Digital business model innovation: toward construct clarity and future research directions

In times of unprecedented change related to the ongoing digital transformation of business and society at large, a pressing contemporary management challenge is recognizing and translating these changes into digital business model innovation (DBMI). Academia potentially has much to offer in aiding this managerial challenge, yet research in the field remains vague with regard to what DBMI is. We detect conceptual ambiguity among scholars as a bottleneck that prevents advancements in the field of DBMI research. In this article, we aim to trace the foundation of key attributes of the DBMI concept and propose a novel definition. Our insights are based on a targeted, state-of-the-art literature review of 57 publications. We conclude with an exploration of avenues for future research, which we closely link to the broader fields of strategic management, information systems, and organization studies, thereby exposing the issue of DBMI to a wider audience. Overall, we aim to make a significant step toward construct clarity in DBMI research.