The Interface of IT Capabilities and Disruptive Innovations

This paper presents a collection of behaviours for gaining insights in projects of small, innovating organisations. An explorative study of 12 informants and their subject matter expertise are used to inform this work. The paper draws on three bodies of literature – Innovation Management, Knowledge Management and Project Management to inform the theoretical background. So far no framework has been developed that are tailored to the unique situation of Small Innovators as they aim to foster innovation within the organisation. A number of propositions is offered based on the qualitative data analysis and hermeneutic literature appraisal that address potential heuristics processes that could enhance a Small Innovator’s ability to gain better insights while pursuing innovative project outcomes

MIND – An IT/IS Capability assessment framework

This study leverages existing research to address the aforementioned research gap by focusing on the following specific objective and research question: How can organizational IS capability be assessed

Discovering the Role of Information Technology In Disruptive Innovations - Enabler, Sustainer or Barrier

IT Capability has traditionally been used as one of the constructs used to high-light the value of IT both to competitive advantage and firm performance. However, a school of thought is rising with the banner that IT no longer matters as a source of competitive advantage. The argument is that IT is becoming a utility like electricity and organizations need to look elsewhere for unique competitive advantage. This dissertation is therefore positioned to investigate the value (if any) of IT in today’s organisations particularly in disruptive innovation scenarios. Disruptive innovations (DI) are innovations that typically gain initial adoption at the fringe of a market but gradually attract the mainstream customers of an established firm thereby threatening the survival of such firms. Disruptive Innovations have caused leading firms to drop from their esteemed position not because of bad management or lack of technological skills but because they introduce a different set of business rules and performance measures. Therefore, DI can be a source of competitive advantage for the firm that successfully implements it and a cause for alarm for firms facing such disruptions. By adopting a qualitative study and extensive review of literature and secondary data, the dissertation explores how IT plays a role in disruptive innovations in two streams – IT as DI and IT for DI. IT as DI considers - what is the significance of IT when the disruptive innovation is a digital/IT Innovation? While IT for DI considers - what is the essence of IT in the creation or response to disruptive innovations (regardless of the type of innovation)? For the IT as DI study, the dissertation advances a theoretical proposition of Wickempowerment using the theory of empowerment and wicked problems to articulate the identified duality when a disruptive innovation is also a digital/IT innovation. Using IT capability as a theoretical lens for the IT for DI study, the dissertation posits that IT remains a potent source of competitive advantage in two ways. These are conceptualized as Disrupt-ability (ability to create disruptive innovations) and Disruptability (ability to be disrupted or expressed conversely as ability to respond to disruptive innovation threats). With this theoretical conceptualization, we articulate three roles of IT capabilities in disruptive innovations – IT as an enabler, IT as a sustainer and IT as a barrier.Yrityksen kykyä hyödyntää tietotekniikkaa (IT) on perinteisesti tutkimuksessa tarkasteltu yhtenä merkittävänä yrityksen tulokseen ja kilpailukykyyn vaikuttavana tekijänä. Toisaalta osa tutkijoista on esittänyt, että tietotekniikka ei enää ole merkittävä kilpailuedun lähde. Tämän näkemyksen mukaan tietotekniikka on sähköverkkojen tavoin osa kaikille yhteistä infrastruktuuria ja organisaatioiden tulisi hakea muita tapoja erottautua kilpailijoistaan. Tämä väitöskirja asemoituukin tutkimaan sitä, millainen arvo tietotekniikalla on yritysten markkina-asemaa voimakkaasti muuttavien disruptiivisten innovaatioiden (DI) muotoutumisessa. Disruptiiviset innovaatiot on määritelty innovaatioiksi, jotka alkuvaiheessa kiinnostavat vain pientä osaa toimialan asiakkaista, mutta jotka vähitellen tavoittavat myös suuria asiakasryhmiä ja näin uhkaavat alan perinteisten suurten yritysten markkina-asemaa. Muutos ei siis johdu välttämättä huonosta johtamisesta tai puutteellisista teknisistä taidoista, vaan siitä, että innovaatio muuttaa alan liiketoiminnan sääntöjä ja menestystekijöitä. Yrityksen kyky tuoda tällainen uusi innovaatio markkinoille voi siis tuoda yritykselle merkittävää kilpailuetua, mutta samalla sen tulisi herättää alan muut yritykset vastaamaan uuden innovaation aiheuttamiin muutoksiin. Käsillä oleva tutkimus hyödyntää laadullisen tutkimuksen ja systemaattisen kirjallisuuskatsauksen menetelmiä tarkastellakseen tietotekniikan roolia sekä tietotekniikkaan perustuvissa innovaatioissa erityisesti (IT as DI) että liiketoimintaan liittyvissä innovaatioissa yleisemmin (IT for DI). Ensimmäinen tutkimuskysymys (IT as DI) siis tarkastelee erityisesti digitaalisten innovaatioiden syntyä ja vaikutuksia. Toisen tutkimuskysymyksen kautta (IT for DI) huomio kohdistuu tietotekniikan rooliin liiketoiminnan innovaatioiden luomisessa ja innovaatioihin vastaamisessa (innovaation tyypistä riippumatta). Digitaalisten innovaatioiden tarkastelussa teoreettisena viitekehyksenä hyödynnetään monitahoisten ja vaikeasti ratkaistavien ongelmien käsittelyyn ja voimaistamiseen liittyvää kirjallisuutta. Näin tarkasteltuna digitaalisissa innovaatioissa voidaan erottaa kahdensuuntaiset (positiiviset ja negatiiviset) vaikutukset niin yksilöiden, yritysten kuin yhteiskunnankin tasolla. Toisen tutkimuskysymyksen tarkastelu perustuu IT kyvykkyyksiä käsittelevään tutkimukseen. Tältä osin tutkimuksessa esitetään, että IT voi tuottaa yritykselle kilpailuetua kahdella eri tavalla: IT kyvykkyydet ovat osa yrityksen kykyä luoda uusia disruptiivisia innovaatioita (Disrupt-ability), IT kyvykkyyksien puuttuminen taas voi heikentää yrityksen kykyä vastata muiden luomiin innovaatioihin (Disruptability). Tämän teoreettisen viitekehyksen kautta IT kyvykkyyksilletunnistetaan kolme roolia disruptiivisissa innovaatioissa: IT mahdollistajana, IT ylläpitäjänä ja IT esteenä.Siirretty Doriast

Wicked yet Empowering - When IT Innovations are also Disruptive Innovations.

What happens when an IT innovation is also a disruptive innovation? This study explores this question by examining sample cases of advances in IT that have also been categorized as disruptive innovations. The study leads to a conceptual thesis that such occurrences result in a contrasting duality dimension of wicked challenges and empowerment opportunities for different actors. We advance a model for positioning an IT innovation with disruptive tendencies in an impact quadrant to access its relative position to different actors. We observe that in an era characterized by continuous rapid advancement in IT, the tendency for the emergence of disruptive IT innovations increases. We therefore conclude by highlighting trends in this direction and advance future research agenda that should open up an opportunity for IS research that could be both theoretically insightful as well as practically relevant

Transforming Digital Inventions into Digital Innovations – A Missing Material Perspective on Technology Adoption

Technology agnosticism dominates explanations of technology adoption in digital innovation. Accordingly, technology itself plays a limited role in determining adoption success. Instead, aspects outside the inventors' control, including marketing, user perceptions, and organizational environment, decide the adoption outcome. We revisit the original innovation concept and draw attention to what we call a digital invention. Looking at the transition of a digital invention to digital innovation, we argue for a technology-affinity perspective to complement existing adoption perspectives. The new perspective emphasizes the role of conscious invention design for innovation. We find three ways in which specific invention focus can increase the invention's chances for adoption. For instance, we show that contrary to the prevalent idea of technologies enabling new ways of doing things, it is the invention's focus on enabling innate behaviors that can facilitate adoption. Past innovation and contemporary innovation in the film industry illustrate our thinking

Application of a Virtual Collaborative Environment in a Teaching Case.

This paper demonstrates the use of technology in enabling and facilitating collaborative teaching in an IS project management teaching case in the virtual environment. The motivation and objectives of the Synergizer case (IS project management case), the adopted methodology for the case development and the underlying theory for the teaching process are presented. Based on lessons from the case, this paper provides teaching suggestions and discusses a possible delivery mode of interactive learning in IS field in the virtual environment. Furthermore, the paper presents the implementation of the teaching case in a collaborative environment as demonstration of an emergent re-calibration of a curriculum delivery to meet changing demands of the education landscape. The virtual collaborative teaching approach adopted for delivering the course/case should be suitable for teaching other IS courses – including project management, change management and other related courses

Digital Disruption: A conceptual clarification

Digital disruption is emerging as a widely used term in academic and practitioner discourse. Yet, there are few studies attempting to theorize it beyond public media conjectures. The concept risks losing its theoretical value without a grounding in its theoretical foundation – digital innovations and disruptive innovations. As a result, the term lacks precision and confounds phenomena that are neither sufficiently digital, innovative, or disruptive. This undermines the utility of the term for researchers and practitioners alike. In this paper, we conceptualize digital disruption by attending to its properties that emanate from its conceptual roots of digital innovation and disruptive innovation. In doing so, we seek to add to past work calling us to pay attention to the needed caution in chronicling digital phenomena beyond fads

TOWARDS A UNIFIED VIEW OF INFORMATION SYSTEM (IS) CAPABILITY

Since the introduction of the concept of IS capability to IS research, it has been extensively used to explain various IS related studies - for instance: competitive advantage, firm performance, and agility among several others. This extensive use of the concept has resulted in several interpretations and diverse classifications. These discrepancies in combination with the extensive use of the concept put its fundamental logic at the danger of losing its meaning. Using a systematic literature review, this paper highlights the similarities, differences and fragmented knowledge groups and consequently provides a possibility to move towards a unified view of IS capability. To consolidate the fragmented classifications, the paper advances a four ellipse model from prior classification to vividly conceptualize the IS capability construct and hence provide an integrated platform for future research

Review: Disruptive Innovation & Information Technology – Charting a path

While it has been established that the Information technology (IT) capability of an organization contributes to its ability to innovate and respond to threats, very little has been done in understanding the significance, if any, of the role of IT in disruptive innovation (DI) scenarios. This paper systematically reviews prior research on the concept of DI in relation to IT. Importantly, this paper lays out a research agenda for the exploration of IT and IS research on the subject of DI. Topical questions are raised and calls are made for further studies to position the relevance of IT/IS to the maturing discussion of disruptive innovation. Concurrently, a general review of the evolution of the theory of disruptive innovation and its current status is also presented. A framework classifying disruptive innovation based on typology and definitions is demonstrated in tandem with ensuing questions on the role of information technology

The 6th ISPIM Innovation Symposium – Innovation in the Asian Century

Disruptive innovations by their nature, induces a reshuffling of the position of companies within their industry while the bottom of the pyramid typifies the emerging and developing economies of the world. An observable similarity between the characteristics of disruptive innovation and the attributes of the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) prompts a logical question - can disruptive innovations occurring at the BOP impact the esteemed position of today's top companies? With the aid of an agent-based model (ABM) simulation, this paper examines different scenarios of the occurrence of disruptive innovations at the top of the pyramid (TOP) and the BOP. The paper further, examines the associated impact and effect of such occurrence on the future sustainability of today's companies and highlights some vulnerability that managers need pay attention too.</p