Digital Innovation, Transformation, and Entrepreneurship

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10125/112538

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Digital Innovation in Data-Poor and Unstructured Environments: Envisioning Autonomous Systems in Forestry
(2026-01-06) Bergqvist, Malin; Nylén, Daniel; Lindberg, Aron; Åkesson, Maria
While IS research has increasingly turned its attention to autonomous systems, empirical investigations are predominantly conducted in artificial settings such as offices or factories. As a result, we know relatively little about what shapes autonomy in natural settings, where there is poor access to data on vegetation and terrain. To address this knowledge gap, we report a qualitative case study on the development of autonomous forestry machines. Applying the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework, our analysis reveals that autonomy is inherently shaped by its surroundings, including technological limitations, dynamic organizational processes, and intricate environmental factors. This study furthers IS research on autonomous systems by highlighting their embedded, emergent nature in data-poor and unstructured settings.
From Access to Orchestration: The Role of Data Commons in Digital Innovation
(2026-01-06) Campmann, Julia; Rosenkranz, Christoph
Digital innovation increasingly relies on shared data environments that promote collaboration, experimentation, and co-creation of novel solutions. Data commons have emerged within digital ecosystems, enabling stakeholders to pool, access, and recombine data across organizational boundaries. However, despite the growing interest, we know little about how data commons facilitate digital innovation by building on shared data. Existing research often emphasizes factors such as trust, governance, or regulation, but ignores the actors and their innovation practices within data commons. This study employs an exploratory research design to investigate how exactly data commons facilitate digital innovation. We focus on the actors, practices, and sociotechnical configurations that arise within data commons and identify key mechanisms related to data that contribute to digital innovation outcomes. This enhances our understanding of data commons as enablers of digital innovation, highlights the critical role of data, and offers insights for organizations seeking to leverage shared data resources.
Entrepreneurial Digital Resilience in War: Lessons from Ukrainian SMEs
(2026-01-06) Komysheva, Albina; Rothe, Hannes; Wessel, Lauri
Limited IS research is available on how SMEs achieve digital resilience in the context of major geopolitical shocks. Other than large organizations, SMEs typically lack the resources to quickly produce capabilities to resist and recover. At the same time, entrepreneurial bricolage teaches us that such organizations are used to improvisation with resources-at-hand. We turn to a study of Ukrainian entrepreneurs during the ongoing war through the lens of bricolage for the creation of digital resilience. Our interviews with Ukrainian SME founders reveal that entrepreneurs actively repurpose and recombine existing digital tools, infrastructures, and platforms to maintain operations, ensure remote work, and reconfigure business models. Our study contributes to the digital resilience literature by highlighting how resilience emerges through cumulative learning, cognitive framing, and entrepreneurial improvisation, offering new insights into managing SMEs under extreme conditions.
Artificial Intelligence Systems and Sustainability Focus in Venture Funding: When Technology Meets Purpose
(2026-01-06) Ibrahimli, Ulvi; Wirsing, Benedikt; Winkelmann, Axel
AI systems and their integration to address current societal challenges have recast the modus operandi in business venturing. Yet little is known about the funding dynamics of startup businesses that blend such algorithmic systems with a sustainability focus. This study explores how the isolated integration of AI systems and sustainability in European startups is rewarded or punished by investors. Using a signaling lens and econometric models, the study finds that size of funding is negatively associated with AI signals, and sustainability startups face similar fundraising hurdles. For startups that coalesce AI systems and sustainable foci, findings reveal that startups with such a tandem face more fundraising challenges than their counterparts. Robustness checks and alternative specifications are performed to verify the validity of the findings. Examining this underexplored intersection sheds light on the intricate dynamics and trade-offs shaping the European funding landscape for startups embracing AI and sustainability objectives.
How Companies Address the Threat of Cryptographically Relevant Quantum Computers and Migrate to Post-Quantum Cryptography
(2026-01-06) Brettschneider, Jennifer; Wessel, Lauri; Mendling, Jan
How companies prepare for the migration to post-quantum cryptography (PQC) remains an open and important question, despite growing awareness of the threat posed by cryptographically relevant quantum computers (CRQCs). While PQC standards released by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2024 aim to resist both quantum and classical attacks, migrating to these standards presents significant technical and organizational challenges. Existing research has focused on algorithm design and migration frameworks, but little is known about how companies approach this migration in practice. Through semi-structured interviews, we explore how four companies address the CRQC threat and PQC migration. We have found that companies perceive the timing and threat of CRQC differently, which implies that these perceptions influence PQC migration.
Innovating in Shifting Landscapes: Digital Innovation in the Era of Generative AI
(2026-01-06) Choi, Soo Young; Zhang, Zhewei; Nandhakumar, Joe
Emerging technologies such as generative AI challenges our current understanding of digital innovation, which addresses recombination of physical and digital components into novel products. These technologies introduce dynamic and evolving capabilities that disrupt existing possibilities, what actors imagine to be feasible, valuable, or achievable. Through an 18-month longitudinal case study of an international legal firm developing an AI assistant, we observed how spaces of possibilities shift under external technological disruption, and identified core phases of innovation – surfacing new possibilities, shifting space of possibilities, and actualizing selected possibilities – through which actors envisioned and actualized emerging possibilities where distinct versions of AI evolved. Our study contributes to organizing logic of digital innovation in rapidly evolving technological landscapes, by showing how ongoing disruption during innovation shifts space of possibilities and drives iterative cycles of surfacing, shifting and actualizing new possibilities.
Motivational and Usage Differences in Freemium AI Adoption: A Comparative Study of ChatGPT Users in the Workplace
(2026-01-06) Ryu, Jong Sang; Lee, Sun Kyong
As generative AI tools like ChatGPT become integral to workplace digital transformation (DX), understanding differences in user adoption is increasingly important. This study compares free and paid users of ChatGPT in professional settings using an integrated framework combining the technology acceptance model (TAM) and uses and gratifications (U&G) theory. Survey data from 410 business users were analyzed through structural equation modeling. Results show that paid users report higher motivation and innovativeness, while free users express greater satisfaction and continued usage intentions. Productivity, novelty, and learning emerged as key motivational drivers, with actual use and gratification mediating continuance intention. This study contributes to theory by extending TAM and U&G to a freemium AI context, demonstrating how subscription tier influences user expectations and engagement. Practical implications are offered for organizations and platform designers seeking to align AI services with user needs and promote sustainable adoption in the workplace.
Two Drivers, One Roadblock: Unpacking the Organizational Sensemaking Challenge within an Implicit Twin Transformation of a German Automotive Manufacturer
(2026-01-06) Vazquez Varela, Guillermo; Mayer, Thomas; Arndt, Hans-Knud
Twin transformation, coined as the simultaneous pursuit of digitalization and sustainability, has become a strategic priority for industrial organizations. Yet, integrating these two agendas remains highly challenging in practice. This study examines an implicit twin transformation at a leading German automotive manufacturer, where digital and sustainability initiatives unfold in parallel without explicit integration. Drawing on 11 in-depth interviews with stakeholders from both domains, we identify organizational challenges that hinder alignment. Our findings reveal a critical barrier: a lack of shared sensemaking between IT and sustainability functions, which led to inefficiencies and stalled progress. By unpacking the dynamics of an unarticulated yet operational twin transformation, this paper extends an existing model by showcasing sensemaking misalignments as a key factor undermining transformation success. The study advances theoretical understanding of twin transformation and offers practical insights for better aligning its “two drivers” in complex, incumbent settings.
Introduction to the Minitrack on Digital Innovation, Transformation, and Entrepreneurship
(2026-01-06) Lyytinen, Kalle; Lehmann, Julian; Berente, Nicholas
Digital Technologies for Non-Committal Learning in Entrepreneurial Firms
(2026-01-06) Bockelmann, Theresa; Lehmann, Julian; Berente, Nicholas; Recker, Jan
Entrepreneurial firms face significant uncertainty in their trajectory of emergence, whilst also lacking resources for large‐scale digital investments that could help them generate options for the future. We suggest they balance this dilemma by drawing on digital technologies to engage in non‐committal learning, i.e., for exploring multiple commercialization paths before committing any substantial resources to them. Through a 14‐firm multi‐case study, we show that digital firms do so in two main ways., First, digital firms generate digital façades (minimal, external‐facing digital objects such as outsourced portals or mock‐up dashboards) to create and capture early legitimacy signals. Second, they generate digital buffers (small‐scale pilots, add-on modules, or time-bound experiments) to support core workflows and collect performance data. Both ways allow digital firms to learn about and explore paths for their future without locking into full resource deployment and thereby create a new form of a digital option that is qualitatively different from those typically invested in by incumbent firms.

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