The co-evolutionary relationship between digitalization and organizational agility: Ongoing debates, theoretical developments and future research perspectives

TL;DR

This paper systematically reviews how digitalization influences organizational agility, revealing a complex, bidirectional relationship and identifying key enablers, barriers, and future research directions in this evolving field.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive bibliometric analysis of digitalization and organizational agility, highlighting interconnected themes and proposing new research propositions from a dynamic capabilities perspective.

Findings

Digitalization and OA have a bidirectional relationship.

Big-data analytics are crucial drivers of OA.

Identifies research gaps and future pathways.

Abstract

This study is the first to provide a systematic review of the literature focused on the relationship between digitalization and organizational agility (OA). It applies the bibliographic coupling method to 171 peer-reviewed contributions published by 30 June 2021. It uses the digitalization perspective to investigate the enablers, barriers and benefits of processes aimed at providing firms with the agility required to effectively face increasingly turbulent environments. Three different, though interconnected, thematic clusters are discovered and analysed, respectively focusing on big-data analytic capabilities as crucial drivers of OA, the relationship between digitalization and agility at a supply chain level, and the role of information technology capabilities in improving OA. By adopting a dynamic capabilities perspective, this study overcomes the traditional view, which mainly considers digital capabilities enablers of OA, rather than as possible outcomes. Our findings reveal that, in addition to being complex, the relationship between digitalization and OA has a bidirectional character. This study also identifies extant research gaps and develops 13 original research propositions on possible future research pathways and new managerial solutions.