THE EVOLUTION OF HANDHELD COMPUTERS: PROBLEM FRAMING AND NETWORK BUILDING

The objective of this study is to better explain how technology companies, and their supporting networks of suppliers, investors, partners, and leading-edge adopters, make commitments to new information technologies when there is still substantial uncertainty about how a technology will be used. Through a series of case studies, this research will trace the commitments made to specific product visions in the chaotic handheld computer industry during the 1990s. Theories of technological innovation tell us that technologies can move between periods of widespread agreement over what form a technology should take (the “dominant designs ” described in Utterback 1994) and periods of deep uncertainty about the course of future technology development (the “eras of ferment ” described in Tushman and Rosenkopf 1992). These theories tell us much less, however, about the processes through which specific technologi-cal visions become dominant. The theoretical basis for this study comes from the social shaping of technology literature (e.g., Bijker and Law 1992). This body of work is useful for this project, and important for IS research more generally, because it assumes that a technology as flexible as IT can ultimately take many different forms. The form a technology ultimately takes needs to be explained, often through attention to specific processes of development. This study focuses on tw