Reviewing Literature on Digitalization, Business Model Innovation, and Sustainable Industry: Past Achievements and Future Promises

TLDR

Digitalization transforms industrial value chains through IoT, data exchange, and predictive analytics, yet technology alone is insufficient; successful adoption requires business model innovation, particularly in value creation, delivery, and capture, to drive sustainable industry initiatives. The editorial aims to review and synthesize emerging research on how industrial firms can leverage digitalization to transform business models for sustainability benefits. The authors conduct a literature review and synthesize special issue contributions to map the emerging research field. They develop a framework linking digitalization, business model innovation, and sustainability to guide future research in industrial settings.

Abstract

Digitalization is revolutionizing the way business is conducted within industrial value chains through the use of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, intensive data exchange and predictive analytics. However, technological application on its own is not enough; profiting from digitalization requires business model innovation such as making the transition to advanced service business models. Yet, many research gaps remain in analyzing how industrial companies can leverage digitalization to transform their business models to achieve sustainability benefits. Specifically, challenges related to value creation, value delivery, and value capture components of business model innovation need further understanding as well as how alignment of these components drive sustainable industry initiatives. Thus, this special issue editorial attempts to take stock of the emerging research field through a literature review and providing a synthesis of special issue contributions. In doing so, we contribute by developing a framework that communicates and sets the direction for future research by linking digitalization, business model innovation, and sustainability in industrial settings.