Institutional Dynamics in It Markets: Extending the Concept of Organizing Visions for It Innovations

......................................................................................................................................... iv Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 Research Motivation and Objectives........................................................................................... 1 Thesis Structure........................................................................................................................... 4 Review of Macro-Level Diffusion Research .............................................................................. 5 Rational Actor Perspective ...................................................................................................... 6 Institutional Perspective .......................................................................................................... 8 Relational Models.................................................................................................................. 13 Chapter 2: Organizing Visions for IT Innovations and Industry Belief Systems ......................... 15 IT Innovation Diffusion and Industry ....................................................................................... 15 Levels of Analysis..................................................................................................................... 19 The Domain of Information Technology .................................................................................. 21 Organizing Visions for IT Innovations.................................................................................. 21 Limitations of the Organizing Vision Framework ................................................................ 23 The Domain of Industry ............................................................................................................ 27 Industry Belief Systems......................................................................................................... 27 Extending the Industry Belief Framework – The Dual Role of Product Ontologies ............ 30 Bringing the Elements Together: Organizing Vision Lifecycle................................................ 34 Stage 1: Organizing Vision as Theorization.......................................................................... 37 Stage 2: Organizing Vision as Product Ontology.................................................................. 43 Stage 3: Organizing Vision as IT-Enabled Industry Recipe.................................................. 48 Chapter 3: Organizing Visions for IT Innovations and Legitimacy ............................................. 52 Legitimation Function of Organizing Visions .......................................................................... 53 Characteristics of Legitimacy.................................................................................................... 56 Strategic and Institutional Approaches to Legitimacy .......................................................... 57 Key Properties of Legitimacy................................................................................................ 58 Forms of legitimacy .................................................................................................................. 60 Cognitive Legitimacy ............................................................................................................ 60 Pragmatic Legitimacy............................................................................................................ 62 Normative Legitimacy........................................................................................................... 63 Regulative Legitimacy........................................................................................................... 64 Socio-Political Legitimacy .................................................................................................... 64 Legitimation Strategies ............................................................................................................. 65 Chapter 4: Case Study – Building Legitimacy for IT Innovations ............................................... 69 Case Description ....................................................................................................................... 69 Data Collection.......................................................................................................................... 70 Data Analysis ............................................................................................................................ 71 Phase I: Construction of the Legitimation Taxonomy........................................................... 72 Phase II: Evaluation of Legitimation Patterns....................................................................... 73 Results and Discussion.............................................................................................................. 74 ii Phase I: Construction of the Legitimation Taxonomy........................................................... 74 Phase II: Evaluation of Legitimation Patterns....................................................................... 92 Chapter 5: Conclusions and Implications ................................................................................... 105 Contributions and Future Research Directions ....................................................................... 106 Research Stream I: Organizing Visions and Industry Belief Systems ................................ 106 Research Stream II: Organizing Visions and Legitimacy ................................................... 111 Connections between Research Stream I and Research Stream II ...................................... 115 Research Limitations............................................................................................................... 117 Implications for Practice ......................................................................................................... 119 References................................................................................................................................... 121 Appendix A: Cultural-Cognitive Model of IT-Industry Interaction (CMITII)........................... 130 Appendix B: IT Legitimation Taxonomy ................................................................................... 132 Vita.............................................................................................................................................. 144