Abstract
This chapter introduces digital innovation as an emerging area of information systems research. We present and discuss unique characteristics of digital technology and their implications for innovation. We define digital innovation as the co-creation of novel offerings through recombination of digital and/or physical components. Viewing digital innovation as an iterative, open-ended organizational activity, we revisit conventional assumptions of innovation such as the producer-consumer divide, process-product distinction, and value creation. Finally, we highlight the promise of an integrative digital innovation perspective for information systems research.
This chapter introduces digital innovation as an emerging area of information systems research. Digital innovation has gained considerable popularity as a topic in the field of information systems and beyond. Innovation is depicted as the creation of novel products by recombining production forces for market-based exchange. Three assumptions underpin such an understanding of innovation: producer–consumer divide; product–process innovation distinction; and innovation as deliberate organizational activity. Governed by basic principles of hierarchical control and division of labor, innovation is subject to managerial planning and executing activity aimed at successful commercialization of a novel product, or adopting a new process. Dominated by intra-organizational perspectives on the creation, commercialization, and implementation of information technology, innovation research in information systems has also been influenced by these ideas. Digital architecture facilitates recombination. It supports three dynamics: the separation of form and function, the separation of content and medium, and generativity.