Recombining Layers of Digital Technology: How Users Create and Capture Value

Recombination is central to the creation of innovation. Since digital innovation is product and use agnostic, not only producers and firms can carry out recombination, but users themselves can select and recombine different digital resources. We investigate why users select and recombine digital resources from different layers (content, service, network, device) of the layered modular architecture in a personal context. Our results allow us to make three key contributions: (1) We underscore the importance to distinguish between intra-layer and inter-layer recombination and uncover different reasons to carry out intra- or inter-layer recombination. (2) We show that the network layer appears to be invisible to users when recombining digital resources in a personal context. (3) We outline recommendations and research questions for future research, based on our findings.