Transformative rare events: Leveraging digital affordance actualisation

Abstract

This paper conceptualises the COVID-19 pandemic as a "rare event." Rare events channel managerial attention to magnified issues and foster resource mobilisation and learning. We draw on a case study of a US consumer lender to develop a model explaining how organisations actualise digital affordances as part of their rare event response and, in doing so, leverage the transformative experience towards establishing a "new normal." The model and its instantiation contribute conceptual understanding and advice for how IS managers may effectively address rare events and, in particular, the COVID-19 pandemic, including the aftermath of its lockdown and the transition to the new business status quo. The model emphasises the importance of understanding the evolution of digital affordances as possessing teleological paths where affordances are developed in steps corresponding to where an organisation focuses its managerial attention, with indirect consequences of possibilities to attend to other objectives enabled by digital technologies. Overall, the model contributes to theory by explaining the role of rare events in the evolution of affordances, including some that can be transformative and introducing the rare events literature into the IS discipline.

Evaluating Affordance-Based Opportunities: A Conjoint Experiment of Corporate Venture Capital Managers’ Decision-Making

“…Despite insights into the emergence (e.g., Majchrzak & Markus, 2013; Malhotra et al, 2021) and actualization of affordances (e.g., Henningsson et al, 2021; Strong et al, 2014), we lack a theoretical understanding of the process through which actors evaluate the worthiness of affordances for pursuing their actualization. Recent literature suggests that before being able to actualize an affordance, actors need to observe and perceive the affordance in the first place (Henningsson et al, 2021). However, affordance perception relates to the mere cognitive awareness of an affordance’s existence (Volkoff & Strong, 2018).…”

“…We draw upon affordance theory to develop a nuanced understanding of action orientation in opportunity evaluation decisions. Originally introduced by Gibson (1977), affordance theory has entered into academic conversations on human–computer interactions (Norman, 1999), information systems (Henningsson et al, 2021; Majchrzak & Markus, 2013), and most recently digital entrepreneurship (Autio et al, 2018; Nambisan, 2017; Nambisan et al, 2019). An affordance describes the “action potential or possibilities offered by an object (e.g., digital technology) in relation to a specific user (or use context) in innovation and entrepreneurship” (Nambisan et al, 2019, p. 3).…”

“…To achieve goal-directed outcomes, affordances have to be realized-a process that is understood as ''affordance actualization'' (Strong et al, 2014). While scholars have studied the emergence of affordances and processes associated with actualizing affordances (e.g., Henningsson et al, 2021;Malhotra et al, 2021), we lack an understanding of how individual actors deem affordances as worthwhile to pursue their actualization and translate them into concrete outcomes. Integrating opportunity evaluation reasoning with affordance theory, we theorize that entrepreneurial agents assess affordances as decision cues in their opportunity evaluation.…”

“…Therefore, we theorize that CVC managers evaluate affordances arising from the relation between their corporate parent and the venture’s technology to determine the attractiveness of an investment opportunity. In light of the ever-increasing and industry-agnostic aspirations for digital transformation (Amit & Han, 2017), we examine digital affordances (Autio et al, 2018; Henningsson et al, 2021)—that is, affordances arising from the redeployment potential of digital technologies—as structural components of opportunity characteristics. In fact, affordances theory has been described as native to digital technologies (Nambisan et al, 2019), and has therefore mostly been applied to the context of digital entrepreneurship to date.…”

The routledge handbook of catalysts for a sustainable circular economy

“…The social system side, on the other hand, considers the roles of various social actors in value creation, and here, the overall social structure is built based on social norms, boundaries, and authority to keep the whole system in balance (Lyytinen & Newman, 2008). There is a process-like relationship between the two sides and all four levels: the CBM strategy influences the technical, social, and structural levels, and the digital affordances we are interested in are actualised at the task level (Henningsson et al, 2021).…”