Theoretical Elaboration Of It Enablement Model In The Era Of Customer And Community Digital Innovation

Research on information systems has demonstrated the strategic potential of information technology (IT) through the logic of IT enablement: synergistic relationship between IT assets with organizational resources ensuing IT-enabled resources capable of influencing competitive firm performance. However, this enablement view has largely focused on IT assets and organizational resources within the boundaries of the firm or its close partners. Increasingly, users and communities far outside the boundaries of the firm create strategic value for firms from varied co-creation experiences with interactive IT. This emergence of new content, uses, and behaviors constitutes a generative capacity, or generativity. Generativity has strategic potential of an IT enabled resource capable of positively affecting a firm’s performance under certain facilitating conditions of identification and emotional responding. This elaboration of IT enablement model by generativity and facilitating conditions is important as it develops the understanding how interactive IT and user and community innovation logic are related to the business value of IT.