Digital innovation is a complex process in which actors seek to create new value pathways by combining digital resources in a layered modular architecture. While IS scholarship has a rich tradition of research on developing and implementing digital artefacts within intra-organisational contexts, our understanding of knowledge integration across distributed innovation networks is nascent and under-theorised. This is an important area of research given the rising importance of digital innovation networks and the challenges faced in integrating specialised knowledge, especially given the greater diversity, speed, reach, and scope made possible by digital technologies. Drawing on in-depth case study findings from a health IoT project involving multiple organisations and disciplines, we explore how knowledge is integrated across boundaries during the initiation stage of a digital innovation network. Our findings point to boundaries related to the digital platform’s organising vision, resource allocation, delivery roadmap, technical architecture, and intellectual property, to name but a few challenges. We then reveal five socio-cognitive modes of knowledge integration which actors strategically enact to cross syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic boundaries: Signalling, Assembling, Contesting, Discounting, and Finalising. The choice of mode depends on the perceived knowledge status (‘what they know’) and social status (‘who they are’) of network actors, which highlight the salience of both social and cognitive dependencies for knowledge integration. We further discuss the contribution of design objects for overcoming differences and distinctions between specialist actors in a digital innovation network.

中文翻译：

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数字创新网络中知识整合的社会认知视角


数字创新是一个复杂的过程，参与者寻求通过在分层模块化架构中组合数字资源来创造新的价值途径。虽然 IS 奖学金在组织内部环境中开发和实施数字人工制品方面有着悠久的研究传统，但我们对跨分布式创新网络的知识整合的理解还处于起步阶段，理论化不足。鉴于数字创新网络的重要性日益增加，以及整合专业知识所面临的挑战，特别是考虑到数字技术带来的更大多样性、速度、覆盖范围和范围，这是一个重要的研究领域。借鉴涉及多个组织和学科的健康物联网项目的深入案例研究结果，我们探讨了在数字创新网络的启动阶段如何跨界整合知识。我们的研究结果指出了与数字平台的组织愿景、资源分配、交付路线图、技术架构和知识产权相关的界限，仅举几例挑战。然后，我们揭示了知识整合的五种社会认知模式，参与者战略性地制定这些模式以跨越句法、语义和语用界限：信号、组装、竞争、折扣和最终确定。模式的选择取决于网络参与者的感知知识状态（“他们知道什么”）和社会地位（“他们是谁”），这突出了知识整合的社会和认知依赖关系的显著性。我们进一步讨论了设计对象对克服数字创新网络中专业参与者之间的差异和区别的贡献。