Distributed Tuning of Boundary Resources: The Case of Apple’s iOS Service System1

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.…

• UO
  University of Chicago
• HB
  Harvard Business School
• AO
  Academy of Marketing
• GO
  Government of the United Kingdom
• NR
  National Research Foundation
• NR
  National Research Foundation of Korea

  Awards: NRF-2012-2012S1A3A2033291, NRF-2012
• EA
  Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

  Awards: EP/G066434/1, EP/G066426/1, EP/G066426/1, EP/G066434/1