At the Crossroads between Digital Innovation and Digital Transformation

In this paper, we present the report from a professional development workshop (PDW) that addressed questions at the intersection of digital innovation and digital transformation at ICIS 2019 in Munich, Germany. The PDW focused on sharing insights into 1) the current state of research on digital innovation, 2) the current state of research on digital transformation, and 3) the methodological and theoretical challenges in conducting research on digital innovation and/or digital transformation. Accordingly, the PDW featured three keynotes on digital innovation and digital transformation as a basis for interactive roundtable discussions among authors about their ongoing research projects. Across the three keynotes and the roundtable discussions, some common patterns emerged. In particular, reoccurring themes included the challenge of balancing new and old elements of organization and technology in digital innovation and transformation and methodological challenges related to empirical research design and theory choice. In this paper, we synthesize ideas that we developed prior to, during, and after the PDW. We also present some suggestions for future research.