Trajectory Dynamics in Innovation: Developing and Transforming a Mobile Money Service Across Time and Place

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Oborn, Eivor; Barrett, Michael; Orlikowski, Wanda; Kim, Anna
• 署名单位: University of Warwick; University of Cambridge; Stockholm School of Economics; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); McGill University
• 刊物名称: ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7039
• DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2018.1281
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 1097-1123
• 关键词: trajectory; INNOVATION; digital; Developing countries; Financial inclusion; mobile payment; place; Economic development

摘要

This paper examines how and why innovations are reshaped as they become implemented and used in locales that are distant and distinct from those where the innovation was initially developed. Drawing on an in-depth field study of the innovation process that produced a mobile money system for Kenya, we contribute an understanding of the particular dynamics that arise when an innovation trajectory interacts with local trajectories that constitute the local conditions and practices of specific places. We identify four distinct patterns of trajectory dynamics-separation, coordination, diversification, and integration-each of which has different implications for the innovation, its implementation, and consequences on the ground. Developing a model of trajectory dynamics in innovation, we theorize the processes through which innovations are transformed over time as they interact with multiple local trajectories and the specific innovation outcomes that are generated as a result. Such theorizing reconceptualizes traditional notions of innovation diffusion by explicating how and why innovations change in multiple and unexpected ways as they move to particular places and engage with local conditions and practices.