Digital Barriers in Digital Transition and Digital Transformation: Literature Review

Abstract

Research purpose. The research aimed to identify digital barriers in the digital transition and digital transformation in businesses and industries under the umbrella of human resource management. The topicality of the research relates to the need to identify digital barriers impeding digital transition and transformation that can be addressed through the prism of human resource management policies or that can be related to human resource management. Design / Methodology / Approach. The research method was the analysis of the keywords and keyword concordances, conducted on the sample of the created corpus of 50 recently published scientific papers, which were analysed using the text analysis instruments AntConc and Voyant Tools. Findings. Two digital barrier types were postulated - individual and organisational barriers, which were further spread across five digital barrier areas - human resource, technological, management, business development, and financial ones that were able to accommodate the following barriers: general human resource, staff resistance, psychological, staff digital competences, decision-makers digital competences, internal information exchange, external information exchange, data processing, technical, IT complexity, poor usability, cybersecurity, general management, business structure, business 4.0, industry 4.0, creativity, and costs. Originality / Value / Practical implications. The created structure of digital barriers provides human resource departments with a global picture of barriers that should be reviewed within their competence areas to ensure the recruitment of specialists capable of conducting specified digital operations and the continuous development of digital competencies of the entire labour force of the organisation. The suggested digital barrier structure can also be used to develop the organisational strategy for the digital transition and digital transformation.