This paper aims at investigating the way in which digital technologies affect the internationalisation of businesses and how digital transformation can be incorporated into current theories of internationalisation and international entrepreneurship (IE).

In order to define how digitalisation has been treated in the academic literature on Internationalisation, we will attempt to examine the range of existing research in the field. The Uppsala Model will be used as a tool to assess whether the impact of digital technologies can be integrated into current “stage” theories of internationalisation. This will eventually allow us to determine to what extent these models are valid in the context of our research.

We will need to consider the evolution of digitalisation, which in the context of internationalisation has normally been understood as to mean merely internet-based communication technologies. The concept of digitalisation used in this paper goes beyond communication technologies and includes such aspects as industrial technologies and the “Internet of Things”, often referred to as emerging digital economies or “digital revolution”.

Our goal is to identify aspects which have so far not been satisfactorily investigated. These may call for adjustments to current theories of internationalisation or, alternatively, require the emergence of totally new theories.

The paper will be organised as follows. We will first define a contextual framework of the phenomenon we call digital transformation based on a meta-analysis through a comprehensive literature review. We will then integrate this digital framework into the Uppsala Model (UM) in order to assess whether it is sufficient to explain a “digitalised establishment chain”, and finally discuss whether “stage” theories are still useful. The paper will close closes with major findings followed by considerations of limitations and implications for further research.

The work on this paper is part of an Austrian-Swedish research project called “Enterprise 4.0”, which aims at investigating digital transformation processes in international entrepreneurial firms, with special emphasis on internationalisation processes.