Distributed Tuning of Boundary Resources: The Case of Apple's iOS Service System

Author List: Eaton, Ben; Elaluf-Calderwood, Silvia; Yoo, Youngjin;
MIS Quarterly, 2015, Volume 39, Issue 1, Page 217-243.
The digital age has seen the rise of service systems involving highly distributed, heterogeneous, and resource-integrating actors whose relationships are governed by shared institutional logics, standards, and digital technology. The cocreation of service within these service systems takes place in the context of a paradoxical tension between the logic of generative and democratic innovations and the logic of infrastructural control. Boundary resources play a critical role in managing the tension as a firm that owns the infrastructure can secure its control over the service system while independent firms can participate in the service system. In this study, we explore the evolution of boundary resources. Drawing on Pickering’s (1993) and Barrett et al.’s (2012) conceptualizations of tuning, the paper seeks to forward our understanding of how heterogeneous actors engage in the tuning of boundary resources within Apple’s iOS service system. We conduct an embedded case study of Apple’s iOS service system with an in-depth analysis of 4,664 blog articles concerned with 30 boundary resources covering 6 distinct themes. Our analysis reveals that boundary resources of service systems enabled by digital technology are shaped and reshaped through distributed tuning, which involves cascading actions of accommodations and rejections of a network of heterogeneous actors and artifacts. Our study also shows the dualistic role of power in the distributed tuning process.
Keywords: Service system innovation; mobile platform; ecosystem; digital infrastructure; boundary resource dynamics; tuning; sociomateriality; iOS
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#237 0.135 boundary practices capacity new boundaries use practice absorptive organizational technology work field multiple study objects actors actor theory practical spanning
#163 0.130 critical realism theory case study context affordances activity causal key identifies evolutionary history generative paper events lead mechanisms evolution change
#211 0.109 service services delivery quality providers technology information customer business provider asp e-service role variability science propose logic companies especially customers
#117 0.093 standards interorganizational ios standardization standard systems compatibility effects cooperation firms industry benefits open interoperability key heterogeneous vertical propose vendors collective
#82 0.081 case study studies paper use research analysis interpretive identify qualitative approach understanding critical development managerial elements exploring points positivist presents
#178 0.080 digital divide use access artifacts internet inequality libraries shift library increasingly everyday societies understand world initiative initiatives embedded community dimensions
#59 0.073 capabilities capability firm firms performance resources business information technology firm's resource-based competitive it-enabled view study value infrastructure results organizational model
#71 0.057 distributed agents agent intelligent environments environment smart computational environmental scheduling human rule using does embodied provide trends computer-aided heterogeneous inventory
#98 0.055 platform platforms dynamics ecosystem greater generation open ecosystems evolution two-sided technologies investigate generations migration services implications interplay disruptive control markets