The Economics of Digital Transformation. The Disruption of Markets, Production, Consumption, and Work
Śledziewska, K., & Włochy, R. (2021). The economics of digital transformation: The disruption of markets, production, consumption, and work.Routledge.
Digital technologies have become the infrastructure for decision-making and competitive advantage: whoever controls data, algorithms, and platforms controls access to the market, customers, and scale. This book provides a structured economic framework for understanding why these processes are accelerating, why they are nonlinear, and why the consequences affect not only companies but also public policies and institutions.
About the book
The authors analyze four areas of disruption: markets, production, consumption, and work, revealing a common core of change: datafication, algorithmization, and platformization. At the heart of this analysis is the question of how digital technologies are transforming economic mechanisms—transaction costs, network effects, economies of scale, the structure of competition, and the relationships between firms, workers, and consumers.
The argument is organized so that the reader can move from concepts and mechanisms to consequences: what is changing in business models, how production and value chains are being transformed, what is happening to work (automation and platformization), and how new forms of consumption and personalization are growing.
What does it bring?
- It provides a coherent map of the economic mechanisms behind digital transformation (instead of a list of trends).
- It shows why platforms and network effects are reshaping competition and creating new concentrations of market power.
- Explains how datafication and algorithms are changing production (Industry 4.0), process organization and coordination in supply chains.
- It organizes the debate on work: automation, platform work, new risks and competence shifts.
- Explains how digital consumption (personalization, phygital, data-driven services) is changing demand and customer relationships.
- It provides language and arguments useful in discussions about public policies: data, competition, labor and regulation of the digital market.
Key themes
Datafication; platformization; network effects; data economics; algorithms and personalization; Industry 4.0; automation; platform work; new business models; phygital and digital consumption; globalization and digital flows; regulation and the role of the state.
Ideal for
- for researchers of the digital economy, innovation and public policies
- for students of economics, management and social sciences (as a structured analytical framework)
- for managers and transformation leaders who need arguments "why it works" and "what are the consequences"
- for people designing digital strategies (companies, administration, public sector)
- for market analysts, consultants and people working at the interface of technology and regulation
What you will find inside
- Foundations: definitions, mechanisms and the role of data in the digital economy.
- Markets: platforms, new sources of advantage and changing competitive logic.
- Production: process digitalization, Industry 4.0 and reorganization of value chains.
- Work: automation, platformization of employment, social and competence consequences.
- Consumption: digitalization of the customer experience, personalization and new forms of value.
- Systemic consequences: implications for globalization, the state and public policies.