The Chimera of the Simple Organization: What is the Relevant Design Knowledge Needed to Guide Small Business Digital Transformation?

Abstract

The digital transformation of small businesses is different from larger businesses. Applying large business management approaches on a smaller scale may lead to missed opportunities to achieve meaningful digital transformation. In this paper, we explore what is the relevant design knowledge needed to guide small business digital transformation. To answer this question, we systematically reviewed small business and IS literature to identify seven key characteristics relevant to digital transformation. Based on these characteristics, we propose 20 mechanisms for small business digital transformation that are justified and illustrated using retrospective analysis of nine different cases across three continents. While some of the mechanisms are well known and relate to larger organizations, we also identified mechanisms that are unique to the small business context. With that, our contributions are twofold. We contribute to theory by identifying relevant design knowledge for small business digital transformation, and to practice by proposing mechanisms and real-world examples, especially for the design of small business platform providers.