PEER-to-peer lending, SOCIAL innovation, DIGITAL technology, INTEREST rates, POVERTY, BUSINESS models
Abstract
Prosocial P2P lending platforms are a novel and powerful example of a digital social innovation (DSI) in which the operating model relies primarily on digital technologies and the overarching focus is on the "social" aspect of the innovation. These platforms establish a virtual connection between low‐income individuals and lenders, helping the former access loans at low rates of interest. In realising their mission of fighting poverty, prosocial P2P lending platforms maintain a challenging hybrid – online and offline – focus. This paper explores how prosocial P2P lending platforms enact their hybrid orientation. It draws on an inductive qualitative study of Rang De, India's first prosocial P2P lending platform. The analysis highlights five clusters of actions: digital attention‐building, digital credibility‐building, digital empathy‐building, intermediary relationship‐building, and borrower relationship‐building. The paper argues that significant strengths on the online side help establish a sustainable business model. A willingness and commitment to maintain a high degree of engagement with the complex offline world of low‐income borrowers helps develop the model as an impactful social innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Huang, Sha, Burton‐Jones, Andrew, and Xu, Dongming
Subjects
DIGITAL technology, DIGITAL transformation, BUSINESS size, RESEARCH personnel, GROUNDED theory
Abstract
Digital Disruption (DD) has become a hot topic in recent years, yet detailed research is surprisingly lacking. The literature offers almost no insights into how DD occurs at the industry level and what industry factors influence it. This paper advances knowledge of DD by developing and testing a configurational theory. Using a multi‐method research design, we identify two types of DD and four industry factors (downstream DD, digitally enabled structural conflict, transferability of core competitive elements, and industry player size) that contingently lead to the different types of DD. We integrate those findings into a configurational theory that describes causal recipes of how these factors or conditions combine to produce the outcome of transformational DD and destructive DD. The theory offers important implications for researchers and practitioners. The research also contributes methodologically by demonstrating the merits of combining grounded theory with qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to expand the theory‐building potential of QCA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Braojos, Jessica, Weritz, Pauline, and Matute, Jorge
Subjects
DIGITAL transformation, DIGITAL technology, CLASSROOM environment, SELF-efficacy, DIGITAL learning
Abstract
Although research has shown that leveraging technologies and creating a new organisational identity are critical to staying competitive in a digital business environment, these assumptions have focused mainly on operational performance and exclude the impact on the workplace and employees. The challenge of attracting employees in the context of digital transformation is leading organisations to explore drivers of commitment. Further research is needed into the key factors that bind employees to an organisation. This study seeks to advance knowledge on this individual frontier by proposing a model in which digital leadership and a continuous learning environment mediate the impact of digital transformation capabilities on organisational commitment. Testing our model through an empirical study from Spain shows an effect of both mediators. The paper thus contributes to the IS literature by identifying two mediators and their role in achieving organisational commitment. These results also suggest a new way to approach research in digital transformation by opening a new frontier on the individual level and charting a path for future study. Moreover, the results have great practical value, generating implications for organisations and new avenues of future research to explore the boundary conditions of the individual frontier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Ens, Nicola, Hukal, Philipp, and Blegind Jensen, Tina
Subjects
ELECTRONIC commerce, DIGITAL technology, INFORMATION storage & retrieval systems
Abstract
Digital platforms are supraorganizational entities that use digital technology to facilitate interactions between diverse actors, leading to novel forms of organisation and accompanying forms of control. The current Information Systems (IS) literature, however, struggles to describe control on digital platforms in a way that does justice to the dynamic character of the phenomenon. Taking this as an opportunity, we follow the enactment of control over time and across parties in a hybrid ethnographic study of the social commerce platform Poshmark. Specifically, we conceptualise the dynamics of control as changes in the means of control—formal or informal—and the sources of control—operator or participants—over time. Tracking these conceptual dimensions, we identify the distinct ways control has changed on Poshmark. Synthesising these findings into four dynamics of control, we show that control on digital platforms is rarely static due to aggregate effects arising from the operator and from participant interactions with each other through the digital features deployed on the platform. Based on these insights, our study contributes to the IS literature on control by broadening the conception of control on digital platforms. The theoretical and practical insights generated in this paper thereby lay the foundation for the systematic study of the dynamics of control that are unique to platform environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
SOCIAL status, POWER (Social sciences), MOBILE health, COMMUNITY health workers, SOCIAL structure, DIGITAL technology
Abstract
Existing research on technology affordance rarely considers the role of social structures in shaping the interaction between human actors and technology. In this paper, we draw upon the concept of social positioning to explore how socialized affordances of technology adoption, as well as their impact in work and social life, are shaped by the social positions that human actors occupy within multiple social structures. We do so by examining the adoption of mHealth devices by community health workers in India. The study generates theoretical implications for research on affordances of technology and social structures by integrating social positioning of actors in the analysis of a digital practice, and enriching IS research by incorporating the broader social arrangements and power relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Coelho, Taiane Ritta, Pozzebon, Marlei, and Cunha, Maria Alexandra
Subjects
POLITICAL participation, POLICY sciences, METROPOLIS, DIGITAL technology, CITIZENS, REMANUFACTURING
Abstract
E‐participation platforms create spaces and opportunities for participation and collaboration between governments and citizens. This paper aims to investigate the role of power on formal e‐participation platforms and digital spaces that are controlled by the governments. Although those types of platforms have been increasing in numerous countries, they have been criticised as often leading to a lack of or decrease in citizen engagement. We propose a relational view that examines how power is related to the use of resources in practice, that is, to resourcing. To explore this issue, we examine citizens' participation on three urban mobility platforms in three major Brazilian cities. Our study makes two main contributions. First, we contribute to the literature on e‐participation by explaining how a relational view of power helps to understand the nature and consequences of citizen participation in public policy‐making. Second, we integrate the concept of resourcing as both a source and constitutive element of relational power. We propose a process‐based model of resourcing as power that opens the black box of resourcing through the identification of three distinct phases in time: resourcing IN, resourcing WITHIN and resourcing OUT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
DIGITAL technology, REFUGEE services, REFUGEES, VALUE creation, REFUGEE camps, TECHNOLOGICAL innovations
Abstract
Digital platforms are restructuring how many companies and industries function, including humanitarian organisations that operate in complex environments and serve vulnerable populations. To date, however, there has been limited study of their use in humanitarian and particularly refugee contexts. This paper seeks to address this gap by drawing on the concept of platformisation to study the opportunities and challenges arising from UNHCR's transition from a closed transactional system to an open innovation platform focusing on core processes of identification, value creation and platform governance that are relevant for refugee management and protection. Our empirical study captures the perspectives of the UNHCR, organisational stakeholders and refugees in the world's largest refugee camp in Northern Uganda with regards to UNHCR's strategy towards platform openness. We find that UNHCR's data transformation strategy introduces the potential for increasing institutional value in the form of more effective service delivery to refugees. However, these technological opportunities do not necessarily translate to greater value if they do not mesh with current work practices, incentives and activities of service provider organisations and refugees. Our study helps identify opportunities to address these constraints, primarily through improving understanding of the emergent governance‐related tensions that exist for digital platforms for development and surfacing existing issues of exclusion and vulnerability. We conclude with insights for the broader theorisation of identification platforms and with recommendations for policies and practices that together might help realise the potential value creation introduced through the platformisation of identification systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
UBUNTU (Philosophy), DIGITAL technology, ENTREPRENEURSHIP, VIRTUAL communities, RECIPROCITY (Psychology), DYNAMICAL systems
Abstract
This paper investigates the embeddedness of digital entrepreneurship in the entrepreneurs' indigenous value system by examining the influence of 'Ubuntu' on digital entrepreneurship activities in the South African context. We do so through an interpretive field study of two innovation clusters in South Africa. Our findings reveal Ubuntu as the basis of a community orientation to digital entrepreneurship that offers an alternative to the prevalent heroic view in which digital entrepreneurship narratives are centred around the individual entrepreneur(s). They also highlight the tensions faced by digital entrepreneurs as they attempt to uphold the Ubuntu values of humility, reciprocity, and benevolence while operating in a competitive and fast‐paced environment. In addition, our study indicates that the way entrepreneurs draw on their indigenous value system is dynamic, giving rise to what we call digital Ubuntu, reflecting a reworking of Ubuntu values into their increasingly digital reality. The concept of digital Ubuntu brings to light how indigenous values can become entangled with the capabilities of digital technologies and highlights the need for indigenous perspectives to advance our understanding of the diversity of digital phenomena, such as digital entrepreneurship, across cultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
BUSINESSWOMEN, SOCIAL innovation, DIGITAL technology, INFORMATION storage & retrieval systems, SOCIAL impact, SOCIAL influence, GENDER
Abstract
This article responds to increasing discourses on digital social innovation (DSI) from the perspectives of women entrepreneurs. Using the individual differences theory of gender and information technology (IDTGIT), this research explores how digital technology is used by women entrepreneurs to create opportunities in response to the challenges associated with individual identity, individual influences, social influences and structural influences. We also extend the IDTGIT by exploring how technology is used by women entrepreneurs in their DSI ventures and how technology facilitates the social impact of such ventures. This paper draws on a qualitative study using interviews with 17 women entrepreneurs in Australia, and our findings indicate that individual identity, individual influences and social and structural influences play a significant role in inhibiting women entrepreneurs' business ventures but technology helps to create opportunities for women entrepreneurs to address these factors. We also found that technology plays a role in helping women entrepreneurs to pursue social innovation in two different ways: through social innovation that is embodied by technology and social innovation that is enabled by technology. Our findings further indicate the social impact of DSI in the areas of education, employment, environment and climate, community development and progress and healthcare. The theoretical and practical implications of DSI for women entrepreneurs are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
BIG data, DIGITAL technology, ARTIFICIAL intelligence, ELECTRONIC journals, INFORMATION science, DIGITAL transformation, INFORMATION resources management, COVID-19 pandemic
Iivari, Netta, Kinnula, Marianne, Molin‐Juustila, Tonja, and Kuure, Leena
Subjects
SOCIAL integration, DIGITAL technology, SOCIAL isolation, SOCIAL structure, INTERACTIONAL view theory (Communication)
Abstract
While social inclusion projects have centred on digital technology for a long time now, they have remained silent about educating and empowering children to act as technology makers and shapers, not merely passive users. We have organized, together with children, digital technology projects that we now critically examine from the perspective of inclusion/exclusion. The paper shows that in social inclusion projects, there is exclusion taking place in a multitude of forms, shaped by a variety of rules and powers. We use nexus analysis as a theoretical and methodological tool that guides us to study inclusion/exclusion as processes, within which both discourses and concrete actions are to be acknowledged as well as historical and interactional aspects—both at individual level and at the level of social structures. Our study shows that inclusion and exclusion may be intentionally accomplished by children themselves, those may result without any intentional effort because of circumstances and those may also be done for children by various kinds of adults. Although children's empowerment and agency are significant, also adults play a decisive role. Implications for social inclusion and digital technology education research and practice are discussed. Nexus analysis is suggested as a useful means for revealing and managing the complexity involved in social inclusion/exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Bonina, Carla, Koskinen, Kari, Eaton, Ben, and Gawer, Annabelle
Subjects
DIGITAL technology, DEVELOPING countries, HYPERTEXT literature, RESEARCH & development, INFORMATION storage & retrieval systems, INFORMATION & communication technologies for development
Abstract
Digital platforms hold a central position in today's world economy and are said to offer a great potential for the economies and societies in the global South. Yet, to date, the scholarly literature on digital platforms has largely concentrated on business while their developmental implications remain understudied. In part, this is because digital platforms are a challenging research object due to their lack of conceptual definition, their spread across different regions and industries, and their intertwined nature with institutions, actors and digital technologies. The purpose of this article is to contribute to the ongoing debate in information systems and ICT4D research to understand what digital platforms mean for development. To do so, we first define what digital platforms are and differentiate between transaction and innovation platforms, and explain their key characteristics in terms of purpose, research foundations, material properties and business models. We add the socio‐technical context digital platforms operate and the linkages to developmental outcomes. We then conduct an extensive review to explore what current areas, developmental goals, tensions and issues emerge in the literature on platforms and development and identify relevant gaps in our knowledge. We later elaborate on six research questions to advance the studies on digital platforms for development: on indigenous innovation, digital platforms and institutions, on exacerbation of inequalities, on alternative forms of value, on the dark side of platforms and on the applicability of the platform typology for development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Struijk, Mylène, Angelopoulos, Spyros, Ou, Carol X. J., and Davison, Robert M.
Subjects
DIGITAL transformation, DIGITAL technology, PROCESS capability, JOB stress, RESISTANCE to change, INFORMATION theory
Abstract
The use of digital technologies for extracting information from various data sources can help organisations to reduce uncertainty and improve decision‐making. The increasing availability in volume, velocity, and variety of data, however, can give rise to significant risks and challenges in ensuring a high level of information quality (IQ). Pre‐digital organisations can be particularly susceptive to such challenges due to their limited experience with digital technologies and IQ governance. We adopt a theory‐infused interventionist research approach to assist a pre‐digital multinational military organisation in navigating its digital transformation (DT) by focusing on IQ. We design and implement an IQ strategy (IQS) by drawing upon organisational information processing theory and examining how the level of IQ can affect the balance between information processing requirements and capacity. We demonstrate that an IQS that incorporates both technological, as well as IQ governance solutions, can support organisations in setting the scope of their DT, decreasing employees' resistance to change, and increasing their satisfaction, while concurrently improving organisational efficiency. Our work stresses the importance of IQ in the digital era and delineates how pre‐digital organisations can navigate DT by strategically addressing IQ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Melville, Nigel P., Robert, Lionel, and Xiao, Xiao
Subjects
INDUSTRY 4.0, DIGITAL technology, ARTIFICIAL intelligence, DRUG development, HUMAN beings
Abstract
The current technology epoch—sometimes called the fourth industrial revolution (4IR)—involves the innovative application of rapidly advancing digital technologies such as artificial intelligence. Societal implications of the 4IR are significant and wide‐ranging, from life‐saving drug development to privacy loss and app addiction. A review of the information systems literature, however, reveals a narrow focus on technology‐enabled business benefits. Scant research attention has been paid to the role of humans and humanistic outcomes. To spur new research addressing these issues, formalised affordance theory is employed to develop a new 4IR conceptualization. Four groupings of affordances that capture salient 4IR action possibilities are developed within two categories: machine emulation of human cognition (expansive decision‐making and creativity automation) and machine emulation of human communication (relationship with humans and intermachine teaming). Implications are explored in the context of human‐machine coworking and the development of artificial intelligence safety regulations. Overall, the affordance conceptualization of the 4IR advances a new sociotechnical lexicon of action possibilities and their joint enactment in achieving humanistic and instrumental outcomes, enabling alignment of the scope of 4IR research with the scope of 4IR phenomena—and bringing humans back into the loop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
As physical products are increasingly augmented with digital technology, manufacturing firms have become part of the development of so‐called smart products and smart services. As such, manufacturing firms are challenged by new market participants and ecosystem partners, particularly from the software development industry, and by the dynamic nature of business relationships. While the academic literature on the distinctive characteristics of ecosystems, particularly digital ecosystems, is rich, the effect of smart service ecosystems' emergence on the foundation of smart products remains uncertain. This study reports on case study research based on 47 semi‐structured interviews with four companies that participate in an industrial smart service ecosystem. Taking an affordance‐theoretic perspective, we uncover the antecedents of and the process of emergent smart service ecosystems. We find that smart service ecosystems have three socio‐technical antecedents: a shared worldview, structural flexibility and integrity, and architecture of participation. We explain the emergence of smart service ecosystems as the result of specialisation in shared affordances and integration of idiosyncratic affordances into collective affordances. We derive seven propositions regarding the emergence of smart services, outline opportunities for further research, and present practical guidelines for manufacturing firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Rabl, Tanja, Petzsche, Valentin, Baum, Matthias, and Franzke, Sonja
Subjects
DIGITAL technology, INNOVATION management, SELF-efficacy, DECISION support systems, SOCIAL support
Abstract
Drawing on theorising on digital technologies as external enablers of entrepreneurial activities and an interactionist perspective on corporate entrepreneurship, this article examines the relationship between digital technology support and employee intrapreneurial behaviour. We propose that management support for innovation as an organisational characteristic and intrapreneurial self‐efficacy as an individual characteristic moderate this relationship. Findings from a metric conjoint experiment with 1360 decisions nested within 85 employees showed that support by social media, support by collaborative technologies, and support by intelligent decision support systems were significant predictors of employee intrapreneurial behaviour. However, the relative impact of support by these digital technologies varied with different levels of management support for innovation and intrapreneurial self‐efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Adam, Martin, Croitor, Evgheni, Werner, Dominick, Benlian, Alexander, and Wiener, Martin
Subjects
DIGITAL technology, INTENTION, PERCEIVED control (Psychology), ACCESS control, INFORMATION storage & retrieval systems
Abstract
Existing information systems (IS) research on platform control has largely focused on examining how input control (i.e., the mechanisms used to control platform access) affects complementors' intentions and behaviours after their decision to join a digital platform. Yet, our understanding of how input control is perceived before this decision and how such perceptions influence prospective complementors' intention to join a platform is still nascent. In this regard, our study views input control as a salient signal that shapes prospective complementors' expected benefits and costs (i.e., their performance and effort expectancy), and ultimately their decision to join a digital platform. Drawing on signalling theory and the antecedent‐benefit‐cost (ABC) framework, we conducted a randomized online experiment in the context of donation‐based crowdfunding. The experiment results offer empirical support for this view by showing that input control has distinct and complex signalling effects for prospective complementors. In particular, our findings reveal curvilinear and competing signalling effects, with perceived input control increasing both performance expectancy (at a decreasing rate) and effort expectancy (at an increasing rate). Also, we find that performance expectancy linearly increases prospective complementors' intention to join a platform, whereas effort expectancy linearly decreases their intention to do so. These findings imply that the overall relationship between perceived input control and intention to join follows an inverted U‐shape curve, which means that neither a low nor a high, but a moderate degree of perceived input control maximizes prospective complementors' intention to join. In sum, the results of our study provide novel and important insights into the signalling role that perceived input control plays in shaping prospective complementors' decision to join a digital platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Toutaoui, Jonas, Benlian, Alexander, and Hess, Thomas
Subjects
INFORMATION technology, TECHNOLOGICAL innovations, DIGITAL technology, PARADOX, BUSINESS size
Abstract
Leveraging digital technologies is a major concern for companies and has significant implications for their information technology (IT) functions. In many cases, a bi‐modal IT function is established: a 'traditional IT' mode focusing on the stability and exploitation of existing IT resources and an 'agile IT' mode focusing on exploring new technologies. Whereas previous research has predominantly taken an organisational‐level view of bi‐modal IT by treating it as a single, aggregated entity, we provide a micro‐foundations perspective on the intricate and paradoxical interrelationships between the two IT modes. Based on a multi‐case study with companies from different industries and of varying sizes, we uncover nine core tensions between traditional IT and agile IT as manifestations of five underlying paradoxes. We also identify corresponding management practices to address these tensions and paradoxes. Our study contributes to Information Systems research by disaggregating bi‐modal IT and capturing the tensions and their underlying paradoxes at the organisational and individual levels that bi‐modal IT entails. By highlighting the intricate interdependencies between the traditional and agile IT modes, we show that bi‐modal IT can be messier and more contested than previously anticipated. For practitioners, our study offers an overview of paradoxes and tensions that may arise in bi‐modal IT settings and provides suggestions on how to manage them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
DIGITAL learning, DIGITAL technology, MALE employees, EMPLOYEE attitude surveys, CREATIVE ability, SOCIAL role
Abstract
Digital creativity (DC) stands for employee's generation of useful and fresh ideas through the use of digital technologies, which is one of the prominent consequences of effective digital technology use. Drawing insights from the tripartite view of technology use (ie, technology, individual and task elements) and the social role lens, our study proposes and tests an integrative theoretical framework to understand how female and male employees progress from ambidextrous learning in digital technology use to DC. We first interviewed five frontline employees and then surveyed 221 employees that were different from the interview sample from eight organisations. All participants utilised a similar version of internet‐of‐things (IoT) in their daily work. We find that (a) exploitative use has a stronger influence on DC for women than for men, while explorative use displays a higher impact on DC for men than for women, and (b) technology digital affordance (TDA), digital knowledge (DK), and task variety (TV) exhibit significant influences on both exploitative and explorative uses to varying extents. The post‐hoc analysis reveals that exploitative use mediates the influences of TDA and DK on DC only for women; explorative use mediates the impacts of TDA and TV on DC only for men. Our study advances the understandings of the downstream impact of technology use in the digital context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Nicholson, Brian, Nielsen, Petter, and Saebo, Johan
Subjects
VIRTUAL communities, INFORMATION & communication technologies for development, DIGITAL technology
Abstract
An example of a hybrid platform from the commercial sector is the "Valve" gaming platform that enables transactional sales of the products and also the social networking on the "Steam" platform. However, there is a flip side of negative effects that we identify below in the following cross cutting themes: monopoly and greater inequality, shifts of power from state to platform, state use of platforms for digital authoritarianism and labour exploitation. Drawing on the concept of platformisation, the authors study the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' (UNHCR) transition from a closed transactional system to an open innovation platform focusing on core processes of identification, value creation and platform governance. Digital platforms are the hot topic in research and practice today and are now an area of multidisciplinary research in its own right, involving economics, accounting, entrepreneurship, management and beyond. [Extracted from the article]
DIGITAL technology, IDENTITY (Psychology), FOOD security, SOCIAL systems
Abstract
Digital identity platforms are widely regarded as important means to improve social protection systems. Yet these platforms have been implicated in the production of a range of unintended outcomes for development beneficiaries. To clarify how digital identity platforms enable the production of one such outcome that we call degenerative, because it causes target systems to deteriorate, we conduct a case study of the incorporation of Aadhaar, the world's largest digital identity platform, in India's primary food security scheme. Based on the data from two South Indian states, we show how the incorporation produced degenerative effects in the access, monitoring, and policy layers of the social protection system. These effects lead us to theorise how Aadhaar enabled the degenerative outcome via exclusion, distortion, and redirection, making public distribution of subsidised goods displaceable in favour of cash transfers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
DIGITAL technology, SOCIAL innovation, CROSS-cultural studies, VIRTUAL communities, SUSTAINABILITY, MANAGEMENT information systems, ORGANIZATIONAL sociology, BEHAVIORAL sciences
Abstract
Digital social innovation (DSI) involves the use of digital technologies in the development and implementation of innovative products, services, processes and business models that seek to improve the well-being and agency of socially disadvantaged groups or address social problems related to marginality, inequality and social exclusion (Qureshi, Pan, & Zheng, 2017; Shalini et al., 2021). Information Systems Frontiers, 22 (11), 1 - 21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-020-09991-6 153 Parthiban, R., Qureshi, I., Bandyopadhyay, S., & Jaikumar, S. (2021).
Social inclusion/exclusion (Diaz Andrade & Doolin, 2016; Iivari et al., 2018; Riaz & Qureshi, 2017); social inequality (Qureshi et al., 2018; Zheng & Walsham, 2008, 2021)
Embedded agency of DSIrs
How are DSIrs able to engage with local institutions yet bring change in these very same institutions? 151 Pandey, M., Bhati, M., Shukla, D. M., & Qureshi, I. (2021). 152 Parthiban, R., Qureshi, I., Bandyopadhyay, S., Bhatt, B., & Jaikumar, S. (2020). [Extracted from the article]
Zeiss, Roman, Ixmeier, Anne, Recker, Jan, and Kranz, Johann
Subjects
INFORMATION storage & retrieval systems, ECONOMIC models, WASTE products, SCHOLARSHIPS, LITERATURE reviews, DIGITAL technology
Abstract
One of today's grand societal challenges is to replace the current 'take‐make‐waste' economic model with a circular economic model that allows a gradual decoupling of economic activities from the consumption of finite virgin resources. While circular economy (CE) scholars have long lauded digital technologies such as sensors, distributed ledgers, or platforms as key enablers, our own community has not fully explored the potentials of information systems (IS) for a CE. Considering recent technological advances in software and hardware and our history of helping address wicked challenges, we believe the time is ripe to mobilise IS scholarship for a CE. Our findings from an interdisciplinary literature review show that research has primarily examined IS potentials for increasing efficiency of isolated intra‐organisational processes while neglecting the larger sustainability potential of IS to establish circular material flows—that is, slow down and close material loops across entire product lifecycles. In response, we propose directions for IS research that develop our knowledge of how IS can help understand and enact circular material flows to intensify and extend use of products and components and recycle waste materials. Our directions offer pathways to building and evaluating the problem‐solution pairing that could characterise a prolific CE‐IS relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Wimelius, Henrik, Mathiassen, Lars, Holmström, Jonny, and Keil, Mark
Subjects
DIGITAL technology, DECISION making, COMPETITIVE advantage in business
Abstract
To realize their strategic goals and maintain a competitive advantage in the digital era, organizations must periodically renew their digital platforms and infrastructures. However, knowledge about such technology renewal is scattered across diverse research streams, so insights into the process are both limited and fragmented. In this article, we consolidate insights from previous research to conceptualize technology renewal as an inherently paradoxical digital transformation process that requires organizations to simultaneously remove their technological foundation and build on the practices that depend on it to implement a new technological foundation. Previous research suggests that technology renewal initiatives are driven by three paradoxical tensions: (a) established vs renewed technology usage, (b) deliberate vs emergent renewal practices and (c) inner vs outer renewal contexts. We apply this framing to a longitudinal case study in which we analyse and explain how an organization's responses to manifestations of these tensions eventually led to a vicious cycle of continued investments into two overlapping and largely incompatible digital platforms over a 9‐year period. Based on these conceptual and empirical insights, we theorize technology renewal as a paradoxical, and increasingly critical, digital transformation process that forces managers to make decisions in complex and ambiguous choice situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Chan, Calvin M.L., Teoh, Say Yen, Yeow, Adrian, and Pan, Gary
Subjects
SMALL business, DIGITAL technology, TECHNOLOGICAL innovations, INNOVATIONS in business, INFORMATION technology, ORGANIZATIONAL change, INDUSTRIAL management, AMBIDEXTERITY
Abstract
Disruptive digital innovation (DDI) often creates hypercompetitive market environment that forces firms to be agile to survive and remain competitive. Whereas most studies have focused on larger firms' effort to be agile, few have looked at how small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) respond to DDI. The study attempts to answer the research question of how SMEs achieve agility to respond to DDI. Drawing on a case study of an innovative SME, our study develops a framework on agility based on the processes of mitigating organizational rigidity, developing innovative capabilities, and balancing the tension of organizational ambidexterity. Specifically, our findings show that for SMEs, mitigating organizational rigidity is enabled by the mechanism of achieving boundary openness while developing innovative capability is enabled by the mechanism of achieving organizational adaptability. At the same time, given the inherent challenges of resource constraints, SMEs also need to balance the tension of organizational ambidexterity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
DIGITAL technology, SCIENTOMETRICS, TECHNOLOGICAL innovations, INFORMATION & communication technologies for development, BUSINESS models
Abstract
Organizations are under increasing pressure to apply digital technologies to renew and transform their business models. A great deal of research has examined specific phenomena, such as adoption antecedents and design methods. However, it is unclear what we know in totality, including what research streams exist, how they fit together, and fruitful opportunities for new knowledge development. We combine scientometric and systematic literature review methodologies to examine 7 dimensions of an adapted theoretical framework: initiation; development; implementation; exploitation; the role of the external competitive environment; role of internal organizational environment; and product, service, and process outcomes. From a macro perspective, we find vastly uneven coverage of research streams, diversity and diffusiveness of research, and knowledge and learning as an underlying conceptual pillar. Combined with our summary of each of the 7 research streams, these findings suggest several areas of future research, which we develop by identifying oppositions and tensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Lyytinen, Kalle, Yoo, Youngjin, and Boland Jr., Richard J.
Subjects
DIGITAL technology, TECHNOLOGICAL innovations, DIGITIZATION, SOCIAL integration, INFORMATION technology
Abstract
The increased digitization of organizational processes and products poses new challenges for understanding product innovation. It also opens new horizons for information systems research. We analyse how ongoing pervasive digitization of product innovation reshapes knowledge creation and sharing in innovation networks. We argue that advances in digital technologies (1) increase innovation network connectivity by reducing communication costs and increasing its reach and scope and (2) increase the speed and scope of digital convergence, which increases network knowledge heterogeneity and need for integration. These developments, in turn, stretch existing innovation networks by redistributing control and increasing the demand for knowledge coordination across time and space presenting novel challenges for knowledge creation, assimilation and integration. Based on this foundation, we distinguish four types of emerging innovation networks supported by digitalization: (1) project innovation networks; (2) clan innovation networks; (3) federated innovation networks; and (4) anarchic innovation networks. Each network involves different cognitive and social translations - or ways of identifying, sharing and assimilating knowledge. We describe the role of five novel properties of digital infrastructures in supporting each type of innovation network: representational flexibility, semantic coherence, temporal and spatial traceability, knowledge brokering and linguistic calibration. We identify several implications for future innovation research. In particular, we focus on the emergence of anarchic network forms that follow full-fledged digital convergence founded on richer innovation ontologies and epistemologies calling to critically re-examine the nature and impact of modularization for innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]