Abstract

No abstract

In order to develop theories of digital innovation, it is necessary to explicitly consider the digital artifact that lends digital innovation its distinguishing features. Recent theoretical contributions elaborate the distinguishing properties of digital artifacts. These contributions have, however, not yet been systematically connected with conceptualizations that are used to frame empirical studies. A systematic review of empirical studies in Information Systems literature on digital innovation is conducted with a focus on how digital artifacts are being conceptualized. The paper contributes by discussing how each of the four conceptualizations enable the demonstration of a particular property of digital artifacts. This summary results in a meta-theory of artifacts in digital innovation. Based on this, a research agenda is constructed, with questions that would lead us closer to finding new theoretical logics of digital innovation.

The literature on digital innovation often relies on examples of radical, even paradigm-changing novelties. In order to develop such radical innovations, organizational separation of innovation efforts has been advocated by many as an effective strategy. We have conducted a longitudinal case study of a radical innovation project at a born-digital company. The company established a separate organization to develop radical innovation, but over time, the innovation drifted from radical to incremental. Even keeping the organization separate proved difficult.In explaining the events in the case study, we follow the argument that new theories of digital innovation can be developed with reference to the specific properties of digital artefacts. We outline how properties like editability and distributability may contribute to innovation drift, i.e., the proclivity of radical innovation ambitions to gradually drift towards more incremental realizations. Due to their nature, digital artefacts can diffuse through the organization and, thus, pose a challenge to the effectiveness of organizational separation as a strategy for innovation.With this work, we contribute to the literature on digital innovation by responding to calls for research on new theories of digital innovation and the demand for greater appreciation of digital materiality in organizing. We also challenge the prevailing view of digital innovations as radical and aim to open a debate on the possibility and considerations surrounding incremental digital innovations.