The power of an intellectual account : developing stories of the digital age

Developing compelling stories is perhaps the most important mission of the qualitative information systems researcher. Indeed, our discipline ‘has a powerful story to tell about the transformational impact of information technology’ (Agarwal and Lucas, 2005: 381), and I am sure that we all feel that we would like to contribute. A powerful story can inform and explain. A powerful story can guide, intervene, and come with policy implications. However, most importantly, it may inspire us to take action, whether it is within the realm of knowledge, the realm of practice, or at the intersection between the two. How can stories of the digital age be developed? Even though there is no silver bullet, I offer some thoughts below as a comment to David Avison and Julien Malaurent’s thought-provoking piece on information systems and its suggested ‘theory fetish’

A Past Editor’s Note on the Progress of the Journal

Abstract not available

Governing open source software through coordination processes

Governance provides the authoritative framework for coordinating activities in open source development. Prior studies of open source governance have largely focused on its changing nature over time. In this work, we argue that the nature of governance varies across open source communities, and, in its evolution, multiple traces of authority may co-exist. We propose that such multiplicity can be understood by close examination of the authoritative structures embedded in coordination processes. We collected eight years of data on the coordination related to version control of the Linux kernel. Drawing on in-depth qualitative analysis, we investigate how coordination processes with different authoritative structures come together in the governance of open source software. We trace four coordination processes (autocratic clearing, oligarchic recursion, federated self-governance, and meritocratic idea-testing), each grounded in different authoritative structures (autocracy, oligarchy, federation, meritocracy) with their own form of legitimation. We offer a two-fold contribution in this paper. First, we enhance the open source governance literature by advancing a new theoretical perspective in which governance is seen as a configuration of coordination processes. Configurations give complementary support and are a source of tension and renewal. Second, we articulate a view on the conceptual relationship between governance and coordination where these concepts are understood as a duality, both working together to give rise to efficient and dynamic organizing in open source

Recombination in the Open-Ended Value Landscape of Digital Innovation

Digital innovation introduces a new open-ended value landscape to anyone seeking to generate or capture new value. To understand this landscape, we distinguish between design recombination and use recombination, explore how they play out together, and redirect the attention from products and services toward digital resources. Digital resources serve as building-blocks in digital innovation, and they hold the potential to simultaneously be part of multiple value paths, offered through design recombination and assembled through use recombination. Building on this perspective, we offer the value spaces framework as a tool for better understanding value creation and capture in digital innovation. We illustrate the framework and offer the early contours of a research agenda for information systems researchers

Micro-Strategizing in Platform Ecosystems: A Multiple Case Study

The strategy by which a platform owner manages the future trajectory of its platform involves many unknowns. In particular, the ambition to simultaneously control the platform and distribute design capability to users is challenging. While there is an emerging literature on strategy in platform ecosystems, little empirical evidence exists about the series of strategic actions that platform owners conduct to create value in an ecosystem context. Drawing on a strategy-as-process perspective, this paper augments existing platform perspectives by seeking to understand the micro-strategizing of a platform owner. To this end, we report a multiple case study of Apple’s use of application programming interfaces for generating value from the iPhone platform. Our comparative analysis identifies and explores five different micro-strategies that can be enacted proactively or reactively: counteracting, monetizing, resourcing, securing, and sustaining. The paper concludes with a number of theoretical and practical implications of these micro-strategies and their interaction

Re-representation as work design in outsourcing : a semiotic view

Outsourcing work relies on the supplier’s interpretation of the work delegated by the client. Existing streams of outsourcing literature tend to assume that the supplier should use the same convention as the client to make sense of the work package. In this research, we use a semiotic lens to challenge this assumption by viewing such sensemaking as a process of decoding symbolic representations. This complementary view involves innovative use of digital technology for re-representing the outsourced work through new conventions. We studied a Chinese business process outsourcing supplier in-depth to learn how such re-representation is achieved through the creation of special-purpose languages. Our research contributes to the Information Systems outsourcing literature by providing a semiotic view on the design of outsourcing work supported by digital technologies. Three re-representation practices (i.e., dissociating the signifiers, signifying through new conventions, and embedding new conventions in the digital infrastructure) constitute the core of this view. The results are highly significant for outsourcing theory and practice, not least since they suggest that the use of semiotics and visuals for re-representation may enable suppliers to reformulate outsourcing work and the expertise needed to deliver services

A Threesome Dance of Agency: Mangling the Sociomateriality of Technological Regimes in Digital Innovation

In this paper, we develop a sociomaterial perspective for appreciating tensions between different technological regimes in digital innovation. Our case study research specifically looks at the tension between the deep-rooted component-based logic of two automakers’ innovation practices and their attempt to introduce a new software architecture based on service orientation. Our evidence suggests that digital architectures need to materialize and be shaped in a dialectical way in the mangle of both existing regimes. We argue that the threesome dance of physical material agency, digital material agency and human agency can explain this finding and yield implications for our understanding of digital innovation in the traditional industries. Digital innovation is a result of a dialectical process, resolving various elements of resistance, subjection, and accommodation across the three types of agency

Scaling the User Base of Digital Ventures Through Generative Pattern Replication: The Case of Ridesharing.

Digital ventures seek to scale their user base quickly and effectively across markets in order to lock out competitors and drive adoption through positive feedback loops. We view such rapid global scaling as an organising logic by which ventures replicate a generic solution to recurring challenges, that are found in expanding a user base across markets; which is usually characterized by slight variables in their conditions. We distinguish and describe this as a process of “generative pattern replication”, where an existing scaling pattern is specialised to the specific circumstances of the new market, and applied there. For our study we looked at BlaBlaCar, a ridesharing venture that has rapidly scaled its business into 22 markets, to gain a better understanding about this generative process. Our research contributes to the digital innovation literature by proposing a novel perspective on the scaling of digital ventures.

Beyond the Common-Sense of Practice: A Case for Organizational Informatics

Abstract not availabl