Collaborative Governance in the Digital Transformation Age: A Systematic Literature Review with Bibliometric Mapping

Abstract

Purpose: The article aims to provide an updated and comprehensive overview of academic research in the field of collaborative governance and digital transformation, with an emphasis on the emerging topic of collaborative digital transformation. Digital transformation is a recurrent theme in today’s society, fuelled by events such as the Covid-19 pandemic, global climate challenges, and other crises reshaping the world. As societies increasingly rely on digital platforms and online communication, the prime urge and necessity of the human race – i.e., to communicate and collaborate in tackling these challenges – puts collaborative governance in digital transformation high on the agenda of governments, the private sector, and citizens.
Design/Methodology/Approach: To address this topic, we performed a bibliometric analysis using various analytical and visualisation tools to evaluate and visualise existing scientific bibliographic materials. The analysis covers 286 articles published in the Scopus and Web of Science databases over the past two decades in the area of collaborative governance and digital transformation, employing established and innovative bibliometric approaches. Graphical analyses are used to illustrate co-authorship, keywords co-occurrence, research topics evolution, and the network of influential researchers within collaborative governance and digital transformation.
Findings: The results show that the relationship between collaborative governance and digital transformation is still limited and needs further study, considering that these two concepts have been emerging trends in public administration over the past two decades. In addition, the findings reveal a significant growth in research of these topics over time, although not specifically focused on collaborative digital transformation.
Practical Implications: The article provides a summary of key aspects of collaborative governance and digital transformation research and helps lay the foundations for shaping the future of this evolving field of public administration. Thus, it helps researchers understand the development of collaborative digital transformation research over the past two decades, as collaborative digital transformation is a relatively new field of research characterised by rapid growth and evolution.
Originality/Value: The research contributes to the understanding of collaborative digital transformation as a distinct research area within the broader concepts of digital transformation and collaborative governance, which is still seeking its own identity in academic literature, and offers a definition of collaborative digital transformation (CDT).