Digital-technology usage in dynamic and complex work practices is a core phenomenon in innovation research. There are, however, few detailed analyses of how people organize the use of digital tools in their work practices. We aim to offer more insight into how individual actors use digital technology, how these actors organize its use in collectives, and how they organize their work with that of other actors in order to realize collective-level goals. We implemented a qualitative research design, based on interviews in architectural firms complemented with observations and archival data. By analyzing interactions of multiple individual actors with digital technology, we found that actors organize usage in collectives through activities that we call configuring-in-use and reflecting; and that they combine these two organizational activities in order to realize collective-level goals. We identify the combination of these organizational activities as configurational usage. We contribute to literature on the usage of pervasive digital technology by providing a detailed empirical investigation of organized usage of digital technology. Furthermore, we refine the conceptualization of configurational usage, improving understanding of core processes of digital innovation.

Introduction

Digital technologies and tools pervade modern business and are implemented in a wide variety of firms (Yoo et al., 2012). Usage of digital technologies has had a major impact on innovation processes, i.e., has redefined how products and services are created (Nambisan et al., 2017). In some cases, such as the replacement of chemical analogue photography by digital technologies in the photography industry, digital-technology usage has completely reconfigured industries (Benner and Tushman, 2002). Digital-technology usage is a core phenomenon studied in innovation research (Burton-Jones and Gallivan, 2007; Nambisan et al., 2017; Pentland and Feldman, 2007). Over the past decades, scholarly attention has advanced understanding of the entanglement of digital technologies in organizations (Orlikowski, 2000; Nambisan et al., 2017). We know that people tend to use new digital tools in their work practice when they perceive these tools as beneficial to perform their tasks (Leonardi, 2011), and that digital technology can strongly affect the organization of work inside firms (Barley, 1990). For instance, Computer Aided Design (CAD) technology has pervaded work practices in architectural firms, and over the years has become indispensable to the work of designers (Leonardi, 2011; Orlikowski, 2000). Use of a pervasive digital technology by multiple individuals has repercussions at the level of firms, organizations or – to put it most generally – collectives (Burton-Jones and Gallivan, 2007; Leonardi, 2013). Within collectives, the use of a digital technology by individual actors needs to be organized to realize collective-level goals (Leonardi, 2013; Nambisan et al., 2017; Yoo et al., 2010, 2012). This organization may result in a shared usage structure, in which individual actors use a digital technology in a similar way (Leonardi, 2013).