Realizing desired effects from digitized product affordances: A case study of key inhibiting factors

Abstract

Despite the potential of IoT-enriched digitized products, firms struggle to generate desired impact. We investigate the alignment of actualized digitized product potentials (i.e., affordances) with organizational goals, examining how the emergence of critical inhibiting factors affect the generation of desired effects. We conduct an embedded single case study of four actualized digitized product potentials within a professional equipment manufacturer and explore how the emergence of inhibiting factors prevents the generation of desired effects. Using Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA), six key inhibiting factors are identified. Our findings contribute to affordance theory and digital innovation research in three ways: a) we provide an extended affordance-actualization model that theorizes the process by which emerging key inhibiting factors are addressed via the implementation of (re-)actions to generate desired effects that are aligned with the organizational goals of actualized digitized product potentials, (b) we identify six key inhibiting factors that affect the generation of desired effects and that re-examine the role of data with respect to the “technology” element in affordance theory, and (c) we apply NCA to affordance theory for the first time and show how it can contribute to identifying critical factors during the realization of technology potentials.