ABSTRACT

Purpose: Creative agencies are well known for pioneering technological transformation due to its reliance on information and communication technology. Not surprisingly creative businesses are experimenting with mobile technology and increasing their investments into mobile business transformation. However, there is a lack of scholarly evidence about whether and how exactly mobile technology use facilitates or stimulates innovation practices in B-to-B firms. Is mobile technology a superfood or super fad of creative businesses? This paper aims to explore the mobile technology deployment and its role in innovation practices of creative B-to-B firms.

Methodology: Innovation practices and mobile technology deployment are studied by interviewing business decision-makers from the 31 UK creative business-to-business agencies. The evolved grounded theory approach is used to analyze the interviews data as well as complimentary documents shared by interviewees.

Findings: Applying a capability approach and innovation practices theoretical perspectives, this grounded theory research discovered that mobile technology is, in fact, a superfood that with the right combination of resources and capabilities delivers strategic benefits for creative B-to-B businesses. It is the interaction between mobile technology resources and mobile technology capabilities to stimulate and facilitate process and product innovation practices. Moreover, distinct three clusters of creative B-to-B firms have been identified, which demonstrate that depending on organizational commitment of creative businesses to mobile technology deployment, interaction between mobile technology resources and mobile technology capabilities can lead to both innovation practices, in particular process innovation practices only (Cluster A) and both process and product innovation practices (Clusters B and C).

Practical Implications: The understanding of mobile technology deployment process that derives from this paper is particularly significant in showing creative businesses’ managers the real value in embracing mobile technology. Considering the clustering of creative agencies based on organizational commitment they have towards mobile technology deployment, this study signals that business decision-makers can deploy mobile technology to effectively manage operations or/and produce new solutions.

Originality/Value/Contribution: This paper’s main theoretical contribution is in researching mobile technology deployment process using the capability approach. This study defines “mobile technology capabilities” as a firm’s unique practices employed in orchestrating mobile technology resources to create a competitive advantage. Mobile technology capabilities consist of five distinct practices that firms perform to combine and integrate mobile technology resources into organizational processes, namely learning, leading, transforming, leveraging mobile technology resources and solving problems. Moreover, this study is first to integrate conceptually innovation practices and mobile technology deployment by grounding this conceptualization in an empirical setting – creative agencies delivering advertising, marketing, digital design and digital architecture services.

摘要

目的：创意机构因其对信息和通信技术的依赖而以开拓技术变革而闻名。毫不奇怪，创意企业正在尝试移动技术，并增加了对移动业务转型的投资。但是，关于移动技术的使用是否以及如何精确地促进或刺激了B2B企业的创新实践，缺乏学术证据。移动技术是创意企业的超级食品还是超级时尚？本文旨在探讨移动技术的部署及其在创意企业对企业的创新实践中的作用。

方法：通过采访来自英国31家创意企业对企业机构的商业决策者，研究创新实践和移动技术的部署。进化的扎根理论方法用于分析访谈数据以及受访者共享的免费文档。

发现：基于能力方法和创新实践的理论观点，这项扎根的理论研究发现，移动技术实际上是一种超级食品，具有正确的资源和能力组合，可以为富有创意的B2B企业提供战略利益。移动技术资源和移动技术功能之间的相互作用是刺激和促进过程和产品创新实践的过程。此外，已经确定了创新的B2B企业的三个集群，这表明根据创新企业对移动技术部署的组织承诺，移动技术资源和移动技术能力之间的相互作用可以导致两种创新实践，

实际意义：从本文中获得的对移动技术部署过程的理解对于向创意企业的管理者展示拥抱移动技术的真正价值特别重要。考虑到创意机构基于他们对移动技术部署的组织承诺而聚集在一起，该研究表明企业决策者可以部署移动技术来有效地管理运营或/和产生新的解决方案。

创意/价值/贡献：本文的主要理论贡献是使用能力方法研究移动技术部署过程。这项研究将“移动技术能力”定义为公司在编排移动技术资源以创造竞争优势时所采用的独特做法。移动技术功能由公司执行的五种不同实践组成，这些实践将移动技术资源整合和整合到组织过程中，即学习，领导，转换，利用移动技术资源和解决问题。此外，这项研究是通过将这种概念化建立在经验的基础上，首先将概念上的创新实践与移动技术的部署相结合-创意机构提供广告，营销，数字设计和数字架构服务。