Resumo

In recent years, a new type of innovation has emerged, the so-called digital innovation (DI). This type of innovation, which initially was closely related to the engineering area, is now perceived in different contexts inside and outside companies. This innovation affects business models, customer behavior, and productivity, etc.

The purpose of this article is to present a bibliometric overview on a global scale on digital innovation. This study differs from other studies by, namely: 1) providing a current analysis, given the exponential growth of publications on DI; 2) identify a set of elements that can lead to a better understanding of the evolution of this research field, given the broad scope of the chosen period, the geographic scope and the tool used (VOSviewer software); 3) identify the stages of MI, being a predictive and a reactive stage.

When analyzing the evolution of the DI concept, it was identified that the term was more related to technology in the first studies, with DI associated with the efficient transmission of information and data. It was only after the study by Lerer and Piper (2003) that the term expanded its scope, incorporating that economic and business dimension, although still without a more consolidated definition. In the field of social sciences, the concept of DI refers to the combined arrangement of new products, new processes, new services, new platforms or new business models (Nambisan et al., 2017).

In the initial phase, research was more focused on the technological aspects of implementation than on the benefits of implementing DI. In other words, the research initially had a reactive character. Over time, research began to converge on guidelines for the use of DI as a strategy for organizations and for entrepreneurship, assuming a predictive character. From the analysis of documents and authors, we identified the five theoretical bases and each of these theoretical bases together support current lines of research, albeit in different proportions.

In this study, we identified that DI for organizations is related to the fact that it is a strategy of sustainability and competitive advantage in the digital environment. Organizations that want to maintain competitive advantage positions need to invest in their digital capabilities, as the literature suggests that, in the current environment, it is not enough to respond to digital needs (be reactive) and it is vital for organizations to know how to use I as a value strategy (be predictive).

Lerer L, Piper M. Digital strategies in the pharmaceutical industry. Palgrave Macmillan. (2003), pp. 189-200 Nambisan, S., Lyytinen, K., Majchrzak, A., Song, M. (2017). Digital innovation management: Reinventing innovation management research in a digital world. MIS Quarterly: Management Information Systems 41(1), pp. 223-238