Extending Digital Ventures through Templating

Huang, Jimmy; Henfridsson, Ola; Liu, Martin J.

Abstract

Digital ventures typically face significant growth expectations. A common response is to extend the current operations into new areas through repurposing its digital core (e.g., new search engine, data mining technique, platform, or voice interface). Grounded in prior literature, we surmise that the high-versatility of the digital venture’s digital core facilitates such extension by reducing cost and increasing speed. However, we know little about the process by which digital ventures draw on their digital core to extend current operations. To this end, we use Penrose’s work for analyzing a two-year in-depth case study of a Chinese digital venture's extension of their initial operations based on its credit rating technology. Our findings suggest that digital venture extension is facilitated by templating, which is a digitally-enabled process of generating and using generic solutions across business areas. Through our grounded analysis, we unpack templating by tracing three processes contributing to digital venture extension: concepting, generalizing, and porting. Synthesizing our findings, we contribute to the emerging digital innovation and entrepreneurship literature by developing a process model of digital venture extension.

Citation

Huang, J., Henfridsson, O., & Liu, M. J. (2022). Extending Digital Ventures through Templating. Information Systems Research, 33(1), 285-310. https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2021.1057

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 13, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Nov 30, 2021
• Publication Date: 2022-03
• Deposit Date: Mar 28, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 28, 2024
• Journal: Information Systems Research
• Print ISSN: 1047-7047
• Electronic ISSN: 1526-5536
• Publisher: INFORMS
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 33
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 285-310
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2021.1057
• Keywords: Library and Information Sciences; Information Systems and Management; Computer Networks and Communications; Information Systems; Management Information Systems
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/6184807
• Publisher URL: https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/isre.2021.1057