IDT - Digital Innovation Management: Reinventing innovation management research in a digital world

Question 1

Digital Innovation (definition)

Answer 1

Is the use of digital technology during the process of innovating. Can also be used to describe (fully of partly) the outcome of innovation. Digital technologies and associated digitizing processes form an innate part of the new idea and/or its development, diffusion or assimilation

Question 2

Three important notes to Nambisan’s definition of Digital innovation

Answer 2

1. As long as innovation outcomes are made possible through the use of digital tech. and processes, the outcomes themselves need not be digital
2. A broad swath of digital tools and infra. can be used for making innovation possible
3. The possibility that outcomes may be diffused, assimilated or adapted to specific use-contexts typically experienced with digital platforms

Question 3

Less bounded innovation

Answer 3

Innovation processes, in addition to outcomes, also have become less bounded, in terms of their temporal structure. Specifically, the digitization of innovation processes helps to break down the boundaries between different innovation phases and brings a greater level of unpredictability and overlap in their time horizons.

Question 4

Less predefinition in innovation agency

Answer 4

With digital innovation, there is a shift toward less predefined and more distributed innovation agency, particularly in technology intensive industries; this shift has been referred to as distributed innovation

This shift has been largely made possible by digital technologies infused into innovation outcomes and processes. For innovation outcomes, digital platforms and open standards enable collectives (of organizations or individuals) to pursue innovation collaboratively

Question 5

Less boundaries between innovation process and outcomes

Answer 5

With digitization, less demarcation and more complex, dynamic interaction between innovation processes and outcomes.

Traditionally, innovation management studies have focused either on the process (with limited attention to the innovation outcome) or the innovation outcome (with limited attention to the innovation process)

Question 6

Dynamic problem-solution design pairing

Answer 6

Digital innovation management as a sporadic, parallel, and heterogeneous generation, forking, merging. termination, and refinement of problem-solution design pairs. Acknowledges the fluid boundaries of the innovation space and the potential for innovation agency to be distributed.

Question 7

Socio-cognitive sensemaking

Answer 7

Shared cognition and joint sensemaking as critical element of digital innovation management; “narratives” (embedded in digital artifacts and supported by digital technologies) as a vehicle for such socio-cognitive sensemaking. Acknowledges the fluid boundaries of the innovation space and the heterogeneous actors that populate it (distributed innovation agency).

Question 8

Technology affordances and constraints

Answer 8

Considers digital technology use as sets of affordances and constraints for particular innovating actors and helps explain how and why the “same” technology can be repurposed by different actors or has different innovation outcomes in different contexts. Acknowledges the receding distinctions (and the accompanying duality) between innovation processes and outcomes.

Question 9

Orchestration

Answer 9

Problem-solution matching as a microfoundation of digital innovation orchestration; increasing role of digital technologies in enabling or supporting such orchestration. Acknowledges the fluid boundaries of the innovation space and the potential for innovation agency to be distributed.