IDT - Digital innovation and transformation: An institutional perspective

Question 1

Digital Innovation (definition)

Answer 1

Is about the creation and putting into action of novel products and services

As such, DI is about concerted orchestration of new products, processes, services, platforms and even business models

Question 2

Digital Transformation (Nambisan et al, 2017)

Answer 2

Is the combined effects of several digital innovations bringing about novel actors (- constellations), structures, practices, values and beliefs that change, threaten, replace or complement existing rules of the game within orgs. and fields.

Question 3

Institutional theory (definition)

Answer 3

Emphasizes that orgs. are not purely rational systems of producing goods and services, adapting to an environment of suppliers, consumers and competitors. They are themselves social and cultural systems embedded within an ‘institutional’ context of (social) expectations and prescriptions about what is appropriate (legitimate) behaviour

Question 4

Institutional theory (2) approaches to understanding change and innovation

Answer 4

1. Hold in tension the relationship between stasis and change, see continuity and homogeneity as well as change and heterogeneity amongst orgs. (Greenwood et al, 2017)
2. Understand change and stasis as an outcome of structures, activities and actions at multiple levels of analysis (societal, field, org., individual) (Scott, 2014)

Question 5

Three types of digital innovations (from an institutional perspective)

Answer 5

• Digital organizational forms
  E.g. AirBnB, Uber
• Digital institutional infrastructures
  E.g. Product platforms (Apple), Blockchain
• Digital institutional building blocks
  E.g. ERP-systems, Wordpress, Shopify

Question 6

Novel organizational forms

Answer 6

A novel digital organizational form is an digitally-enabled arrangement of practices, structures, and values constituting an organization’s core and that is appropriate in a given institutional context

Question 7

Novel institutional infrastructures

Answer 7

Standard-setting digital technologies enabling, constraining and coordinating numerous actors’ actions and interactions in ecosystems, fields or industries

Question 8

Novel institutional building blocks

Answer 8

Generally-accepted, ready-made or customizable modules encompassing sets of digital technologies for running or creating an organization

Question 9

Interaction between the novel and the existing

Answer 9

It is a central tenet of institutional theory that there is always interaction between the new and the old because of the embedded nature of socio-cultural expectations and the importance of legitimacy.

There is a time lag between the emergence of new institutional frameworks seeking legitimacy, and existing arrangements, such as the state (regulators, parliaments, courts), reacting to them (Brownsword & Yeung, 2008). This provides a ‘grey’ space to experiment with new business models.