Applying Options Thinking to Shape Generativity in Digital Innovation: An Action Research into Connected Cars

Svahn, Fredrik; Lindgren, Rikard; Mathiassen, Lars

doi:10.1109/hicss.2015.497

Cited by 15 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…They examine how a Swedish media organization leverages those capabilities to further develop its use of a platform. The digital options' concept underscores that organizations must continuously identify options worthy of exploration and selectively realize those that generate new value (Sandberg et al 2014, Svahn et al 2015.…”

Section: Online Labor Platformsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction—Platforms and Infrastructures in the Digital Age

Constantinides

Henfridsson

Parker

2018

Information Systems Research

625

375

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Please scroll down for article-it is on subsequent pagesWith 12,500 members from nearly 90 countries, INFORMS is the largest international association of operations research (O.R.) and analytics professionals and students. INFORMS provides unique networking and learning opportunities for individual professionals, and organizations of all types and sizes, to better understand and use O.R. and analytics tools and methods to transform strategic visions and achieve better outcomes. For more information on INFORMS, its publications, membership, or meetings visit Abstract. In the last few years, leading-edge research from information systems, strategic management, and economics have separately informed our understanding of platforms and infrastructures in the digital age. Our motivation for undertaking this special issue rests in the conviction that it is significant to discuss platforms and infrastructures concomitantly, while enabling knowledge from diverse disciplines to cross-pollinate to address critical, pressing policy challenges and inform strategic thinking across both social and business spheres. In this editorial, we review key insights from the literature on digital infrastructures and platforms, present emerging research themes, highlight the contributions developed from each of the six articles in this special issue, and conclude with suggestions for further research.

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Section: Online Labor Platformsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction—Platforms and Infrastructures in the Digital Age

Constantinides

Henfridsson

Parker

2018

Information Systems Research

625

375

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“…To advance theory on organizational management of digital platforms in relation to digital infrastructures, we draw on concepts and theories related to digital options (Sambamurthy et al, 2003;Sandberg et al, 2014;Svahn et al, 2015) and technical debt (Kruchten et al, 2012;Ramasubbu and Kemerer, 2016;Tom et al, 2013). We use the notion of digital options to focus on the transformative capabilities that digital platform evolution affords a user organization and to explicate whether and how the organization can leverage the investment opportunities available in the platform ecosystem to further develop its platform use.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing Digital Platforms in User Organizations: The Interactions Between Digital Options and Digital Debt

Rolland

Mathiassen

Rai

2018

Information Systems Research

Self Cite

109

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As organizations increasingly use digital platforms to facilitate innovation, researchers are seeking to understand how platforms shape business practices. Although extant literature offers important insights into platform management from a platform-owner perspective, we know little about how organizations manage industry platforms provided by external parties to generate opportunities and overcome challenges in relation to their infrastructure and work processes. As part of larger ecosystems, these digital platforms offer organizations bundles of digital options that they can selectively invest in over time. At the same time, organizations' previous investments in digital infrastructure and work processes produce a legacy of digital debt that conditions how they manage their digital platforms over time. Against this backdrop, we investigate how digital options and digital debt were implicated in a large Scandinavian media organization's management of a news production platform over nearly 17 years. Drawing on extant literature and the findings from this case, we theorize the progression of and interactions between digital options and digital debt during an organization's digital platform management in relation to its infrastructure and work processes. The theory reveals the complex choices that organizations face in such efforts: While they may have to resolve digital debt to make a platform's digital options actionable, hesitancy to plant digital debt may equally well prevent them from realizing otherwise attractive digital options. Similarly, while identified digital options may offer organizations new opportunities to resolve digital debt, eagerness to realize digital options may just as easily lead to unwise planting of digital debt.

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“…Platform providers such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and eBay are carving up the Internet into de facto closed domains, implying that all relevant interactions take place outside the view of researchers (Eaton et al, 2015). As platforms are emerging in highly diverse industries like banking (de Reuver et al, 2015), health care (de Reuver et al, 2013), energy (Kiesling, 2016) and transportation (Svahn et al, 2015), the scope and diversity of scientific discourse are growing rapidly.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Digital Platform: A Research Agenda

Reuver

Sørensen

Basole

2018

Journal of Information Technology

1,145

794

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As digital platforms are transforming almost every industry today, they are slowly finding their way into the mainstream information systems (ISs) literature. Digital platforms are a challenging research object because of their distributed nature and intertwinement with institutions, markets and technologies. New research challenges arise as a result of the exponentially growing scale of platform innovation, the increasing complexity of platform architectures and the spread of digital platforms to many different industries. This paper develops a research agenda for digital platforms research in IS. We recommend researchers seek to (1) advance conceptual clarity by providing clear definitions that specify the unit of analysis, degree of digitality and the sociotechnical nature of digital platforms; (2) define the proper scoping of digital platform concepts by studying platforms on different architectural levels and in different industry settings; and (3) advance methodological rigour by employing embedded case studies, longitudinal studies, design research, data-driven modelling and visualisation techniques. Considering current developments in the business domain, we suggest six questions for further research: (1) Are platforms here to stay? (2) How should platforms be designed? (3) How do digital platforms transform industries? (4) How can data-driven approaches inform digital platforms research? (5) How should researchers develop theory for digital platforms? and (6) How do digital platforms affect everyday life?

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Applying Options Thinking to Shape Generativity in Digital Innovation: An Action Research into Connected Cars

Cited by 15 publications

References 52 publications

Introduction—Platforms and Infrastructures in the Digital Age

Introduction—Platforms and Infrastructures in the Digital Age

Managing Digital Platforms in User Organizations: The Interactions Between Digital Options and Digital Debt

The Digital Platform: A Research Agenda

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