Process reference frameworks as institutional arrangements for digital service innovation

Abstract Information systems (IS) service organizations are increasingly more concerned with their ability to co-create digital services with customers in service ecosystems. Practitioners and researchers, however, lack understanding of which organization mechanisms effectively contribute to IS organizations’ innovation practices. Grounded in service-dominant logic, we hypothesized that process reference frameworks (PRFs), such as the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), act as institutional arrangements through their norms, rules, and practices, enhancing IS organizations’ ability to innovate digital services. Data collected from 159 IS organizations confirmed our hypotheses, showing that eff…