Collaborate to Innovate: Utilizing Design Patterns Cards for Accelerating the Digital Transformation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

Abstract

As more and more organizations reach the limits of their internal capabilities to deal with the challenges induced by digital transformation, they are increasingly forced to seek external digitalization opportunities. In particular, small and medium enterprises are affected by this due to their limited human and financial resources. Currently, there is a lack of overview of options considering limited internal digital capabilities and resources. Thus, we choose an action design research approach to develop an external digitalization activity navigator. As a result, we derive five design principles for successful navigation and 30 activities, which are presented as design pattern cards. Our work can help practitioners and scholars alike to structure external digitalization activities.

Navigating Digital Transformation: Current Trends in Digital Competencies for Open Innovation in Organizations

“…The bibliometric review method is suitable for addressing the research questions posed because of its ability to quantify the impact and trends of research in a specific field [12,13]. This method allows for a thorough analysis of the literature to identify trends, shifts in research focus, and underexplored areas [14][15][16][17]. Despite the growing literature on digital competencies in open innovation, there is a gap in how these competencies have evolved and how they are integrated in different contexts and sectors [18][19][20][21][22][23][24].…”