Harvesting distributed innovation opportunities: studies on digital innovation

The permeation of digital technology into all aspects of the business world has created unstoppable momentum in the generation of novel products, services, business processes and business models, marking the prosperity of digital innovation. In order to succeed in the digital age, it is important for companies to understand the underlying logic of the generative power of digital innovation. Evidence is accumulating that this generative power arises from the distributed nature of digital innovation, which is often generated through a process of harvesting distributed innovation opportunities. However, there is limited understanding of how actors proactively appropriate distributed innovation opportunities to generate digital innovation. To this end, in-depth studies were conducted on each of the four stages of the digital innovation process (discovery, development, diffusion and impact). Each study contributes new understandings to the digital innovation literature in terms of how actors take advantage of unique characteristics of digital technology to tap into distributed innovation opportunities in order to conceive a digital innovation, embody it in an outstanding form, promote its adoption, and surpass the original plan and gain extra benefits. The studies together provide a more comprehensive understanding of the appropriation of distributed innovation opportunities in digital innovation. Through the four studies, this thesis highlights the importance of shifting away from the “generativity as a concomitant result” mindset toward investigating the underlying logic of actors’ proactive appropriation of distributed innovation opportunitie