Overcoming blockages to collective innovation in digital infrastructures

Abstract

Decentralized digital technologies increasingly enable multiple organizations to co-create digital infrastructures. However, collective innovation processes often come to a stand-still because of conflicting interests and business models. While existing research suggests various factors that block collective innovation processes, there is still little understanding of how organizations can overcome these blockages. In this paper, we identify patterns that explain how organizations overcome blockages of collective innovation processes for digital infrastructures. We follow a processual approach and develop a conceptual framework based on collective action theory. We evaluate the framework through a longitudinal case study on mobile payment infrastructure development. We find various reconfiguration processes that organizations use to overcome blockages of collective innovation. Theoretically, this paper contributes to the emerging body of research in the Information Infrastructure literature, which utilizes the collective action perspective and related models and frameworks to understand and explain underlying complexities in the digital infrastructures.