Theorizing Actor Interactions Shaping Innovation in Digital Infrastructures: The Case of Residential Internet Development in Belarus

Abstract

This paper focuses on how digital innovation develops in ecologies of distributed heterogeneous actors with contesting logics, diverse technologies, and various forms of orchestrations. Drawing on the insights from emerging theories of digital innovation augmented by an institutional logics perspective, we examine a case study of how residential internet infrastructure was shaped over 20 years by the interplay of self-organized residential communities, corporate internet service providers (ISPs), and a state ISP. Our analysis of this case leads to the identification of four types of interactions that shape the trajectories of digital infrastructure development beyond direct actor interplays and competitive or collaborative relationships. We label these interactions symbiotic generative, symbiotic mutualistic, parasitic complementary, and parasitic competitive and explain the processes and conditions of their development and their innovation outcomes. Drawing on these findings, we develop a model of symbiotic and parasitic interactions shaping digital infrastructure development and identify key characteristics of the ecologies where these emerge. The case study and the model that emerged aim to contribute to the growing field of research on complex and nonlinear paths of digital innovation development constituted by the dynamics of its distributed agency. The article concludes by highlighting avenues for future research.

Interfaces, Interactions, Time, and the Frontline Nexus: Foundational Constructs and Focus for the Field of Organizational Frontlines

“…Steele (2021) provides a novel conceptualization of interactions as a motivated choreography aimed at achieving mutual intelligibility to realize mutual gains. Zorina and Dutton (2021) identified four modes of interaction in a digital innovation ecosystem-symbiotic generative, symbiotic mutualistic, parasitic complementary, and parasitic competitive-that are key to explaining innovation outcomes. October et al (2018) analyzed audio recordings of caregiver conference calls to identify missed opportunities for alliance-building and vocal pauses that discouraged active turn-taking by patients in asymmetric relationships.…”

Governmental regulation and digital infrastructure innovation: The mediating role of modular architecture

“…Third, it then follows that DI innovation typically emerges through the semi-coordinated actions of actors with partially diverging interests that are trying to shape the infrastructure towards specific ends (Knol and Tan, 2018; Zorina and Dutton, 2021). Since it is rarely possible to redesign a DI from scratch, actors that want to innovate a DI must take what currently exists – that is, the constituent components of the DI conceptually referred to as the ‘installed base’ (Aanestad et al, 2017; Rodon and Eaton, 2021) – and try to evolve it in a desired direction (Ciborra and Hanseth, 2000; Koutsikouri et al, 2018).…”

“…Such institutions do so because DIs are important enough to society that they cannot be permitted to evolve in any direction. Not all modifications to a DI will be in the interest of society (Zorina and Dutton, 2021). Opportunities to repurpose digital content leads incumbents to reassert their control through new governmental interventions, for example, as tight copyright and data privacy laws (Tilson et al, 2010).…”

It is Along Ways: Global Payment Infrastructure in Movement

“…Outside the organisation, the case is similar. Zorina and Dutton (2021) find how the development of internet structures in Belarus takes place through different logics, such as the market (e.g., with profit aims) and the state (e.g., with top-down governance).…”

“…The norms and politics that form and change infrastructure Institution Payment infrastructure carries logics conveying knowledge, rules, and politics as is the case with know-your-customer regulations Avgerou and McGrath (2007), Bogusz and Morisse (2018), Currie and Guah (2007), Zorina and Dutton (2021)…”