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The research group for studies in democracy, power and citizenship (DEM)

Digital transformation: a silver bullet for Swedish firms' growth and internationalization?

This research project aims to answer the following research question: What are the consequences of digital transformation for Swedish firms in terms of their innovativeness, operational efficiency and international growth.

Project manager at MDU

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Digitalization has been argued to fuel a revolutionizing change in how firms create and deliver value-added activities on a local and global scale. However, actual costs and benefits of digitalization and paltformization is underresearched from an empirical perspective. Therefore, there is a lack of evidence that digitalization is indeed the inevitable ‘next big thing’ that should be pursued by both new and established business firms. Furthermore, current literature have not paid sufficient attention to the multidimensional and complex nature of the phenomenon.

Based on the above, this research project aims to answer the following research question:

What are the consequences of digital transformation for Swedish firms in terms of their innovativeness, operational efficiency and international growth?

In order to answer this question, this project will adopt an exploratory approach to understand what digitalization means for Swedish firms and investigate the different ways they respond to digital technologies. In order to fully comprehend the implications of digitalization, we will combine this exploratory study with the development of a scale to measure different dimensions of the digitalization-concept.

The exploratory study will be based on in-depth qualitative data collected from 5 cases of Swedish internationalizing firms operating in the Mälardalen region. To develop a novel digitalization scale, we will combine earlier research about digitalization measures with new input from the qualitative data collection. Using this material, a survey will be developed that can contribute with new theoretical/conceptual insights about digital transformation processes.

As a part of this project, we also plan to organize a small research workshop and invite digitalization and scholars from Sweden as well as other countries.


Project objectives

In this project, we aim to shed light on several important issues such as:

  1. Areas and value chain activities where adoption and use of digital technologies can create advantages and disadvantages.
  2. The kind and degree of digital transformation that can contribute to the competitiveness of Swedish firms in global markets.
  3. Types of skills and capabilities required by Swedish firms to make the most out of emerging digitalization trends.
  4. Implications that could help policy makers decide on which sectors digitalization efforts should be prioritized.