The digital undertow: how the corollary effects of digital transformation affect industry standards
File(s)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Scott, Susan
Orlikowski, Wanda
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Scholarship on digital transformation has centered on how waves of digitalization have moved through industries, producing strategic changes within and across firms and enabling new forms of value creation. In this paper, we argue that different but no less important processes of digital transformation are generated by the undertow produced by these waves. This digital undertow, a corollary effect of waves of digitalization, profoundly influences how firms operate by transforming the industry standards that coordinate and regulate their core business activities. Using a genealogical approach, we draw on findings from a longitudinal field study in book publishing to theorize the tensions and processes that constitute the digital undertow. We explain that, when waves of digitalization transform firms’ core activities, they unwittingly affect how industry standards correspond with materializations of the phenomena they structure, thus influencing how standards perform in practice. A significant outcome of recent waves of digitalization in the book industry is the loss in correspondence between industry standards and novel digital materializations of the book. This is producing what we refer to as digital displacement, a process that is engendering an existential challenge to the capacity of standards to effectively coordinate and regulate industry operations in the digital age.
Date Issued
2022-03-01
Date Acceptance
2021-07-26
Citation
Information Systems Research, 2022, 33 (1), pp.311-336
ISSN
1047-7047
Publisher
Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences
Start Page
311
End Page
336
Journal / Book Title
Information Systems Research
Volume
33
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2021, INFORMS.
Subjects
BOUNDARY RESOURCES
Business & Economics
BUSINESS STRATEGY
digital publishing
digital transformation
DYNAMIC CAPABILITIES
E-COMMERCE
genealogy
GENEALOGY
Information Science & Library Science
INFORMATION-SYSTEMS
Management
materialization
ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATION
Science & Technology
SERVICE INNOVATION
Social Sciences
standards
Technology
TECHNOLOGY STANDARDS
VALUE CREATION
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2021-11-22