Beyond One-Size-Fits-All Approaches: Digital Maturity Models Across Industries, Countries, and Organizational Systems
A Special Issue of Systems (ISSN 2079-8954) belonging to the section "Systems Practice in Social Science".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2026 | Viewed by 1927
Editors
Interests: digitalization; SMEs competitiveness; SMEs strategies; international business; business strategies; financial analysis; financial markets
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: multivariate data analysis; data analytics; supply chain management; operations management; knowledge management; quality function deployment; decision support systems; machine learning; artificial intelligence; optimization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: technology management; technology roadmapping; technology transfer; cybersecurity; blockchain; digital transformation; innovation management; sustainability; Industry 4.0 and 5.0; artificial intelligence
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Digital maturity models have emerged as critical instruments for guiding organizational transformation, benchmarking progress, and aligning digital strategies with operational and strategic objectives. A rapidly expanding body of research has produced maturity frameworks for diverse sectors, including manufacturing, healthcare, construction, retail, SMEs, public organizations, and cross-national systems. While these models converge on core dimensions—such as strategy, organizational structure, culture, and technology—they differ substantially in emphasis, methodological design, and sectoral relevance.
Despite this progress, much of the existing literature continues to rely on generic, cross-sector architectures and predominantly qualitative or semi-quantitative assessment approaches, limiting their ability to capture industry-specific processes, institutional contexts, and data-driven performance differentials. Growing empirical evidence demonstrates that digital transformation pathways are shaped by sectoral characteristics, firm size, regulatory environments, national ecosystems, and technological intensity, calling into question the suitability of one-size-fits-all maturity trajectories.
This Special Issue aims to showcase research that advances sector-specific and context-adaptive digital maturity models, comparative cross-industry analyses, and country-level frameworks grounded in systems thinking. We particularly encourage the submission of studies that integrate multi-criteria decision-making methods, quantitative scoring techniques, hybrid evaluation models, and longitudinal designs. Conceptual syntheses, methodological comparisons of established maturity frameworks, and empirical investigations linking digital maturity to innovation, resilience, sustainability, and competitive advantage are also welcome.
By adopting a systems perspective, this Special Issue aims to deepen understanding of how heterogeneous organizational, technological, and institutional subsystems jointly shape digital transformation outcomes across industries and economies.
Assoc. Prof. Eyup Kahveci
Prof. Dr. Selim Zaim
Assoc. Prof. Gülin Bolatan
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Systems is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- digital maturity
- digital transformation
- Industry 4.0
- sector-specific models
- systems perspective
- organizational systems
- SMEs
- manufacturing industries
- public sector digitalization
- healthcare digital maturity
- construction digitalization
- cross-industry comparison
- national innovation systems
- multi-criteria decision making (MCDM), MEREC, and OCRA
- quantitative maturity assessment
- strategic alignment
- organizational readiness
- innovation performance
- sustainability and digitalization
- comparative frameworks
- context-adaptive models
- digital competitiveness
- technology management
- technology roadmapping
- technology transfer
- cybersecurity
- blockchain adoption
- digital transformation
- strategic planning
- production management
- quality management
- innovation management
- sustainability
- Industry 5.0
- artificial intelligence
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