Illuminating Digital Transformations: A Literature Review to Conceptualize the Impact of Technologies on Human Capital

Abstract

Digitalization exerts a strong influence on society, businesses, and consequently also human labor. Human capital as such is not shielded from the impact of digital technologies anymore but suffers and simultaneously also benefits from newly arising possibilities. Nevertheless, digital innovations and their ever-growing importance are summarized with the concise notions of digitization, digitalization, and digital transformation joint with the obscure and universal conception of digital technologies. These terminologies are neither consistently defined nor uniformly understood. In general, the literature indicates that digitization is concerned with the pure conversion of analog information into digital formats, digitalization describes the usage and adoption of those digital formats, and digital transformation covers the all-embracing process from analog to digital. Digital technologies can be further divided into digital artifacts, digital platforms, and digital infrastructure, which are reflected as digital formats in the process of digital transformation. According to the requirements of nominal and meaningful theory concepts, this paper provides a detailed elaboration of the notions and sub-themes which are mainly enlightened by information systems and business research. Finally, a calculation proposal is presented with human capital as input in relation to the total revenue generated which indicates the measurand of return on time invested, targeting a reduction of human labor input to achieve a value increase. Complemented by a research agenda, the overarching objective of the paper reveals the necessity of profound analysis to quantify the impact of digital transformations on firms and human capital.