Simon Engert (2023)

Conference paper

Abstract. Digital business models (DBMs) are built on digital technologies with complexity-inducing characteristics. Thus, they form ever-more complex (eco)systems as they connect heterogeneous actors for value cocreation and blur the boundaries of organizations, markets, and industries. The co-existence of actors’ multiple logics in pluralistic settings has been associated with tensions and controversies. However, information systems (IS) research has ignored controversies’ role in DBMs in settings of logic multiplicity. Drawing on the ‘orders of worth’ framework, we follow the controversies over DBMs in the academic publishing ecosystem. Building on our in-depth case study data, we develop a model highlighting three roots of controversies in sociotechnical DBMs. We add to the literature by furthering our understanding of controversies’ role in DBMs and enriching the community’s methodological toolbox in applying a theory from French pragmatic sociology to study pluralistic contexts.

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