital transformation materials published in management and business
research areas increases significantly, to 18.5% of the total published digital
transformation materials, showing high interest on this topic after the beginning and
during the COVID-19 pandemic. This can be explained by the increased number of
organizations and individuals that have found solutions with a significant digital
component during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to cope with the new challenges
imposed by the authorities all over the world.

Figure 3 Number of digital transformation materials published by categories in 2021, 2022

and first half of 2022. Source: Web of Science, August 2022

Literature review

Due to its impact on individual behavior and needs, digitalization is transforming

existing and enables new processes, intra- and inter-company collaboration and new
forms of automation (Kerpedzhiev et al, 2021, p. 83). During the period of the COVID-
19 crisis, dynamic capabilities in organization performance have been found to be the
key for proper responses (Lin, 2014, p. 410) (Linnenluecke, 2017, p. 19). In 2020, due
to the COVID-19 pandemic, various digital technologies have been adopted by
companies in response to the need of social distancing and as an alternative to “the
new normal”, even if they were available on a large scale in the pre-pandemic period.
For instance, traditional education organizations all over the world had to adopt
electronic learning as it was the only possible way of continuing their activities during
the lockdown, but this technology was available long time before it was adopted.
However, recent studies have shown that the COVID-19 pandemic produced some
changes in the student’s behavior, a mix of tangible and digital resources, ideally
interchangeable, are needed, considering the specific preferences found between
female and male students and between bachelor’s and master’s students (Hargitai,
Pînzaru, & Veres, 2021, p. 11). The term used to describe the development of favorable
conditions for a historically unprecedent phenomenon is “disruption”, or revolutionary
transformation (Ganichev & Koshovets, 2021, p. 11). This process is happening with
the forced “manual” transfer of daily activities of individuals and organizations to a
4 Strategica 2022

new digital society. This is also important as the human kind has to develop the ability
to prepare solutions for the inevitable shocks and disruptions that confront the
economy and society. One has a lot of recent examples in order to understand how
important this process is, the 2008 global financial crisis and the recent COVID-19
pandemic being only the tip of the ice-berg (Ra et al, 2021, p. 19). And although a lot of
effort was put since the start of the new millennium into the process of going towards
a more digital economy with all its implications, it was not until recently that the entire
world faced the need of this change more than ever, with the COVID-19 outburst
resulting in massive disruptions to businesses from nearly every industry sector and
impacting day-to-day activities of the entire population across the globe. The solution
was found in technology, as the digitalization of business processes, online meetings
and remote working proved to be the natural choice when lockdown measures were
taken. And although the larger impact of these changes is far from being completely
measured and analyzed, evidence shows that the accelerated process of digitalization
actually increased productivity, reduced asset ratios and produced an increase in the
demand for training, as new technologies had to be learned by employees (Ra et al,
2021, p. 237).

Digitization, digitalization and digital transformation

In order to have a clear definition of this term, it is important to also define digitization
and digitalization. Digitization is defined as being the process of taking analog
information and changing it to digital form, without adding significant changes to its
essence (Gartner's IT Glossary). The best example for this definition is the process of
taking handwritten text and converting it into digital form by typing it using a digital
keyboard connected to another device. The main characteristic of this term is that it
defines the digitization of information, not the process. That’s why, according to
Gartner’s Glossary, digitalization is defined as „the process of moving to a digital
business”, by using digital technologies to change a business model and provide new
revenue and value-producing opportunities (Gartner's IT Glossary, n.d.). And although
many other definitions imply that digitalization has an impact only in social
interactions or in business models, according to the report Digitalization and American
Workforce by Mark Muro, digitalization is “the process of employing digital
technologies and information to transform business operations” (Muro et al, 2017, p.
5). By buying and implementing “digital technologies”, organizations also have to deal
with a change in people’s jobs and that’s the reason that automatization is a key
element in the digitalization story (Tacke & Ehrhardt, 2017). Last but not least, digital
transformation, unlike digitalization, it’s not something that can be implemented as a
project in an organization, but refers to the customer-driven strategic business
transformation that requires cross-cutting organizational change as well as the
implementation of digital technologies (Bloomberg, 2018). That’s why the whole
process of digital transformation will often include multiple digitalization projects,
requiring the organizations to make changes to their core competency, becoming
customer-driven end-to-end. In conclusion, digitization applies to information,
digitalization to processes and roles that make up the operations of a business that can
be digitally transformed together with its strategy. And while digitization and
digitalization are mostly about technology, digital transformation is about customers.

COVID-19 pandemic
Started as an epidemic in mainland China in February 2020, the Coronavirus Disease
2019 (COVID-19) was declared as pandemic by the World Health Organization on
Management, Organisations & People 5

March 11th, 2020 and sooner than we would ever imagine it changed the world as we
knew (World Health Organization, 2020). Our lives were paused, businesses were shut
and economies were put at risk by an invisible enemy. Currently the world is
struggling, with public health strategies, fiscal and monetary support, the speed of
vaccine rollout and the importance of hard-hit sectors making the difference between
countries, but the prospects for the world economy have brightened (OECD, 2021). It is
expected that the global output will rise by 6% in 2022, after a 3.5% contraction in
2020, but this won’t be enough to match the pre-pandemic growth path, with many
OECD countries having the living standards below the level expected before the
pandemic. However, due to swift policy actions, after sixteen months into the
pandemic, almost 2 billion vaccine doses were administered, paving the way for the
health and economic recovery. With the world economy slowly returning to pre-
pandemic activity levels, the Global GDP was projected to rise by 5.75% in 2021 and
close to 4.5% in 2022 (OECD, 2021). Although, as of today, countries across the globe
began to gradually ease the restrictions, we are still relying on digital technologies in
order to keep our activity close to pre-pandemic levels. And although the general
perception may be that employees are eager to return to the office, almost one in two
workers in UK is willing to take a pay cut to continue working from home in the long
term (OWL Labs, 2020).

Management practices
Defined as the working methods and innovations that managers use to improve the
effectiveness of work systems or as an entity of instruments to support
implementation of concepts and ideas at all levels of conceptualization a realization of
concepts, ultimately aiming to support organizational processes, management
practices are tightly related to the concept of digital transformation in organizations
and are constantly adapting. Nowadays, in order to be aligned with the contemporary
business environment, organizations use a plethora of different management practices
in order to support their operations (Nedelko & Potočan, 2015, p. 2).
With digitalization, globalization, unexpected crises and shortage of resources being
more and more present in our reality, organizations have to assess their impact and
prepare themselves for the future. Technology and people are the two determinant
factors that are impacting the fundamentals of organizational behavior and pushing
them towards changes that can maintain or extend their position in the market. But
among these two factors there are others, both external and internal, that are
determining the need of a complex and complete digital transformation process in
organizations in order to remain competitive and adapt to the new digital economy.
With customers being more and more tech-savvy and the concept of early-adopter
being an asset that can easily describe someone, organizations have to know their
customers and what they do in terms of digital tools. Additionally, beyond
customization, which implies a restriction in the customer’s role and involves making
suggestions for incremental changes to an almost complete prototype, co-creation has
become the new way of developing goods or services by involving the customer as an
active collaborator right from the beginning of the innovation process (Kristensson et
al, 2008, p. 475). Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations had to
deal with a large number of new requests coming from customers that were also
dealing with a new reality generated by the restrictions imposed by the public
authorities. Many of these requests had solutions that involved significant digital
development both in terms of hardware and knowledge and changed day-to-day
activities for an unlimited period of time.
6 Strategica 2022

With disruptive technologies creating growth through the introduction of products or

services that are dramatically better, cheaper and more convenient, organizations have
to deal with a new wave of technologically unsophisticated individuals or smaller
organizations entering and becoming competitive in the industrial workforce, forcing
them to change their operations or processes significantly. If during normal times
some industries were less affected by disruptive technologies than others, during the
COVID-19 pandemic almost all domains faced a new challenge and had to adapt by
developing new internal virtual processes before developing user workflows in order
to keep customers close to the business and assuring the level of satisfaction as high as
possible during crises. For example, restaurants had to adapt and find new ways to
deliver their products to the customers during lockdowns, boosting the food delivery
apps and forcing other businesses to develop their own delivery services in order to
stay competitive.
Reputation is another important external factor that organizations have to deal with
during crisis, with corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities also being a priority
for organizations and the COVID-19 pandemic leading to a sharp increase in
governments’ and market participants’ attention to CSR considerations (Bae et al,
2021). And with the latest advances in digital technologies and the new way of doing
things during crises that impose restrictions and lockdowns, the utilization of social
media and other digital communication channels for marketing, promotion of
products, CSR practices and stakeholder engagement gave organizations a boost in
terms of reputation and allowed them to maintain the customers’ satisfaction close to
normal. But this involved a high level of understanding the customers’ needs and how
to respond in a proper way using digital tools as a leverage. Mainly this first implied an
internal process of developing the employees’ digital skills before they could further
develop new digital strategies for customers (Troise & Camilleri, 2021).
Privacy and personal data protection of users has lately become a priority for
governments and organizations. With the adoption of the new European regulation,
known as GDPR on 25 May 2018, personal data was defined as any information related
to a person who can be identified directly or indirectly with specific factors for
personal, physical, digital, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social
identity (intersoft consulting). Organizations had therefore to walk through a new
process of carefully handling customers’ data and complying with the new regulations
for users coming from Europe, with other resembling regulations being gradually
implemented in America or Australia (Romansky, 2019). New technologies like cloud
computing, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data Analysis creates new opportunities for
collaboration, remote storing data, smart application and processing very large data
but also create problems for the privacy. This domain being mostly regulated by local
authorities means that organizations have little to no space to develop new processes
and they have to adhere to existing regulations. During the COVID-19 pandemic
everything happened faster than usual, meaning that for organizations it was harder to
maintain the quality of processes while also keeping them in line with other
regulations regarding privacy and data control.
As digital transformation is seen as an adaptation of business models, resulting from
the dynamic pace of technological progress and innovation that trigger changes in
consumer and social behaviors, it has to benefit from support of the board
management and the C-suite. With information technology (IT) becoming a strategic
differentiation for many established firms over the last decades (Bassellier, 2004) two
new roles were gaining importance: Chief Information Officer and Chief Digital Officer.
With competitive differentiation in the market through IT has become a critical C-level
Management, Organisations & People 7

topic, the role of the CIO has also changed and became more and more important and
associated with evolution, pressure, complexity and tension (Haffke et al, 2016).
Beginning as a data processing manager (Martin, 1982) the CIO role is currently
dealing with ambiguity, but is also starting to be seen as more valuable and as a
business manager than a technical manager (Chun & Mooney, 2009).

Methodology

In order to assemble a general image of the digital transformation materials written,

VOSviewer (version 1.6.18) was used to generate multiple maps based on bibliometric
data for materials indexed in the Web of Science database. Keywords „digital
transformation” and „COVID-19” were used for advanced searches, the results being
refined in order to select only materials written in English that were indexed in the
Business and Management categories.

Results and discussion

For a better understanding of how the COVID-19 affected management practices, an

analysis based on the direct comparison of digital transformation materials published
before and after the beginning of the pandemic (March 2020) was developed. Using
„digital transformation” as a keyword in Web of Science and selecting only the
materials published before 2020 in English, indexed in the Business and Management
categories, generated 377 results. The total number of keywords was 260, with 37 of
the keywords meeting the criteria of having at least 2 co-occurrences. If the condition
of having minimum 3 occurrences was selected, the number of keywords meeting the
criteria was significantly lower, down to 16, divided into 4 clusters. The final results
had 65 links with a total length strength of 37.

Figure 4 Map of digital transformation literature until 2020 with at least 3 co-occurences.
Author’s own research results
8 Strategica 2022

“Digital transformation” keyword has 15 links with other keywords. In its own cluster
the strongest link is with „strategy” – 1.98. In order clusters the strongest links are
with „innovation” – 2.67, „impact” – 1.33 and „industry 4.0” – 1.50.
Narrowing the results of the search using „digital transformation” as a keyword and
selecting only the materials published from 2020 to 2022 (first six months) generates
451 results, 74 more than the materials published before 2020, showing an increased
interest over this subject since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The total
number of keywords was 293, with 46 of the keywords meeting the criteria of having
at least 2 co-occurrences. If the condition of having minimum 3 occurrences was
selected, the number of keywords meeting the criteria halved, to 23, divided into 4
clusters, as seen in Figure 5. The final results had 137 links with a total length strength
of 72.50.

Figure 5 Map of digital transformation literature since 2020 with at least 3 co-occurences.
Author’s own research results

Reducing the number of minimum co-occurrences to 5 generates a map with 14

keywords, 4 clusters and a total link strength of 57.50. „Digital transformation”
keyword has 41 occurrences, links with all the other keywords and a total link strength
of 31. For digital transformation materials published after the beginning of the COVID-
19 pandemic there is a strong link between „digital transformation” and „innovation”
keywords – 5.07. „Strategy” is also strongly linked with „digital transformation”, having
a link strength of 3.13. „Knowledge” is a keyword directly linked to „digital
transformation” that has enough co-occurrences for materials written after 2020 in
order to be displayed on the map. This is also in line with the literature showing that
among the most successful organizations are those that can be considered as
knowledge-based ones, issue addressed more and more since the beginning of the
COVID-19 pandemic (Zbuchea, Ivan, Petropoulos, & Pînzaru, 2019). So is big data,
knowledge, entrepreneurship, and dynamic capabilities, showing the topics that were
most popular during the crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic and confirming
what has been underlined in the chapter dedicated to the literature review.
Management, Organisations & People 9

Figure 6 Map of digital transformation literature since 2020 with at least 5 co-occurences.
Author’s own research results

A search on Web of Science using „digital transformation” and „COVID-19” keywords

generated 854 materials, published since 2020. The majority of the articles were
published in Business and Management areas, a percent of 21% of the total.

Figure 7 Digital transformation and COVID-19 materials published by research area.

Author's own research result

In total there were 3.661 keywords from which 195 met the condition of having at
least 5 co-occurrences. In order to simplify the visualization, the number of minimum
10 Strategica
2022
co-occurrences was increased to 20, resulting 32 keywords and 6 clusters as shown in
Figure 8.

Figure 8 Map of digital transformation and COVID-19 literature since 2020 with at least 20
co-occurences. Author’s own research results

There were 5 important areas where digital transformation and COVID-19 materials
were published since the beginning of the pandemic: education, health, resilience, big
data and artificial intelligence, all of them connected and generating a total link
strength of 670. An important mention goes to “social media” keyword, being directly
linked to “COVID-19” and “digital transformation”, as seen also in the chapter
dedicated to the Literature review for being a very common solution adopted by
organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to keep in touch with their
customers.
When looking at each cluster separately one can observe the characteristics defining
that area, as following: in Cluster 2 (green) the focus is on digital technologies as a
solution for generating frameworks in order to develop the resilience of an
organization in order to support the transformation process during crisis. Cluster 3
(dark blue) has only 3 keywords: coronavirus, health and information, showing that
the focus was on keeping individuals updated by providing relevant information
regarding health issues. Cluster 4 (yellow) also has 3 keywords: adoption, information-
technology and model, while Cluster 5 (purple) is related to education and online
learning and Cluster 6 (light blue) focuses on big data.

Conclusions

Literature review together with the bibliometric analysis shows the change of focus in
research on digital transformation materials since the beginning of the COVID-19
pandemic, with an increase of the number of materials published in Business and
Management areas. Some keywords were also observed to be more recent and more
popular since 2020, with big data, knowledge, entrepreneurship, and dynamic
Management, Organisations & People 11

capabilities being directly linked with digital transformation. As the materials

published and the research is still ongoing further research in order to assess the
changes produced by the COVID-19 pandemic in the literature researching the impact
of digital transformation has to be done.
12 Strategica
2022

References

Bae et al, K.-H. (2021). Does CSR Matter in Times of Crisis? Evidence from the COVID-
19 Pandemic. Journal of Corporate Finance.

Bassellier, G. B. (2004). Business Competence of Information Technology Professionals:

Conceptual Development and Influence on IT-Business Partnerships. MIS Quarterly,
673-694.

Bloomberg, J. (2018, April 29). Digitization, Digitalization, And Digital Transformation:

Confuse Them At Your Peril. Retrieved from forbes.com:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2018/04/29/digitization-
digitalization-and-digital-transformation-confuse-them-at-your-peril/#78e677fd2f2c

Chun, M., & Mooney, J. (2009). CIO Roles and Responsibilities: Twenty-five Years of
Evolution and Change. Information and Management, 323-334.

Ganichev, N., & Koshovets, O. (2021, June 9). Forcing the Digital Economy: How will the
Structure. Studies on Russian Economic Development, pp. 11-22.

Gartner's IT Glossary. (n.d.). Digitalization. Retrieved from Gartner's Glossary:

https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/glossary/digitalization

Gartner's IT Glossary. (n.d.). Digitization. Retrieved from Gartner Glossary:

https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/glossary/digitization

Haffke et al, I. (2016). The Role of the CIO and the CDO in an Organization's Digital
Transformation. Thirty Seventh International Conference on Information Systems.
Dublin.

Hargitai, D., Pînzaru, F., & Veres, Z. (2021). Integrating Business Students’ E-Learning
Preferences into Knowledge Management of Universities after the COVID-19 Pandemic.
sustainability, 13(5). doi:https://doi.org/10.3390/su13052478

intersoft consulting. (n.d.). General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Retrieved from
GDPR - Definitions: https://gdpr-info.eu/art-4-gdpr/

Kerpedzhiev et al, G. D. (2021). An Exploration into Future Business Process

Management Capabilities in View of Digitalization. Business and Information Systems
Engineering, 83-96.

Kristensson et al, P. (2008). Key Strategies for the Successful Involvement of Customers
in the Co-Creation of New Technology-Based Services. International Journal of Service
Industry Management, 474-491.

Lin, Y. &. (2014). Exploring the role of dynamic capabilities in firm performance under
the resource-based view framework. Journal of Business Research, 407-413.
Management, Organisations & People 13

Linnenluecke, M. K. (2017). Resilience in business and management research: A review

of influential publications and a research agenda. International Journal of Management
Reviews, 4-30.

Martin, E. (1982). Critical Success Factors of Chief MIS/DP Executives. MIS Quarterly, 1-
9.

Muro et al, M. (2017). Digitalization and The American Workforce. Washington D.C.:
Metropolitan Policy Program.

Nedelko, Z., & Potočan, V. (2015). Management Practices Utilization in Organizations -

A comparison between catching-up and well-developed economies. Journal of
Contemporary Management Issues, 1-20.

OECD. (2021). OECD Economic Outlook, Volume 2021 Issue 1: Preliminary version.
OWL Labs. (2020). UK State of Remote Work. Boston: OWL Labs.

Ra et al, S. (2021). Powering a Learning Society During an Age of Disruption. Tasmania:

RMIT University.

Romansky, R. (2019). A Survey of Informatization and Privacy in the Digital Age and
Basic Principles of the New Regulation. International Journal on Information
Technologies & Security, 95-106.

Stanley, T. (2001). Wheat From Chaff: Meta-analysis As Quantitative Literature Review.

Journal of Economic Perspectives - Volume 15, Number 3, 131-150.

Tacke, G., & Ehrhardt, A. (2017, June 27). The 5 Myths of Digitalization. Retrieved from
Simon-Kucher & Partners: https://www.simon-kucher.com/en/blog/5-myths-
digitalization

Troise, C., & Camilleri, M. A. (2021). The Use of Digital Media for Marketing, CSR
Communication and Stakeholder Engagement. In Strategic Corporate Communication
in the Digital Age (pp. 161-174). Emerald.

World Health Organization. (2020, March 12). Retrieved from

https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-
at-the-mission-briefing-on-covid-19

Zbuchea, A., Ivan, L., Petropoulos, S., & Pînzaru, F. (2019). Knowledge sharing in NGOs:
the importance of the human dimension. Kybernetes, 49(1), 182-199. doi:
https://doi.org/10.1108/K-04-2019-0260