Heterogeneity in Digital Innovation: A Study of the e-Newspaper Case

摘要

This paper focuses on challenges that arise because of the heterogeneous nature of digital innovation. These challenges are studied through a case study involving a two year long research and development project concerning the development of the e-newspaper concept and a demonstrator based on e-paper technology. To enable the exploration of these challenges, a multi-method approach was chosen. The paper is built using a two-step process; first, presenting a framework based on a review of related literature identifying characteristics and aspects of heterogeneity in digital innovation, and secondly, applying this framework into the analysis of the e-newspaper case. Based on the empirical findings, the paper presents a discussion which elaborates on how digital innovation can be organized in order to address the identified challenges with heterogeneity in digital innovation. Furthermore, it is suggested that digital technology targeted towards everyday use is inherently leading to innovation networks of heterogeneous actors as well as heterogeneous users of digital innovation.