| Course | MGT 711 Strategic Opportunities in an Internet-Based Global Economy (MGT/711) |
|---|---|
| Week | 6 |
| Paper type | Doctoral literature review |
| Length | about 1,163 words, 4 double-spaced pages plus title page and references |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | University of Phoenix |
| Program | DBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MGT 711 Week 6
What Do We Know About Digital Strategy for Traditional Firms Going Global? A Review of Research and Its Gaps
[Student Name]
University of Phoenix
MGT/711: Strategic Opportunities in an Internet-Based Global Economy
Week 6 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Lakeshore Industrial Supply is a composite organization used to illustrate the review.
Digital technology has prompted a large and fast-growing body of research on how firms compete, transform and expand. For a practitioner-scholar studying a traditional business-to-business firm such as Lakeshore Industrial Supply, a composite Midwest distributor pursuing cross-border e-commerce, the literature offers concepts but uneven evidence. A literature review is useful to a doctoral practitioner not because it lists what has been written but because it shows precisely where knowledge ends. This paper reviews research on digital strategy for traditional firms going global and identifies gaps.
Scope and Method of the Review
The review covers peer-reviewed research in management, information systems and international business published mainly since 2010, with foundational earlier work. It focuses on four streams relevant to traditional firms: digital business strategy, digital transformation, digital internationalization and platform ecosystems. Sources were identified through database searches and citation tracing.
Stream One: Digital Business Strategy
The agenda-setting essay by Bharadwaj et al. (2013) treated digital strategy and business strategy as a single thing and named four dimensions along which it changes competition: scope, scale, speed and how value is created and captured. This conceptual work set an agenda but offered few empirical tests. Subsequent studies have examined pieces of the framework, often in technology-intensive industries.
Stream Two: Digital Transformation
Vial (2019) reviewed 282 works and described digital transformation as a process in which digital technologies create disruptions, firms respond strategically, and structural changes and organizational barriers shape outcomes. Verhoef et al. (2021) offered a multidisciplinary view distinguishing digitization, digitalization and transformation and calling for research on required resources, organizational structures and metrics.
Agreement and Debate in Transformation Research
Both reviews agree that transformation is organizational as much as technological and that barriers such as inertia matter. They differ in emphasis: Vial focuses on process, while Verhoef et al. emphasize stages and resources. Neither offers strong causal evidence about which practices produce better outcomes, reflecting the field's reliance on conceptual and case-based work.
Stream Three: Digital Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Nambisan et al. (2019) argued that digital technologies change the nature of innovation and entrepreneurship by making boundaries of products, processes and organizations less fixed. Their framework emphasizes openness and affordances of digital technology, but much of the evidence comes from new ventures rather than established firms.
Stream Four: Digital Internationalization
Banalieva and Dhanaraj (2019) extended internalization theory to the digital economy, arguing that digital firms' advantages are less tied to location and that they can internationalize with fewer foreign assets. Research on online trade, including studies of marketplace data, supports lower distance effects. Most evidence, however, concerns digital-native firms and consumer markets.
Stream Five: Platform Ecosystems
Kretschmer et al. (2022) framed ecosystems around a platform as organizations of organizations, held together by the owner's rules for independent complementors rather than by employment or ordinary supply contracts. This stream draws heavily on technology platforms, with fewer studies of industrial or business-to-business platforms.
Evaluating Methods
Across streams, the research base is dominated by conceptual papers and qualitative case studies, which generate rich theory but limited generalizability. Large-sample studies exist mainly for consumer markets and digital-native firms. Measures of digital strategy and transformation vary widely, making comparison difficult. Few studies track firms over time.
Theoretical Lenses Used
The streams draw on different theories. Digital strategy work often builds on the resource-based view and dynamic capabilities, arguing that firms must reconfigure resources quickly. Transformation research leans on organizational change theory. Internationalization research extends internalization and transaction cost theory. Platform research uses industrial organization economics and ecosystem concepts. These lenses rarely meet; few studies combine, for example, internalization theory with platform governance, though traditional firms going global through platforms face both questions at once.
Evidence From Economics
Economics research adds large-sample evidence that management studies often lack. Work on digital economics has documented lower search and verification costs and their effects on prices and trade, and studies of marketplace data show weaker distance effects online. This evidence is more rigorous but usually examines transactions, not the strategic choices of firms, leaving a bridge between economic findings and managerial decisions still to be built.
Feasibility and Ethics
A study inside the researcher's own organization raises issues of access, confidentiality and objectivity. Customer data would need to be anonymized, interview participants informed of the researcher's role and findings reviewed for bias. Institutional review board approval would be required before data collection.
Where Evidence Is Thin
Evidence is thin on traditional business-to-business firms, on intermediaries such as distributors, on cross-border e-commerce in physical industrial goods and on how branch or field networks interact with digital channels. These are exactly the settings that matter for Lakeshore.
Boundaries of the Review
Several related literatures were excluded to keep the review focused: research on consumer behavior in online shopping, technical work on e-commerce systems and studies of digital marketing tactics. These matter to practitioners but address different questions. Excluding them sharpens the review's focus on strategy, transformation and internationalization, at the cost of omitting some evidence on customer adoption that a later study may need to revisit.
Gap One: Intermediaries and Digital Channels
It remains unclear whether digital channels erode or reinforce the value of industrial distributors. Theory predicts disintermediation from lower search costs, but distributors' services may become more valuable as complements.
Gap Two: Digital Internationalization of Traditional Firms
Internalization research suggests digital assets reduce the need for foreign investment, but traditional firms selling physical goods still face logistics, invoicing and service needs abroad. How these firms combine digital and physical assets when entering neighboring markets is understudied.
Gap Three: Business-to-Business Platforms
Platform theory is built largely on consumer and software platforms. Whether curated industrial platforms can compete with general marketplaces, given approved supplier lists and quality demands, is an open question.
Proposed Research Questions
First, how does adoption of integrated digital purchasing by industrial customers affect their retention and purchase concentration with a distributor? Second, how do traditional distributors combine digital channels and physical assets when entering adjacent foreign markets, and which combinations are associated with faster growth? Third, under what conditions do curated business-to-business platforms attract and retain sellers?
A Feasible Study Design
A mixed-methods study could combine quantitative analysis of customer transaction data before and after digital integration with qualitative interviews with customers and managers in Canada and Mexico. Such a design suits a practitioner-scholar with access to organizational data.
Contribution to Scholarship and Practice
The study would extend digital strategy theory to intermediaries and traditional business-to-business firms, which most current work overlooks, test internalization predictions for physical goods and give managers evidence for investment decisions now based mainly on vendor claims.
Conclusion
Research on digital strategy offers strong concepts on strategy, transformation, internationalization and platforms but relies heavily on conceptual and case work in digital-native and consumer settings. Gaps around intermediaries, traditional firms' internationalization and business platforms suggest research questions that a DBA study grounded in an organization like Lakeshore could address.
References
Banalieva, E. R., & Dhanaraj, C. (2019). Internalization theory for the digital economy. Journal of International Business Studies, 50(8), 1372-1387. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-019-00243-7
Bharadwaj, A., El Sawy, O. A., Pavlou, P. A., & Venkatraman, N. (2013). Digital business strategy: Toward a next generation of insights. MIS Quarterly, 37(2), 471-482. https://doi.org/10.25300/MISQ/2013/37:2.3
Kretschmer, T., Leiponen, A., Schilling, M., & Vasudeva, G. (2022). Platform ecosystems as meta-organizations: Implications for platform strategies. Strategic Management Journal, 43(3), 405-424. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3250
Nambisan, S., Wright, M., & Feldman, M. (2019). The digital transformation of innovation and entrepreneurship: Progress, challenges and key themes. Research Policy, 48(8), Article 103773. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2019.03.018
Verhoef, P. C., Broekhuizen, T., Bart, Y., Bhattacharya, A., Qi Dong, J., Fabian, N., & Haenlein, M. (2021). Digital transformation: A multidisciplinary reflection and research agenda. Journal of Business Research, 122, 889-901. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.09.022
Vial, G. (2019). Understanding digital transformation: A review and a research agenda. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 28(2), 118-144. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsis.2019.01.003
What the MGT 711 Week 6 instructions ask
In Week 6, MGT 711 asks DBA candidates to review the scholarship on a digital strategy topic of their choosing. Common requirements include defining the scope of the review, organizing literature into themes, summarizing key findings and methods, evaluating strengths and weaknesses of the research base, identifying gaps and proposing research questions or a study design. Many prompts ask students to connect the review to their own professional setting. Use peer-reviewed sources, synthesize across studies rather than summarizing each, assess methods critically and cite sources in APA format. Explain how sources were found and which were excluded, since a transparent search lets readers judge the review's coverage.
How this MGT 711 Week 6 example is built
A doctoral review of digital strategy research must make sense of fast-growing and scattered literatures, and the paper organizes four streams. Digital business strategy research argues that digital and business strategy have fused. Digital transformation reviews describe a process of disruption, strategic response and structural change. Internationalization research adapts theories of the multinational firm to digital assets that travel easily. Platform ecosystem research examines governance of complementors. Methods are dominated by conceptual work and case studies, with fewer large-sample studies of traditional business-to-business firms, and the theoretical lenses used by each stream rarely meet. The review proposes research questions on how distributors' digital investments affect cross-border growth and sketches a mixed-methods design a practitioner could carry out.
MGT 711 Week 6 grading rubric: where the points go
Doctoral literature reviews are judged on scope, organization, critical evaluation and contribution. Strong papers define clear boundaries, organize literature into coherent themes, compare findings and methods across studies, identify where evidence is thin or conflicting and derive research questions that follow logically from the gaps. Attention to the types of evidence, conceptual, qualitative or quantitative, shows methodological awareness. Linking the review to a professional context shows the practitioner-scholar orientation of the DBA. Precise synthesis and correct APA citations complete the review. Faculty also look for transparency about how sources were chosen and for proposed research questions that are feasible for a working professional, given access to data, time and ethical approval requirements.
MGT 711 Week 6 help: mistakes to avoid
Doctoral students often produce annotated bibliographies instead of reviews. Organize by theme and compare. Another frequent gap is accepting conclusions without assessing methods. Note sample, design and limits. Students also identify gaps vaguely, such as more research is needed. State precisely what is unknown and why it matters. Avoid including sources outside the defined scope, and explain the boundaries you set. Use recent and foundational work. Connect gaps to research questions that a feasible study could answer, and show how each question follows from a specific gap. Finally, explain the contribution your proposed study would make to both scholarship and practice. Address feasibility, including data access and ethical review.
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MGT 711 Week 6 questions, answered
What does MGT 711 Week 6 usually cover?
It usually covers a doctoral review of research on digital strategy: defining scope, organizing themes, evaluating findings and methods, identifying gaps and proposing research questions.
Where can I find a free MGT 711 Week 6 sample paper?
A complete literature review on digital strategy and internationalization, with notes on synthesis and gaps, is provided here. If you are drafting your own review, a no-cost starting version can be prepared.
How is a literature review different from an annotated bibliography?
An annotated bibliography summarizes sources one by one. A literature review organizes sources into themes, compares and evaluates them and identifies what remains unknown.
What are the main streams of digital strategy research?
Common streams include digital business strategy, digital transformation, digital entrepreneurship and innovation, digital internationalization and platform ecosystems.
How do you identify a research gap?
By comparing what studies have examined with what remains unexplained, looking for untested contexts, conflicting findings, weak methods or questions raised but not answered.
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