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Digital Transformation—One Step Further to a Sustainable Economy: The Bibliometric Analysis

Author

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  • Georgiana-Alina Crisan

    (The Faculty of Economic Cybernetics, Statistics and Informatics, The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, 15–17 Dorobanti St., Sector 1, 010552 Bucharest, Romania)

  • Anda Belciu

    (The Faculty of Economic Cybernetics, Statistics and Informatics, The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, 15–17 Dorobanti St., Sector 1, 010552 Bucharest, Romania)

  • Madalina Ecaterina Popescu

    (The Faculty of Economic Cybernetics, Statistics and Informatics, The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, 15–17 Dorobanti St., Sector 1, 010552 Bucharest, Romania
    The National Scientific Research Institute for Labour and Social Protection, 6-8 Povernei Street, 010643 Bucharest, Romania)

Abstract

Digitalization has significantly reshaped human and social life worldwide, serving as a powerful enabler of a sustainable economy, while being directly aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 9, among others. The literature on digitalization and sustainability boosted since 2017, confirming its importance. Unlike most previous studies, this paper extracted articles from both the Scopus and Web of Science platforms, and the bibliometric analysis was conducted using the new Python library, pyBibX, for the cleaned concatenated dataset, as well as Bibliometrix in R for the parallel analysis on the two platforms. We conducted both a performance analysis to measure scientific impact and citations in the quest to better understand the research field and also a science mapping to visually represent the scientific research and its development. Our findings suggest that Sustainability is the main journal with published articles on digitalization and sustainability, whereas China has the largest number of papers in the field and collaborations between countries. Finally, by applying Natural Language Processing, we identified as best topics: digital, sustainable, development, sustainability, digitalization, study, research, transformation, innovation, and model. Moreover, we dug deeper into policy implications to show how these findings could serve policymakers and stakeholders in academia and industry.

Suggested Citation

  • Georgiana-Alina Crisan & Anda Belciu & Madalina Ecaterina Popescu, 2025. "Digital Transformation—One Step Further to a Sustainable Economy: The Bibliometric Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(4), pages 1-46, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:4:p:1477-:d:1588771
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    References listed on IDEAS

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