The Changing Roles of Innovation Actors and Organizational Antecedents in the Digital Age

The Changing Roles of Innovation Actors and Organizational Antecedents in the Digital Age

Despite being acknowledged for playing a pivotal role in facilitating innovations in the digital age, there is a lack of research on the multifaceted role of digital innovation actors. This paper provides a systematic, multi-disciplinary literature review on innovation actors in a digital and non-digital context. Based on a search of 149 high-quality journals and conference proceedings, we identified 110 articles as relevant and categorized as well as synthesized the knowledge on innovation actors’ role and organizational antecedents in a digital and non-digital context. We find an increasing focus on innovation actors’ role in user communities in a digital context. Moreover, literature on organizational antecedents puts a stronger emphasis on allocating resources to innovation actors outside the organization. By analyzing extant research we provide a comprehensive summary on current knowledge and outline opportunities for future research on digital innovation actors.