discussion#6

THEORY & REVIEW

THEORIZING THE DIGITAL OBJECT1

Philip Faulkner Clare College, University of Cambridge,

Cambridge, CB2 1TL, UNITED KINGDOM {pbf1000@cam.ac.uk}

Jochen Runde Cambridge Judge Business School and Girton College, University of Cambridge,

Cambridge, CB2 1AG, UNITED KINGDOM {j.runde@jbs.cam.ac.uk}

Prompted by perceived shortcomings of prevailing conceptualizations of digital technology in IS, we propose a theory aimed at capturing both the ontological complexity of digital objects qua objects, and how their iden- tity and use is bound up with various social associations. We begin with what it is to be an object, the dif- ferences between material and nonmaterial objects, and various categories of nonmaterial objects including syntactic objects and bitstrings. Building on these categories we develop a conception of digital objects and a novel “bearer” theory of how material and nonmaterial objects combine. The role of computation is con- sidered, and how the identity and system functions of digital objects flow from their social positioning in the communities in which they arise. Various implications of the theory are identified, focusing on its use as a conceptual frame through which to view digital phenomena, and its potential to inform existing perspectives with regard both to how digital technology per se and the relationship between people and digital technology should be theorized. These implications are illustrated with reference to secondary markets for software, the treatment of digital resources in the resource-based, knowledge-based, and service-dominant logic views of organizing, and recent work on sociomateriality.

Keywords: Nonmaterial objects, digital objects, bitstrings, digital technology, social positions, resources, resource-based view, service-dominant logic, sociomateriality, imbrication

Introduction 1

One of the striking features of the digital revolution has been the proliferation of what we will call digital objects, many of which have transformed and become indispensable parts of organizational life. Digital objects feature prominently in IS research and include computer systems and peripherals (Hib- beln et al. 2017; Xu et al. 2017), smart devices (Prasopoulou 2017; Yoo 2010), mobile apps (Boudreau 2012; Claussen et al. 2013; Hoehle and Venkatesh 2015), emails (Barley et al. 2011; Wang et al. 2016), blogs (Aggarwal et al. 2012; Chau and Xu 2012; Luo et al. 2017), electronic health records (Kohli and Tan 2016), online videos (Kallinikos and Mariá-

tegui, 2011; Susarla et al. 2012), 3D printers (Kyriakou et al. 2017), and enterprise systems (Strong and Volkoff 2010; Sykes 2015).

Illuminating as these and similar studies invariably are, however, their principal focus is on the human and organi- zational implications of the technology in question rather than on the devices themselves. The result is that research of this kind tends to invoke “pretheoretical understandings” (Ekbia 2009, p. 2555) of the entities involved, with the potential lack of clarity, detail and nuance such understandings often entail. This is not a new observation. Almost 20 years ago, Orli- kowski and Iacono (2001) published a much-cited study criticizing the IS field for its lack of engagement with its “core subject matter—the information technology (IT) arti- fact” (p. 121). Despite the interest this paper generated,

1Suzanne Rivard was the accepting senior editor for this paper. Youngjin Yoo served as the associate editor.

DOI: 10.25300/MISQ/2019/13136 MIS Quarterly Vol. 43 No. 4, pp. 1-XX/December 2019 1

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various follow-up studies indicate that the situation has changed little in the interim (Akhlaghpour et al. 2013; Ayanso et al. 2007; Grover and Lyytinen 2015).

The need for a more thorough engagement with digital objects is all the more acute for the difficult ontological questions that arise about their structure, mode of being, and other basic properties. In particular, the intangible, or what we will call nonmaterial, nature of many digital objects raises questions about how best to theorize this feature and the properties that flow from it, about how the nonmaterial and the tangible or material combine, and about how the same nonmaterial thing can exist in many different forms. In addition, there is the issue that, like other human artifacts, digital objects have aspects that are community-dependent rather than intrinsic, especially with respect to being the kind of thing they are, and how new kinds emerge and existing kinds become obsolete.

Our aim in this paper is to propose a theory of digital objects able to do justice to these issues. We begin with a literature review that summarizes the current situation in Information Systems with respect to the conceptualization of digital tech- nology, first in general terms by focusing on empirical studies documenting the lack of engagement with digital objects per se in IS research, and then in more concrete terms by focusing on specific shortcomings in how digital technology is concep- tualized in the resource-based, knowledge-based, and service- dominant logic views of organizing adopted in parts of IS research.

We then present our theory, starting with what an object is in the abstract, before distinguishing between material and nonmaterial objects and introducing the important subset of nonmaterial objects that are syntactic objects. These categories provide the basis for our conceptualization of two kinds of object at the heart of the digital revolution, the bitstring and the more general category of digital objects. One of our main theoretical innovations is the concept of “bearers” of nonmaterial objects—the things a nonmaterial object may be inscribed on, contained within, or borne by—and we pay particular attention to the capacity of bitstrings to serve as nonmaterial bearers of other nonmaterial objects and the idea that there may exist many layers of such bearers. Finally, following some brief observations on the relationship between digital objects and processes of computation, we provide an account of the social identity of digital objects, what they are, so to speak, in the communities in which they arise. The guiding idea here is that objects, no less than people, occupy social positions that locate them as components in larger systems, and where such positions are deeply relational, performed, and, crucially, inform the social identity of their occupants.

The remainder of the paper is devoted to some implications of our theory. We begin with its role as a conceptual framework for future IS research which we illustrate with the emerging phenomenon of secondary markets for downloaded bitstrings. We then consider its potential contribution to theoretical perspectives and debates in IS, highlighting how it might augment the conceptions of digital technology associated with the resource-based, knowledge-based, and service-dominant logic views, inform discussions between the sociomateriality and imbrication perspectives regarding how the relationship between people and technology should be theorized, and serve as an illustration of the kind of “blue ocean” theorizing advocated by Grover and Lyytinen (2015).

Conceptualizing Digital Technology

Support for the claim that digital technology is often por- trayed in rather simplistic ways in IS, and for its corollary that the field lacks theories rich enough to do justice to its unique- ness and diversity, can be found in many places. We briefly review two such sources, beginning with Orlikowski and Iacono’s (2001) influential empirical study of the depiction of the IT artifact in the IS literature and subsequent contributions that update and broaden its findings. We then consider some specific shortcomings of how digital technology is repre- sented in IS, illustrated with reference to recent research drawing on the resource-based, knowledge-based, and service-dominant logic views of organizing.

The IT Artifact in IS Research

While perhaps best known for the debates it sparked about the identity of the IS field and the place of the IT artifact within it (King and Lyytinen 2006), the Orlikowski and Iacono article is first and foremost an appeal for more sophisticated theorizing of digital technology. Foreshadowing Ekbia’s (2009, p. 2555) concerns about pretheoretical understandings, Orlikowski and Iacono argue that IS research is over-reliant on “commonplace and received notions of technology” (p. 121), a point they illustrate by examining the conceptuali- zation of IT artifacts in articles published in Information Systems Research during the 1990s.

Orlikowski and Iacono identify 14 distinct approaches to the IT artifact in the articles in their sample, grouping these into the 5 more general views summarized in Table 1.

According to Orlikowski and Iacono, the only one of the five that is conceptually adequate and able to capture the com- plexity, dynamism, and context dependence of IT artifacts is

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Table 1. Orlikowski and Iacono’s Five Views of IT Artifact Conceptualization

Nominal IT artifacts mentioned in name only or not at all.

Tool Emphasis on the instrumental effects of IT artifacts; what they are and how they work regarded as technical issues and often black-boxed. Artifacts seen as discrete, unchanging, and independent of social setting.

Computational Emphasis on the computational powers of IT artifacts; their ability to represent, manipulate, store,retrieve, and transmit information.

Proxy IT artifacts described in terms of one or more (usually quantitative) surrogate measure taken torepresent the essential feature(s) of an artifact.

Ensemble Emphasis on the interactions, and relationships, between IT artifacts and the groups involved intheir construction, implementation and use.

Table 2. Proportion of Articles Employing Each View of Artifact Conceptualization Orlikowski & Iacono

2001 Akhlaghpour et al.

2007 Aysano et al.

2007 Grover & Lyytinen

2015 Nominal 24.9% 39.6% 17.3% 30.8% Tool 20.3% 16.0% 28.4% 21.7% Computational 24.3% 5.8% 6.1% 11.9% Proxy 18.1% 23.0% 26.6% 24.5% Ensemble 12.4% 15.7% 21.7% 11.2% Sample Period 1990-99 2006-09 2000-06 1998-2012 Sample Size 177 644 549 143

Journals ISR MISQ, ISR, JAIS, JIT,EJIS, ISJ MISQ, ISR, JMIS MISQ, ISR

Notes: EJIS = European Journal of Information Systems; ISJ = Information Systems Journal; ISR = Information Systems Research; JAIS = Journal of the Association for Information Systems; JMIS = Journal of MIS; MISQ = MIS Quarterly.

the ensemble view. In all of the other cases, as they see it, the IT artifact is under-theorized, “either absent, black-boxed, abstracted from social life, or reduced to surrogate measures” (p. 130).

The proportion of articles adopting each view found by Orlikowski and Iacono appear in Table 2, along with those of three more recent studies employing the same methodology (Akhlaghpour et al. 2013; Ayanso et al. 2007; Grover and Lyytinen 2015).

Orlikowski and Iacono calculate that only 12.4% of articles adopted the ensemble view, the vast majority, therefore, relying on highly attenuated conceptions of digital tech- nology. The fact that these results reflect research published over twenty years ago raises the question of whether the situation might not have improved in the interim. But the answer appears to be no. Of the three further studies reported in Table 2, even the highest reported proportion of articles adopting the ensemble view is only 21.7% (Ayanso et al.

2007), with the other two studies reporting figures closer to those of Orlikowski and Iacono. Despite evidence of shifts over time within other categories, notably an apparent decline in the computational view, the overriding impression remains of a persistent under-theorization of digital technology in IS research. In the meantime, the list of commentaries, opinion pieces, editorials and calls for papers concerned about the situation steadily continues to grow (e.g., Baskerville 2012; Benbasat and Zmud 2003; Grover and Lyytinen 2015; Zammuto et al. 2007).

While painting a compelling picture of the situation in IS research in general terms, the preceding studies say little about specific features of the objects of digital technology that, in a world of seemingly ever-expanding varieties of digital technology, might warrant theorizing. To appreciate some of these features and achieve a more finely grained picture of the kind of problems our theory aims to address, we now consider three prominent meta-theoretical perspectives in which digital technologies come to the fore.

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Digital Technologies As Resources

The three perspectives we will focus on are the resource- based (Barney 1991; Barney and Clark 2007; Dierickx and Cool 1989; Wernerfelt 1984), knowledge-based (Grant 1996; Liebeskind 1996; Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995; Spender 1989, 1996), and service-dominant logic (Lusch and Vargo 2014; Vargo and Lusch 2004, 2008a, 2008b, 2011, 2016) views of organizing. They are relevant to our purposes for three rea- sons. First, in placing resources at the center of organiza- tional performance, they have all had to pay attention to distinguishing different kinds of resource, and then especially with regard to the nonmaterial and fluid nature of certain types of resource. Second, they are all well developed and influential in IS research. The manner in which they render digital technology is, therefore, highly relevant to the disci- pline.2 Third, and finally, the problems we identify with the three views are representative of weaknesses in the concep- tualization of digital technology in IS research more widely.

Let us begin by observing that, in characterizing digital technologies as resources, all three views devote considerably more attention to IT-related competences in the form of managerial and technical knowledge, skills, and processes, than they do to the devices involved. This is especially true of work drawing on the resource- and knowledge-based views. Wade and Hulland’s (2004) typology of “key IS resources,” in which seven of the eight main categories of resource identified are different types of competences, is a striking example. But more typical, perhaps, is the bipartite classification employed by Melville et al. (2004), who distin- guish between human and technological IT resources and associate competences with the former and devices with the latter. The subsequent emphasis is then overwhelmingly on competences, this because most digital devices are seen as lacking the characteristics—being difficult to imitate, transfer, or substitute another resource for—associated with sustained competitive advantage (Melville et al. 2004; Nevo and Wade 2010; Ravichandran et al. 2005; Santhanam and Hartono 2003; Stoel and Muhanna 2009). However, and while there is no doubt about the importance of competences as a source

of IT business value, we contend there is more to be said about the devices themselves.

Where devices are discussed explicitly in the three views, they are often seen primarily as conduits of other, knowledge- based, resources, such as when a microprocessor is viewed as having embedded within it knowledge of various rules of logic and, partly by virtue of this, the ability to apply sequences of instructions to binary data. While consistent with the emphasis on competences, the devices themselves tend to be treated in an ontologically naïve and undifferen- tiated way. Despite dealing with a vast range of digital technologies, and while recognizing important differences between technologies along various operational dimensions such as function, scale, technical platform, and so on, individual accounts typically fail to differentiate meaningfully between things in terms of their mode of being and other basic properties. Instead, digital devices, whether smart objects, IT infrastructures, software applications, or media files, tend to be grouped into a single, ontologically homogenous category of IT resource, and where such resources are often portrayed as straightforwardly physical things.

There is no shortage of examples. From the resource-based perspective, categories such as IT assets (Nevo and Wade 2010), information technology (Barney and Clark 2007), technological IT resources (Melville et al. 2004), IS infra- structure (Wade and Hulland 2004), and tangible IT resources (Bharadwaj 2000) all share this quality of ontological homo- geneity. In some cases, the supposed material nature of the category’s constituents is made explicit, as with Melville et al. (2004) ) who describe technological IT resources as a subset of physical capital resources and Bharadwaj (2000), who describes tangible IT resources as “physical IT infrastructure components” (pp. 171-172). In other cases, the mode of being of the constituents is left implicit, although the usual impres- sion is that such things can be readily understood as material, physical, things.

While the service-dominant logic view exhibits a similar lack of ontological differentiation, it does provide a concep- tualization of the dual role of digital technologies as both operand resources, capable only of enabling action, and operant resources, capable of initiating action (Akaka and Vargo 2014; Lusch and Nambisan 2015; Nambisan 2013). This distinction might be thought to invite ontological reflec- tion, since within the service-dominant logic view operand resources are widely seen as material things (e.g., machinery) and operant resources as nonmaterial (e.g., competences). Yet despite provocative examples of the operant ability of digital technologies to trigger exchange and even innovation, there is little on the ontological status of the relevant devices,

2 The resource-based (Bharadwaj 2000; Chuang and Lin 2017; Drnevich and Croson 2013; Mata et al. 1995; Melville et al. 2004; Mithas et al 2012; Nevo and Wade 2010; Ray et al. 2005; Santhanam and Hartono 2003; Wade and Hulland 2004) and knowledge-based (Alavi and Leidner 2001; Choi 2018; Choi and Ryu 2015; Mao et al. 2015; Pavlou et al. 2005; Reychav and Weisberg 2009; Setia et al. 2013; Tanriverdi 2005) views have been widely used in IS studies of IT-based resources as sources of competitive advantage and the mechanisms through which this may occur. The service-dominant logic view is particularly prominent in recent IS research on digital service innovation (Eaton et al. 2015; Lusch and Nambisan 2015; Scherer et al. 2015; Sriviastava and Shainesh 2015).

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whether nonmaterial as well as material entities are being considered, and the link between this and the twin roles ascribed to digital technology.

The consequences of ignoring ontological considerations of this kind are significant, since it limits scope to account for properties things possess by virtue of their mode of being and for theorizing the relationship between ontologically distinct kinds of entity. This problem is likely to be especially severe in the digital context given that digital devices are typically complex combinations of the material and the nonmaterial.

One area in which such issues come to the fore is with respect to the informational aspects of digital technologies and the unique ways certain kinds of entities are able to facilitate the storage and transmission of information. It is significant here that all three views embrace some notion of resource lique- faction—“decoupling of information from its related physical form or device” (Lusch and Nambisan 2015, p. 160)—seen as central to the way digitization and digital communications have affected knowledge management, collaboration, organi- zational agility, innovation, and so on (Bharadwaj 2000; Choi 2018; Lusch et al. 2010; Lusch and Nambisan 2015; Lusch and Vargo 2014; Mao et al. 2015). As things stand, however, all three views require a more thorough theorization of this idea to be able to fully explore its implications. While relevant concepts are hinted at, for example Lusch and Vargo (2014, p. 141) referring to “information resources” and Barrett et al. (2015, p. 142) to resources “in which the primary component is information,” these notions are usually left unexplored. Claims to the effect that liquefaction enables “intertwining the virtual and material layers of work in dif- ferent ways to enhance organizational performance” (Lusch and Nambisan 2015, p. 160), suggestive as they may be, are thus left essentially metaphorical.

Our remaining comments concern the social aspects of digital technology, particularly the identity of digital objects, their use, and “fit” generally within the social world. The resource- and knowledge-based views have done little to theorize these aspects, save for what they say about social complexity: the idea that certain kinds of resources are enmeshed in webs of social relationships and so intrinsically dynamic, evolving over time, and difficult for an organization to control or other organizations to imitate (Barney and Clark 2007, Chen et al. 2014; Mata et al. 1995). This property is only rarely asso- ciated with devices, however, digital or otherwise. Further, and this is symptomatic of resource- and knowledge-based views generally, there is minimal reflection on matters of social ontology—the stuff of the social world, social rules, relations, and the like—that would provide a conceptual foundation for, and enable more detailed elaboration of, the idea of social complexity.

In contrast, the service-dominant logic view has recently seen theoretical developments that address some of the social aspects of digital technology. These developments are in relation to the notion of service ecosystems, understood as systems of “resource-integrating actors connected by shared institutional arrangements and mutual value creation through service exchange” (Vargo and Lusch 2016, pp. 10-11; see also Akaka et al. 2013; Vargo and Lusch 2011; Vargo and Akaka 2012). Institutional arrangements here refer to the kind of social structures mentioned above, and where these are seen as both an important type of resource and a key part of the context within which other resources exist and value creation takes place (Akaka et al. 2013). But these develop- ments have yet to take hold in IS research and so there has been little progress so far in theorizing the social aspects of digital technology from this perspective (although Akaka and Vargo (2014) discuss some of the social aspects of technology generally). Further, there remains considerable scope for the development of the service-dominant logic view in this respect, particularly in regard to the identity of digital objects and how this is related to social positions and their social positioning.

A Theory of Digital Objects

Objects

We now present our theory of digital objects, beginning with a consideration of objects themselves. We start from a general, high-level, conception of objecthood and then work down to the main kinds of object germane to the digital world.

A Conception of Objects

Following Faulkner and Runde (2013), we take objects at their most abstract to be entities that possess two charac- teristics: first, that they endure, and second, save for those so basic as not to be composed of constituent parts, that they are structured. By an object enduring we mean that it is a type of continuant, namely something that exists through time and is fully present at each and every point in time over the period of its existence. In this respect, objects may be contrasted with things such as events, processes, and other kinds of occurrent that take place and whose different parts occur at different points in time.3 By structured, we mean that an

3The terms continuant and occurrent, as well as some of the later distinctions and categories we employ (e.g., the distinction between material and non- material objects, the notion of syntactic objects), are closely related to a variety of similar terms found in work in computer and information science aimed at constructing formal and comprehensive taxonomies of the entities

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object is composed of a number of distinct parts, objects in their own right, that are organized in some way. Thus a typi- cal flatbed scanner, for example, comprises a light source, image sensor, glass panel, control circuitry, and various other components, arranged in a way that renders the object as a whole capable of converting an analog image into digital form.

The category of objects is a broad one on this conception, extending beyond the kind of physical objects just described to things such as individual human beings and enduring assemblages of humans and nonhumans. From this point on, however, we restrict the term object to those that are inanimate, in the sense of having exclusively inanimate com- ponents and being, as a whole, inanimate things themselves. This is a departure from Faulkner and Runde (2013) and one we take for two reasons. The first is that it brings us closer to ordinary language, where many are uncomfortable describing humans and, sometimes, animals as objects. The second rea- son is that it makes for a clear and more natural way of maintaining the distinction between inanimate things and the larger systems involving humans that feature in the discussion of social positioning below.

Material and Nonmaterial Objects

The category of objects can be divided into material and nonmaterial variants. While the term material has many meanings (Leonardi 2010), we use it to refer specifically to the physical mode of being of an object, a property we see as necessarily involving the object concerned having spatial attributes such as shape, volume, mass, and location, and where this physicality is manifested in the structure of that object, namely its component parts and how these are com- bined or arranged. Examples of material objects include scanners, smartphones, and servers. Nonmaterial objects have a nonphysical mode of being and so lack spatial attributes of the sort just mentioned. Examples here include syntactic objects such as the news articles, operating systems and application software examined below, as well as other kinds of nonmaterial objects such as protocols, procedures and conceptual schemes.

We use the term hybrid to refer to objects that comprise both material and nonmaterial objects as component parts. Such

objects are commonplace, not least in the digital realm, and we will have more to say about them when we discuss digital objects and the idea of bearers of nonmaterial objects. For the moment, the pertinent point about hybrid objects is that they are necessarily material objects, with the physical mode of being of their material components sustaining the materiality of the hybrid object as a whole.

Syntactic Objects

While there exist many different kinds of nonmaterial object, the most important for our purposes are syntactic objects. These are objects that consist of symbols arranged into well- formed expressions, where well-formed means that these expressions adhere to the syntactical and semantic rules of the language in which they are couched. Take for example a news article such as that published in The Economist (January 13, 2018) entitled “Beyond Bitcoin: Bitcoin Is No Longer the Only Game in Crypto-Currency Town.” Here the symbols consist of letters and punctuation marks, the expressions are words and sentences, and well-formed means that these words and sentences conform to the rules of the English language and convey the intended meaning of the author. Other examples of syntactic objects include natural language texts such as novels, manuals, and contracts, and textual entities in artificial languages such as musical notation, Morse code, or mathematics.

It is easy to see that the news article, and by extension any syntactic entity, satisfies the two criteria for nonmaterial objecthood set out above: that it is an object and that it has a nonphysical mode of being. On the first criterion, the article is an object by virtue of being both a continuant and struc- tured. With respect to the former property, the article is a continuant because, once created, it endures over time rather than being something that takes place in time. With respect to the second property, recall that an entity is structured if composed of distinct parts organized in some way. In the case of material objects, structure refers to their physical com- ponents, spatial arrangement, interactions, and so forth. In the case of nonmaterial objects structure again refers to their con- stituent parts, arrangement, and interactions, but where these are no longer physical attributes of the object. Returning to our news article, the component parts are letters and punctua- tion marks arranged to form words and sentences, and this arrangement is a logical property insofar as the words and sentences conform to the rules of the language in which it is written and capture what the author intended to convey.

On our second criterion, the news article is a nonmaterial object by virtue of its nonphysical mode of being. That is, as an entity consisting solely of symbols it has none of the

and relations found in a given domain. This work is also referred to as ontology (see for example Lando et al. (2008) and Poole and Mackworth (2010, Chapter 13)), although in this case primarily concerned with estab- lishing vocabularies that can be shared across a range of different applica- tions rather than the project of understanding and articulating constituents of reality that we are concerned with in the present paper.

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intrinsic spatial qualities associated with the material entities described above. While it may be printed or otherwise inscribed on various material objects such as magazine pages and computer screens, the article itself is at bottom nothing more than an aspatial series of letters and punctuation marks.

Bitstrings

As the examples already mentioned illustrate, syntactic objects are ubiquitous in the digital world. However, one type of syntactic object stands out as fundamental. This is the bitstring, a type of syntactic object made up of bits, the 0s and 1s employed in a binary numbering system, where these bits are structured according to an appropriate file format so as to be readable by the kind of computer hardware for which they are intended.

Bitstrings, often called computer files, are one of the corner- stones of the digital revolution, since the information stored and manipulated on almost all silicon-based von Neumann computers, including traditional transistor-based digital PCs, is encoded in bitstrings. Bitstrings divide into two categories: program files and data files. Program files encode sequences of logical operations, with iterations and conditions, that con- stitute the instructions for carrying out particular kinds of computation on a given class of hardware. Examples include operating systems, applications such as spreadsheet and word processing software, browsers, smart phone apps, and games. Data files encode the data used by a computer program or system, including documents, datasets, images, videos, and audio recordings.

The Picture So Far

The categories of object introduced so far are summarized in Figure 1, a Venn diagram in which the rectangular boundary denotes the universe of objects and where the two largest circles represent the set of material and nonmaterial objects. Since any object must either be material or nonmaterial, there are no elements lying outside of these two circles. Further- more, since an object cannot be both material and non- material, these sets are disjoint and the two circles therefore nonintersecting. The circle denoting material objects contains a smaller circle that depicts hybrid objects as a proper subset of material objects.4 The circle denoting nonmaterial objects

contains four smaller circles, with the largest of these depicting syntactic objects as a proper subset of nonmaterial objects and the next largest depicting bitstrings as a proper subset of syntactic objects. The two smallest circles then depict the set of bitstrings as comprising two proper subsets: program files (PF) and data files (DF).

Digital Objects

The final category of object we single out is digital objects, which we define as objects whose component parts include one or more bitstrings. The set of digital objects, therefore, includes individual bitstrings as a limit case, but generally refers to a far broader category of objects, usually hybrids, in which bitstrings are combined with various types of material and nonmaterial components. Thus, in addition to individual programs and data files, the set of digital objects includes relatively small-scale physical devices, ranging from com- puter systems, components, and peripherals, including the kinds of material and nonmaterial bearers of bitstrings dis- cussed below, to everyday artifacts with embedded computing capabilities, as well as larger assemblages such as information systems, computer networks, and digital ecosystems in which the component parts may be widely spatially distributed, and complexes of predominantly nonmaterial objects, such as software suites, web sites, and digital archives. As these examples illustrate, digital objects may be either material or nonmaterial objects, with hybrids acquiring the physical mode of being of their material components.

Bearers of Nonmaterial Objects

Our description of the basic constitution of digital objects in place, we now turn to a topic we regard as fundamental to the place of digital, and other kinds of, objects in the digital domain. This is the idea that nonmaterial objects may be inscribed onto, contained within. or borne by other objects, something we capture with the general notion of bearers of nonmaterial objects.

Material Bearers

A basic feature of nonmaterial objects is that in order to be accessed—to be used, stored, passed to others, etc.—they must in some way be inscribed onto, contained within, or borne by a material object of some kind. Thus, for a news article to be read by a human being, for example, it must be displayed on a suitable material object, whether this be the screen of a computer monitor, tablet, or smartphone, or the page of a newspaper, magazine, or book. Similarly, if that article is to be archived, lent to another person, edited, and so

4While it is tempting to think that hybrid objects should be represented as an intersection of the set of material objects and the set of nonmaterial objects, this would make them at once material and nonmaterial objects, which is not possible. Instead, and notwithstanding their also having nonmaterial compo- nents, hybrid objects necessarily have a physical mode of being by virtue of their material components.

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Material

Hybrid

Nonmaterial

Syntactic

Bitstrings

PF DF

Universe of Objects

Figure 1. Types of Objects

on, it must be held or maintained on an appropriate material object. Generalizing, we call any material object on which a nonmaterial object is so inscribed a material bearer of that nonmaterial object. Notice that a material bearer is neces- sarily a hybrid object according to our earlier characterization of objects.

Two features of the object–bearer relation warrant emphasis here. The first is the ontological distinction it implies be- tween a nonmaterial object and the material objects on which it is inscribed. That is to say, however much access to a nonmaterial object may depend on its material bearers, that nonmaterial object is distinct from any and all of these material things by virtue of possessing its own particular and separate attributes. One such property is its nonmaterial mode of being, from which flow others such as its not degrading with repeated use and what economists call the property of non-rivalry that its use by one person in no way impinges on its simultaneous use by any number of others. The distinction is also essential if we are to recognize the separate properties of material bearers, something of considerable import not least because an object’s suitability as a material bearer depends in part on the properties of that thing. Thus where an object is intended to serve as a material bearer for the purposes of archiving a nonmaterial object, properties such as durability and portability are likely to be important attributes of the material object concerned. If instead the primary role of the bearer is to enable a nonmaterial object to be read, visual clarity is likely to be a more important property.

The second feature is that, barring physical, legal, or other constraints, there is no limit to the number of different (kinds of) material objects on which a given nonmaterial object may be borne at any point in time or to the range of locations these various bearers may occupy. Thus many nonmaterial objects, the aforementioned news article being a prime example, are nowadays borne concurrently on a vast range of different

(kinds of) material bearers, whose location is largely con- strained only by the limits of international travel and communications technology.5

Material bearers are, of course, ubiquitous in the digital realm and represent an important type of digital object. We have already mentioned one example, namely the various kinds of screens found not only in laptops, tablets, and smartphones, but also in many industrial and household devices, vehicles, and so on. Another is the numerous different kinds of media device used to store bitstrings in machine-readable form, including CD- and DVD-ROMs, hard disk and solid-state drives, and memory cards.

The main ideas involved here are illustrated in Figure 2, in which three different material objects (each denoted by a grey rectangle)—a hard disk drive, microSD card and DVD- ROM—serve as the material bearer of the same nonmaterial object (denoted by a white rectangle), a particular bitstring. In each case the object–bearer relation is illustrated by showing the nonmaterial object located on top of the relevant material object, with the bearer in each example being the digital (and hybrid) object comprising the bitstring and the relevant material object (i.e. the combination of white and grey rectangle in each case).

5The term copies is often used in relation to the instances of what we are calling material bearers of a nonmaterial object, for example, when a maga- zine page on which a news article is inscribed is described as being a copy of that article. We avoid the term copy, however, because it risks collapsing, or at least obscuring, the distinction between a nonmaterial object and its material bearers. For example, the page of the magazine (a material object) on which an article (a nonmaterial object) is inscribed is not literally a copy of that article.

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Bitstring

microSD card

Bitstring

DVD-ROM

Bitstring

Hard disk drive

Figure 2. Three Material Bearers of the Same Bitstring

Our earlier emphasis on the ontological separation between a nonmaterial object and its material bearers—in essence, that they are separate entities with their own distinct properties— should in no way be taken to imply a more general separation that prohibits causal interactions between the two kinds of entity. To the contrary, such interactions lie at the heart of our account. Thus, and as we have already made clear, material bearers are vital to practical engagement with non- material objects: to be accessed, a nonmaterial object must be borne on a material object. Another example arises in relation to the creation of new nonmaterial objects, a process that may involve its author reflecting on the nature of the material on which an object will subsequently be borne. Thus whether an author opts to include charts, tables, or other figures within a news article may well be influenced by their expectations regarding the kinds of material bearer(s) on which that article is likely to be displayed—for example, whether it will be pub- lished online as well as in hard copy and, if so, whether most online readers will read it via a smartphone or via a larger, static, computer monitor.

Nonmaterial Bearers

In addition to material bearers there are also nonmaterial bearers of nonmaterial objects. These are cases in which a nonmaterial object is borne by or contained within a syntactic object of some kind. Consider a software testing protocol, a nonmaterial object consisting of a series of procedures aimed at verifying the functionality of some piece of software. The protocol is not itself a syntactic object as it is not composed of symbols. However, the protocol may be given linguistic expression in a variety of ways, such as when it is docu- mented as text for the pages of a training manual. The latter text, a syntactic object in its own right, is also a nonmaterial bearer of the protocol. Generalizing, we call any syntactic object in which a nonmaterial object is so borne or contained a nonmaterial bearer of that nonmaterial object.

The idea of nonmaterial bearers is fundamental to the digital world, particularly with respect to the role played by bitstrings and thus digital objects. We have already noted that modern computing is founded on the manipulation of information encoded in binary form. The significance of bitstrings can then be understood in terms of their role as nonmaterial bearers of the various kinds of nonmaterial object corre- sponding to the different types of information employed in computing. Thus a program file is the bearer of a set of instructions associated with a particular series of computa- tions, while a data file is the bearer of an image, document, dataset, or some other kind of data.

Many of the points made earlier in relation to material bearers apply to nonmaterial bearers as well. Again, it is necessary to be clear about the ontological distinctions involved: just as it is important to avoid conflating a nonmaterial object with its material bearers, it is important to avoid conflating a non- material object with its nonmaterial bearers. Thus a news article may be borne by a variety of different bitstrings corresponding to different file formats such as DOCX, TXT, and XML. Yet the article is distinct from any and all of these bearers since, while the sequence of words that comprise it will be the same in each case, the bitstring bearers differ, each with their own distinct structures and properties. As before, the properties of these different bearers matter, one illustration of which is the way creation of a nonmaterial object may be influenced by the attributes of its intended bitstring bearer. Thus the producer of an audiovisual recording is likely to be influenced by the properties of the particular multimedia format to be used, for example what kinds of information can be included (e.g., single or multiple audio streams, subtitles, metadata, etc.), whether the encoding involves lossless or lossy data compression, and so on.

The introduction of nonmaterial bearers also brings additional features of the object–bearer relation into focus, the most significant of which is that there may be many layers of

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nonmaterial bearers involved, such that a nonmaterial object may be borne by a nonmaterial object, which is itself borne by a nonmaterial object (and so on). This idea holds particular significance in relation to the information stored in bitstrings. Continuing our earlier example of the software testing proto- col, consider what happens when a bitstring bearer of the text to be used in the training manual is created in MS Word. The resulting DOCX file is itself a nonmaterial object, but at the same time also a nonmaterial bearer of the syntactic object that is the linguistic expression of the protocol, which is itself a nonmaterial bearer of the original nonmaterial object, the protocol. If that DOCX file is compressed as a ZIP file, that ZIP file is then the bearer of a bearer of a bearer of the protocol.6 In principle, such layering may be repeated indefinitely. However, all such layers must ultimately bottom out on a material bearer of some kind, since, as we noted earlier, to be used, stored, or communicated, a nonmaterial object must ultimately be borne on a material object. Figure 3 summarizes our conception with (layers of) nonmaterial bearers now included.

This idea of the repeated layering of nonmaterial objects, facilitated by the capacity of bitstrings to act as bearers, seems to us one of the defining features of digital technology and a major factor in what makes contemporary digital objects unique. Notice that the layering involved here is quite dif- ferent from the more familiar notion usually referred to as the layered architecture of digital technologies. This latter idea refers to the hierarchical structuring, within devices, of layers of heterogeneous kinds (such as contents, services, network, device), and where each layer constitutes a distinct, and largely separable, design hierarchy (Yoo et al. 2010).

We use the term translational actions to refer to practices associated with movement from one layer of bearer to another. Thus, in the preceding example, moving downward from the top of Figure 3, the original protocol is first captured in text (e.g., is written up), this text then encoded in a DOCX file (e.g., is input via keyboard or speech-recognition), this file then converted to ZIP format (e.g., using compression software), before finally being stored on a material bearer (e.g., saved on a hard disk drive). Moving in the opposite direction, accessing the ZIP file from its material bearer, and subsequently the DOCX file from the ZIP file, involves retrieval using relevant software, while converting the non- human-readable DOCX file to a human-readable bearer (the

textual expression of the protocol) involves displaying, and perhaps subsequently printing, the relevant text.

Computation

We now offer some brief observations on computation, the real-time processes performed by digital computers that involve the algorithmic manipulation of information borne by bitstrings. These processes, largely implicit in our account so far, are relevant here for their existential relationship with digital objects. This relationship is two-way, the existence of computation at once depending on and contributing to the existence of digital objects.

Consider first how the existence of computation depends on certain kinds of digital object. Recall that we described pro- gram files as the bitstring bearers of sets of logical operations corresponding to the instructions for carrying out particular types of computation. Whenever a program file is executed on appropriate hardware this results in a real-time (series of) process(es) of computation, with sequences of events trig- gered according to the semantics of the instructions encoded in that program file.7 There are then two ways that the exis- tence of computation depends on digital objects, including program files and computer systems. The first concerns the initial coming into existence of a computational process, the second with its ongoing existence over the period it runs.

Recognition of this connection brings many issues into focus, and the shift to distributed computing provides a particularly salient example here. Consider something as seemingly simple as visiting a website. The website, a digital object in its own right, comprises bitstring encodings of content such as text, images, and audio, as well as scripts governing its appearance and user experience. Actually accessing the web- site, however, requires a much larger assembly of other, mostly digital, objects, including desktop and handheld devices on the user side, servers, routers, switches, and the like on the server side, and the networking equipment linking the two. Many of these objects are themselves capable of computation, and visiting a website accordingly involves a host of separate but interconnected processes of computation, both concurrent and sequential, of variable length and complexity, running on a range of distinct platforms across different locations. The distributed nature of the computation here, increasingly reflected in devices designed for an Internet of Things, flows from continued growth in internet access,

6Another example of this kind of layering occurs in relation to computer programming, where a given set of logical operations may be encoded in a variety of different higher-order programming languages, each giving rise to a syntactic object, the source code, that is a nonmaterial bearer of that instruc- tion set. Each of these syntactic objects could then be encoded in binary as machine code for a variety of different processors, giving rise to multiple bitstring encodings of the same source code.

7In ordinary language, the term computer program often refers to both the bit- string object and the processes of computation involved in its execution, conflating the two kinds of entity and thereby obscuring the relationship between them.

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Nonmaterial object (e.g., software testing protocol)

Nonmaterial bearer (e.g., textual expression of the protocol)

Nonmaterial bearer (e.g., DOCX encoding of the textual expression)

Nonmaterial bearer (e.g., ZIP encoding of the DOCX file)

Material bearer (e.g., hard disk drive)

Figure 3. Layers of Nonmaterial and Material Bearers

coupled with technical developments, particularly in relation to mobile and smart devices, in terms of miniaturization, performance, and cost.

Now consider how the existence of digital objects might depend on computation rather than the other way around. The basic point here is the simple one that processes of com- putation are to varying degrees involved in the creation of many types of digital object. Bitstrings are an obvious example, not least the bearers of the ceaseless flow of emails, texts, and tweets, news articles and blogs, audio, still images, and video on the Internet. But the point applies much more widely once we recognize the role of computation in the conception, design, and production of many manufactured digital objects, including computers themselves and the various ancillary devices and equipment involved with their use. However, in contrast to how computation depends on existing digital objects, the ongoing existence of new digital objects in most cases, once they have been created, no longer depends on computation.

Again, recognition of the existential dependence of digital objects on computation brings a variety of issues into focus, and we will mention two that arise in relation to the creation of new bitstrings. The first concerns the difference between bitstrings that are the intended outcome of a task and those that are not. Examples of the former include the cases in which a set of media files is compressed to create a single archive file, or an audio track ripped from a CD to create an MP3 encoding. Here computation is about the use of existing digital objects to combine and recombine existing nonmaterial objects to achieve the desired outcome. Yet in other cases, and perhaps more typically, new bitstrings arise during com- putation as a by-product of the use of digital objects. Cookies generated while visiting a website are a familiar example, or when an activity tracker generates bitstring encodings of metrics such as steps taken, calories burnt, and heart rate. New bitstrings of this kind often have a short life span, intended only as temporary files, and may be subject to continued modification as computation and use of the relevant digital object proceeds.

The second issue concerns bearers, building on the fact that the creation of new bitstrings usually also entails the creation of new material and nonmaterial bearers. This might be because the new bitstring is itself a bearer of a nonmaterial object (of text, audio, etc.) and/or because the new bitstring must itself be borne in some form (e.g., stored on a local drive, transferred to the cloud and so on). What this points to is that computation typically involves the creation not simply of new bitstrings—perhaps short-lived, perhaps not; perhaps located in various places reflecting the distributed nature of computing—but also a variety of additional digital objects in the form of new material and nonmaterial bearers. Transla- tional actions feature heavily here, all to do with the computa- tion involved in moving between layers of bearers, as when the HTML code sent by a website’s server is converted to text, images, and so on by the web browsing client, or when data input by a user is transmitted back to the server and stored.

The Social Positioning of Digital Objects

Thus far we have concentrated on the intrinsic features of digital objects, portraying them as discrete entities with innate properties that exist and endure independently of their setting. In this last part of our theory, we turn to their context- dependent aspects, in particular the way in which the kind of thing they are—smart phone, search engine, banking app, or whatever else they may be—depends on their social positioning.

Social Positioning: Overview

The perspective on social positioning we draw on is part of a broader social theory developed by Tony Lawson (1997, 2003, 2012, 2015, 2016; also see Faulkner et al. 2017). The guiding idea is that, in being assigned a position within some system by some community, an entity acquires the social identity associated with that position. A social position is a specific status within a system that locates its occupant as a

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component of that system. The social identity of any entity is then the kind of thing that entity is by virtue of the social position it occupies. Social positions typically exist indepen- dently of, and usually prior to, any individual occupant, something which therefore applies also to the identities they inform.

Perhaps the most familiar examples of social positioning are those that involve the employment of human beings within the systems we commonly refer to as organizations, such as the position of thoracic surgeon within a hospital. This position denotes a particular status within the hospital and where it is by virtue of being assigned that status, and so occupying the relevant position, that its occupant acquires the associated social identity and so is a thoracic surgeon both within the hospital and the wider community.

The Case of Digital Objects

One of the features of Lawson’s view is that it applies also to the organization of systems that include, or are composed entirely of, inanimate entities (Faulkner and Runde 2013; Lawson 2012, 2015, 2016). Of particular relevance here is the case of positioned objects, where the positions concerned have to do with the practical use to which objects are put. Take the class of devices we know as MRI scanners. In the same way that the social position of thoracic surgeon locates its human occupant as a component of the larger system of a hospital and confers on them the social identity of thoracic surgeon, the social position of MRI scanner likewise locates its object occupant as a component of the larger system of a hospital and confers on it the social identity of MRI scanner. Similarly, the position of electronic medical records (EMR) software locates its bitstring occupant as a component of a larger health care system and confers on that bitstring the social identity of EMR software.

Aspects of the Social Positioning of Digital Objects

We will briefly note these three key aspects of the social positioning of digital objects: system functions, rights and responsibilities, and the reproduction and transformation of social positions.

System Functions: Every social position carries with it an expectation that its occupant will contribute to the perfor- mance of the relevant system in certain ways, something we call a system function. This observation applies equally to positioned humans and positioned objects: just as whoever occupies the position of thoracic surgeon within a hospital is expected to treat patients suffering from thoracic disorders, so the digital object that occupies the position of MRI scanner is expected to produce detailed images of the inside of the body.

In assigning an entity to a particular position within a system the goal is, in general, to achieve a close fit between the intrinsic capacities of that entity and the requirements of the system function associated with that position. Where an entity’s capacities are well suited to fulfilling its system func- tion, the positioning is likely to endure. Where the match is a poor one, however, the positioning is unlikely to be sus- tained. Most human artifacts, digital or otherwise, are of course designed and manufactured with the position they are to occupy in mind, so that they possess capacities tailored to the specific system functions they are intended to serve. But it may happen that an object designed with one system function in mind may nevertheless be repositioned and acquire a different identity and system function as a result (Cardinale and Runde 2019; Faulkner and Runde 2009).

Rights and Responsibilities: Social positions are also the locus of numerous rights and responsibilities, which position- occupants become subject to on entering a position. Again, the point is familiar in the context of employment-related positions, with the occupant of the position of thoracic sur- geon having the right to decide clinical priorities within their department, as well as the responsibility to keep patients informed of treatment options, associated risks, and so forth. While objects do not themselves enjoy rights or bear respon- sibilities in the way humans do, the positions they occupy are also the subject of rights and responsibilities pertaining to their use, maintenance, and so on. Thus, the right to order MRI scans may be restricted to particular physicians and imaging conducted only by suitably qualified radiographers within a hospital, while the scanner’s warranty imposes obligations on its manufacturer and might restrict aspects of its installation, modification, and so on.

As these examples show, the rights and responsibilities asso- ciated with social positions are typically two-sided, with the rights (responsibilities) of one position matched by corre- sponding responsibilities (rights) associated with other positions. This feature reflects the internal-relatedness of social positions, where the existence of any one social position presupposes the existence of others (and vice versa). Relationality of this sort is common in the digital realm, whether between social positions occupied by digital objects alone (e.g., MRI scanner and digital MRI image), between social positions occupied by digital objects on the one hand and humans on the other (MRI scanner and MRI technician), or between social positions occupied by humans alone (e.g., surgeon and surgery patient). All of these cases exhibit a form of mutual, or co-, constitution between the entities concerned, arising at the level of the social positions they occupy and the social identities they acquire.

The Reproduction and Transformation of Social Posi- tions: Social positions, as well as the relations in which they

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stand and the social identities they inform, exist through being continuously enacted or performed, and thereby reproduced, in the practices associated with them. Thus, the social posi- tion of MRI scanner, as well as its relations to other social positions and its associated social identity, exists and endures through practices such as physicians ordering, radiographers carrying out, and radiologists reporting on the images pro- duced by MRI scans of patients. Computation is involved in many of these practices, and the social positions associated with digital objects, together with their associated relations and identities, would not, therefore, generally exist but for processes of computation.

Social positions may, of course, also be transformed through human practices, driven by any manner of things including technological developments, accidents, and novel practices elsewhere. They may atrophy over time (e.g., the position of floppy disks associated with legacy IT systems), mutate (e.g., the position of camera as digital photography became wide- spread), and new ones emerge (e.g., the position of activity tracker). The view on social positioning we are advocating can, therefore, accommodate both continuity and change in the digital realm, always mindful of the relational and performative aspects of the positioning, identity, and use of digital objects, but never so as to lose sight of their intrinsic properties.

The exposition of our theory now complete, we move on to its potential value to IS research.

Implications

Given the abstract level at which it is pitched, we believe that our theory could be fruitfully applied in many areas of IS research. In what follows, we focus on demonstrating its utility as a conceptual framework for investigating phenom- ena in which digital objects predominate and its potential to inform existing theoretical perspectives in IS.

Bitstrings, Bearers and Markets for Secondhand Software

We begin with an empirical example: the recent emergence of secondary markets for pre-owned downloaded bitstrings such as application software and media files. Currently organized around a small number of web-based firms oper- ating as online intermediaries, these markets make it possible for owners of legally downloaded bitstrings to resell them over the Internet. While such markets are in their infancy— with intermediaries only willing to deal in certain kinds of bitstrings and where the legal status of even this trade is

keenly contested—continued growth in both the number and variety of bitstrings available to download suggests such markets are likely to become an increasingly important feature of digital commerce. Indeed, companies such as Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft already hold patents on technologies aimed at enabling secondary trade of this sort (Streitfeld 2013).

The advent of these markets raises a host of theoretical and practical issues, ranging from technological challenges associated with designing suitable online platforms to eco- nomic consequences that might flow from the monetization of end-users’ intangible digital “assets.” Our present interest, however, lies in how our theory may facilitate study of this phenomenon and to this end we will concentrate on two particular aspects. The first is ways in which the intrinsic properties of bitstrings render their secondary markets dif- ferent from those for pre-owned material objects. The second is the role of material bearers, particularly with respect to some of the main legal issues associated with the resale of downloaded bitstrings. Both aspects highlight the importance of ideas contained in our theory, first, in being able to account for the characteristics of nonmaterial objects such as bit- strings, and second, in providing the ontological basis for distinguishing nonmaterial objects from their material and nonmaterial bearers, and for capturing the relationship between the two.

There are various ways that the intrinsic properties of bit- strings render markets for pre-owned, downloaded, applica- tion software and media files different from those for second- hand material items such as motor vehicles, furniture, or clothes. We highlight two here. The first is that, by virtue of their nonmaterial mode of being and combined with the availability of low-cost bearer technologies and the reach and speed of the Internet, the storage and distribution costs asso- ciated with their online exchange are negligible. It follows that secondary markets for downloaded bitstrings have the potential to be highly efficient, with low transaction costs ensuring that most opportunities for trade between potential buyers and sellers can be achieved. By comparison, the phy- sicality of material objects can imply larger transactions costs and thus less efficient secondary markets. Thus while the potential buyer of a secondhand piano may value it more highly than its current owner, if the cost of transferring that object from seller to buyer is too great the exchange will not occur.

The second way in which the intrinsic features of bitstrings make a difference is that, unlike most material objects, they do not degrade with use or age. Pre-owned bitstrings can, therefore, genuinely be sold as being in like-new condition, with there being no difference in quality between a file purchased direct from a retailer such as the iTunes Store or

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one bought from an existing end-user. This has at least two important implications. The first is that these markets avoid the classic lemons problem often associated with markets for used material goods (Akerlof 1970), where trade may be reduced or fail to take place entirely simply because buyers are unable to distinguish high from low quality items, and where sellers and buyers may have to invest in costly signaling and screening activities to overcome these informational asymmetries. The second is that the non- degradability of bitstrings is a key factor in media and application software companies’ concerns about secondary markets and their motivation for challenging the legality of such trade. For if pre-owned bitstrings are like-new, their resale provides direct competition to new sales, threatening profits to a greater degree than would be the case for a product that wears out over time.

What will be evident, we hope, is that the preceding obser- vations presuppose a conception of digital objects that explicitly recognizes bitstrings, and nonmaterial objects generally, as separate objects with their own distinct and characteristic properties. For it is these properties, in this case their nonmaterial mode of being and non-degradability, that the points above rely on. Such phenomena, in other words, simply cannot be understood without the kind of ontological distinctions we have been urging.

The second aspect of this case we want to highlight—the disputed legal situation surrounding the resale of lawfully downloaded bitstrings—puts the spotlight on the material bearers of bitstrings and some of the main translational actions, particularly the uploading and downloading of files, associated with their online exchange. The two sides involved in these legal disputes are typically the inter- mediaries, on one hand, who wish to facilitate trade, and the media and software publishing companies, on the other, who wish to prevent those in possession of lawfully downloaded bitstrings from reselling them. That the current situation is unsettled is hardly surprising since trade of this kind is relatively new and the technologies involved are still devel- oping. There are also strong and conflicting economic interests involved, with the intermediaries as well as the potential buyers and sellers of bitstrings standing to gain from secondary trade, while, as we have already noted, the pub- lishing companies are at risk of erosion of their profits if reselling is allowed.

The main legal principle at stake here is the First Sale Doc- trine (FSD),8 a set of rules originating in the pre-digital era that limit a copyright owner’s exclusive right to distribute

copies, or what we call material bearers, of a copyrighted work. As usually understood, the FSD creates an exception to this right such that ownership of a lawfully acquired material bearer of a copyright-protected work permits distri- bution of that particular material bearer. Thus the owner of a legally purchased paperback copy of a novel is permitted to dispose of, for example resell, that item as they wish.

The key issue in relation to the legality of secondary markets for downloaded bitstrings is whether or not the FSD applies in this setting. To the extent that bitstrings mirror the paper- back example just described, the FSD has transferred to the digital realm with little difficulty. Thus in the case of some- one having originally purchased a software application borne on a specific material object such as a DVD-ROM, the FSD permits that person to resell that material object without infringing the copyright associated with that application. In the case of a bitstring purchased online as a download, how- ever, the situation is rather different, with the link between that bitstring and the material bearer on which it resides being significantly looser. For although a downloaded bitstring must be borne by a material bearer of some sort, in contrast to when it is purchased on an object such as a DVD-ROM, in the case of a download there is no specific material object to which the bitstring is inherently tied at the point of purchase.

Two recent legal cases illustrate the issues that can arise as a result (Hamilton 2015; Huguenin-Love 2014; Serra 2013; Soma and Kugler 2014). In January 2012, Capitol Records, a music publishing company, sued ReDigi, an online inter- mediary allowing users to buy and sell audio files previously downloaded from iTunes, for copyright infringement in the United States. In March 2013, the courts ruled in favor of Capitol (Capitol Records LLC v. ReDigi Inc, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, 112-00095), finding that ReDigi’s activities were not covered by the FSD and so violated the music publisher’s copyright. Central to the courts’ ruling was its interpretation of ReDigi’s online plat- form, whereby those who wish to resell an audio file first upload that file to the ReDigi “Cloud Locker” (a remote server located in Arizona), from which it can then be sold to and downloaded by a new purchaser. Although ReDigi’s software ensures that any uploaded file is removed from a user’s own computer, the courts deemed that uploading a file to the Cloud Locker necessarily involves the creation of a new material bearer of that file rather than the transfer of an existing one. Since the creation of a new bearer violates the copyright holder’s reproduction rights, the file stored on the Cloud Locker is unlawful and not, therefore, subject to the FSD. Thus any exchange of an audio file that takes place via the ReDigi platform was judged unlawful.

The courts reached a quite different conclusion in an other- wise similar case heard in Europe. In 2012, the European

8The same principle is usually referred to as the Exhaustion Doctrine outside of the United States.

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Court of Justice considered a case brought by Oracle Inter- national, a producer of enterprise software, against UsedSoft, a German firm trading online in pre-owned downloaded application software. Like Capitol Records, Oracle argued that the FSD did not apply to downloaded software, since its resale over the Internet would necessarily violate copyright in much the same way as in the ReDigi case. Yet in this case the court found in favor of UsedSoft, on the grounds that the FSD did apply so long as the originally downloaded copy of the software was deleted or rendered unusable (UsedSoft v. Oracle, ECJ, C-128/11, subsequently confirmed by the German Federal Supreme Court, 17 July 2014, IZR129/08; case note in English (2014)).9 While recognizing that resale would involve the creation of a new material bearer, the court deemed this lawful reproduction by virtue of it being nec- essary for the use of the software by its lawful owner.

As things stand, then, the U.S. and European rulings on online trade in pre-owned bitstrings conflict on a fundamental point, namely the legality or otherwise of the new material bearers created as part of the process. These decisions, and the resulting jurisdictional differences, are likely to have signi- ficant consequences for issues ranging from publishers’ distribution, license and maintenance models and how they position themselves in regard to non-transfer restrictions, the design of online platforms employed by intermediaries, all the way through to the perverse incentives they may create for buyers, who may forego downloading in favor of purchasing material bearers of nonmaterial objects with an eye to their potential resale. ReDigi’s own response has been to redesign its software in such a way that the resale of audio files no longer involves the creation of new material bearers, with a view to overcoming the legal objections raised against its original platform. Instead, newly purchased files are imme- diately stored on ReDigi’s own servers, from where its owner can either play the music directly or, if they wish to sell, ownership of the file can be transferred to the buyer without the creation of a new material bearer (Crooks 2015). A judg- ment in their appeal of the original ruling, and consequently the legality of this new arrangement, has been pending since August 2017.

As with our earlier discussion of the intrinsic properties of bitstrings, the central role of material bearers in the legal arguments surrounding secondary trade in downloaded bit- strings offers a similarly clear illustration of the use of our theory as a conceptual basis for enquiry. Without the distinction between bitstrings and their material bearers, and an account of the relationship between the two, it would be impossible to make sense of the events we have described.

The legal aspects of this case also remind us of what is arguably the single most important feature of the bitstring: its capacity to bear nonmaterial objects such as application pro- grams, audio recordings, and text. Indeed, the legal situation regarding secondary trade is itself likely to depend on the particular type of nonmaterial object a bitstring bears, since different law(s) may apply to bitstring bearers of application software than apply to bitstring bearers of, for example, audio- or e-books. More broadly, this feature highlights that the demand for bitstrings is a derived one, arising from demand for the nonmaterial object inscribed into a bitstring, rather than for the bitstring itself, and where multiple layers of nonmaterial bearer may exist between the bitstring and the ultimate object of value. It is this feature that has played, and will continue to play, such an important role in the shaping of digital markets and in the impact of bitstrings generally, and why it is so important to be clear about the distinct properties of the various kinds of objects involved and the relations in which they stand to each other.

Although we have focused on secondary markets for bit- strings, there are many other cases in which similar concep- tual issues arise and for which our theory might offer an appropriate foundation. One of these concerns the tendency among certain consumers to value physical versions of a given item—a magazine, audio recording, or film, say—more highly than its digital variants, despite the advantages the latter offer in terms of storage, transportation, and non- degradability (Belk 2013; Giles et al. 2007; Petrelli and Whittaker 2010). We have already highlighted one possible explanation for this, namely the legal difficulties associated with the resale of digital goods. A second possibility, how- ever, is that the strength of psychological ownership that consumers feel toward a good, and thus the value they attach to it, depends on their ability to interact and (re-)form asso- ciations with that good in a physical way. Questions of mode of being are central here, the nonmaterial nature of digitized goods, at least in certain cases, contributing directly to their being valued less than their material counterparts (Atasoy and Morewedge 2018).

A somewhat different example concerns the Internet of Things, where physical devices with embedded digital sen- sory and actuation capabilities are linked over networks, and which turns on the coming together of material devices (the things) with a variety of nonmaterial entities such as software, protocols, data, and the like (Gubbi et al. 2013; Miorandi et al. 2012). Similarly, 3D printing, which enables the produc- tion of three-dimensional material objects from their digital representations (Barnatt 2013; Lipson and Kurman 2013) and constitutes a particularly novel form of translational action, revolves around bitstrings that are the nonmaterial bearers of representations of the structure—themselves nonmaterial objects—of the material object to be produced.

9The ruling also required that if the license originally sold covered multiple users, the reseller did not divide the license and resell only part of it.

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Our final example concerns the impact of robotics and AI on labor markets and differs from the preceding ones in extending the focus from objects to social positions. Perhaps the most salient issue here, one that threatens to become one of the most pressing organizational and social challenges of the age, is the displacement of workers by automation and the use of material and nonmaterial objects (Brynjolfsson and McAfee 2012; Ford 2015; Kaplan 2015), that is, of digital objects moving into social positions formerly occupied by humans.

The Resource-Based, Knowledge-Based, and Service-Dominant Logic Views

We now return to the three meta-theoretical views on organizing reviewed at the beginning of the paper, with the aim of highlighting some specific implications of our theory for their conceptions of digital technology and of resources generally.

Recall that while all three views distinguish between the material and the nonmaterial at the level of resources, they fail to do so adequately at the level of objects. Instead, non- material objects such as bitstrings tend to be treated in one of two ways, neither of which is satisfactory. The first and most common is to interpret them as equivalent, or reducible, to the material things involved in their use. The problem here is that this conflates nonmaterial and material objects, thereby ob- scuring the distinct properties of, and relationships between, each. The second is to interpret them as forms of knowledge. While this potentially captures the intangibility of nonmaterial objects, the problem again is that this conflates two different things, nonmaterial objects and knowledge. Our theory avoids these conflations by offering a more finely grained understanding of nonmaterial objects as types of resource. We will illustrate some of the resulting benefits with reference to the idea of resources being embedded and the possible revision of some widely adopted categories.

As noted earlier, in one way or another all three views regard knowledge-based resources as embedded in, and transmitted through, other kinds of resources such as an organization’s culture, routines, employees, and physical devices. While there is a clear analogy here with the idea of nonmaterial objects being borne by other material and nonmaterial objects, we would add two refinements in light of our theory. The first is that nonmaterial objects, and bitstrings in particular, can serve as bearers of knowledge-based resources just as much as material objects can. The second is that nonmaterial objects can be embedded in other material or nonmaterial objects just as much as knowledge can.

These refinements become especially valuable when con- sidering embeddedness in relation to digital technology, this for the clarity they bring in disentangling the various elements involved—knowledge, nonmaterial, and material objects— and the relations between them. Take Bharadwaj’s (2000, p. 175) example of a “lessons learned” database built by a firm to capture “the unstructured knowledge of its design team in the form of wisdom, experience, and stories.” While cap- turing perfectly the general notion of one resource (knowl- edge) being embedded in another (the database), there are important nonmaterial objects in play here too, notably the text that captures employees’ wisdom, experience, and stories, and its bitstring bearers embedded in the database. We would say that the knowledge is embedded in the text, which is in turn borne by the bitstring. This level of detail seems to us crucial to capturing the nuances, in particular the unique features of the digital objects, involved.

On similar lines, our theory also provides a source of useful adjuncts to the concept of resource liquefaction advanced by the three views, and especially the role of digitization in enabling “resources to be unbundled, rebundled, integrated, and created” (Lusch and Vargo 2014, p. 141). Here we suggest that our account of nonmaterial objects, bearers, layers, and digital objects in particular provides the concepts to develop such ideas coherently in relation to the idea of resources advanced in the three views—both the basic idea of information embedded in, and then separated from, physical things, and also the idea of unbundling and rebundling, inte- grating and creating.

A second benefit of our theory is that it suggests potentially useful revisions of categories used in the three views. We will concentrate on the distinction between operand and operant resources in service-dominant logic, where the former are static things requiring “other resources to act on them to provide benefit” (Lusch and Vargo 2014, p. 57), and the latter are dynamic in the sense of “capable of acting on other (potential) resources to create benefit” (Lusch and Vargo 2014, p. 57). There are two points we wish to make in this connection, the first of which is that, while operand resources are usually thought of as material appliances, nonmaterial objects such as software, media files, and protocols are often similarly inert and reliant on other resources to be used. In short, while recognizing the possible operant aspects of soft- ware (Lusch and Nambisan 2015), on our account the category of operand resource should be expanded to include nonmaterial as well as material objects.

Our second point concerns the relationship between operand and operant resources. Service-dominant logic typically emphasizes the embedding of operant in operand resources

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(Vargo et al. 2008), as when competences are viewed as transmitted through material devices. But the refinements mentioned earlier introduce new possibilities. One of these is of operant resources being embedded in nonmaterial rather than material operand resources, such as where knowledge of tax law and the ability to complete and submit a valid tax return are embedded in tax software (Vargo et al. 2008). Another possibility, epitomized by our notion of bearers of nonmaterial objects, is of operand nonmaterial objects being embedded in other operand objects. And yet another possi- bility, one that inverts the usual formulation, is where a nonmaterial operand object such as an organization’s fire evacuation protocol or a clause within a product’s license agreement is embedded in operant knowledge of some form. Indeed, the idea that there may be many layers of bearers opens the way to longer permutations of both operant and operand resources.

We close with two points that illustrate how our theory might facilitate the articulation of social aspects of resources, particularly digital technology, within the three views. The first is in connection with the observation by proponents of service-dominant logic that resources are “a function of how something (tangible or intangible) is or can be used and not a function of things per se” (Lusch and Nambisan 2015, p. 159). There are likely many facets to this claim but one of the most important, we contend, is that resources are usually positioned things, such that the qualities of being a particular type of resource and having the associated system functions, are bound up with the position that an entity occupies, with how it is related to other (socially positioned) things, and its actually being deployed in accordance with its social posi- tioning, in the context in which it arises. Our theory provides the means to incorporate these and related ideas into service- dominant logic, and then in a way that complements recent efforts to theorize social structure in relation to service ecosystems generally.

Our second point concerns the notion of social complexity, an idea that the resource-based view has yet to adequately theorize and that it arguably lacks the concepts required to do so. Our theory suggests that the positioning of a resource represents one possible source of social complexity, particu- larly where the positions concerned involve complex internal relations, where entities simultaneously occupy multiple positions within one or more communities, and where posi- tions and positionings change over time. Thinking about the issue in this way may be of particular relevance to digital (and other kinds of) objects, where the orthodox view that devices are rarely socially complex is at odds with the ubiquitous positioning of such things, and where this approach may highlight factors that make it difficult for an organization to

control, or to copy, a resource that would otherwise be neglected.

How People and Technology Come Together

Our theory of digital objects is a contribution to a wider literature in IS about how the relationship between people and technology should be theorized (e.g., Cheikh-Ammar 2018; Grover and Lyytinen 2015; Leonardi et al. 2012; Markus and Silver 2008; Silver and Markus 2013). We will now indicate one way our theory might add to this literature with reference to two influential perspectives within it: sociomateriality (Orlikowski 2007, 2010: Orlikowski and Scott 2008, 2014, 2015; Scott and Orlikowski 2014; see also Cecez- Kecmanovic et al. 2014; Jones 2014; Riemer and Johnston 2017) and what we will call imbrication theory (Leonardi 2011, 2012, 2013, 2017; Leonardi and Rodqriguez-Lluesma 2012).

While there is some overlap between the two and both are considerably more nuanced than we have space to detail here, they differ unambiguously on a fundamental aspect of ontology: while sociomateriality denies the existence of discrete things with intrinsic properties (e.g., Scott and Orlikowski 2014, p. 878) and therefore also digital objects as we have theorized them, imbrication theory affirms the oppo- site and reserves a central place for technological artifacts with intrinsic properties that are “fixed,” even if only tem- porarily, and that impact causally on what people do with them (e.g., Leonardi 2012, p. 32).

This difference is dramatic and of a piece with how the two perspectives depict organizing processes in technology-rich environments. According to sociomateriality, the world bottoms out in relations and everything within it is the product of intra-action, a “mutual constitution of objects and agencies of observation within phenomena” (Barad, 2007, p. 197). Organizing processes, in this view, are ones in which the boundaries between things flow from “agential cuts” made by “agencies of observation” rather than from inherent properties of the things concerned (Orlikowski 2010, pp. 135-136; Scott and Orlikowski 2014, pp. 877-880), and where whatever emerges is co-constituted by agencies of observation just as such agencies are co-constituted by whatever it is they are observing.

In contrast, the focus in imbrication theory—where imbricate means “to arrange distinct elements in overlapping patterns so that they function interdependently” (Leonardi 2011, p. 150)—is on organizing processes in which preexisting tech- nological artifacts and mediating “perceptual affordances and

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constraints” of human actors interact causally (although not deterministically) in successive imbrications. While the human and material agencies implicated at each stage may be transformed in their interactions, the emphasis is on a chrono- logical to and fro between interacting agencies, rather than a melding of the two.

It is not our intention to criticize either perspective here or to question the undoubted value of the empirical work they have guided. Our aim instead is to suggest that one of the benefits of our own theory is to provide a bridge between the two. In our view, there is no contradiction between committing to a world full of discrete things with intrinsic properties while accepting that the emergence, social positioning, and, accordingly, identities and system functions of such things involve high degrees of relationality, performativity, and even something like localized intra-actions (e.g., the positioning, identity, and associated activities of MRI technician co- constituting the positioning and identity of MRI scanner, and vice versa). To this extent, our account offers an alternative for those attracted by the emphasis on relationality and performativity in sociomateriality but who nevertheless have reservations about committing wholesale to intra-action tout court and the “ontological fusion” (Orlikowski and Scott 2008, p. 456) of humans and technologies that this entails. At the same time, our account offers an alternative for those attracted by the view of a world of at least temporarily stable things with intrinsic properties described in imbrication theory and the role it ascribes to affordances (Gibson 1986; Hutchby 2001; Markus and Silver 2008; Norman 1990, 1999), but who may also be interested in a thoroughgoing account of the social positioning, social identity, and system functions of digital objects, and the possibility of remaining open to a role for at least some form of intra-action.

A Push to the Edge

Much of our theory is the product of an attempt to think through the ontology of digital objects from first principles and is to this extent an example of what Grover and Lyytinen (2015) call a “push to the edge,” away from middle-range theorizing drawing on ideas imported from reference disci- plines, toward a more abstract and unfettered “blue ocean” theorizing. One of the benefits of this kind of work is that it avoids the imprecision or ambiguity that can arise when concepts intended for use in one domain are carried over to another, such as where key properties of digital objects are lost via their being equated with other forms of resources as they are understood in fields such as strategy or marketing. But there are other advantages and we close by mentioning four of them.

The first is to help foreground digital objects and call atten- tion to them as things worthy of investigation in their own right. In their seminal paper, Orlikowski and Iacono (2001, p. 130) describe this task, that of “making the implicit visible and turning attention to the taken for granted,” as the principal challenge in achieving a more thorough engagement with the IT artifact. One of the main aims of ontological analysis is to meet this kind of challenge, which we sought to do by indi- viduating digital objects and their components analytically, and revealing their properties and ontological preconditions.

A second advantage is that, in providing a conception of digital objects as structured ensembles of components that are themselves objects, our theory provides the means to drill down to whatever level any of their organizationally relevant properties might emanate from. We regard this as a crucial aspect of our theory because the organizational consequences of technology often depend causally on, and therefore cannot be fully understood without reference to, such properties. So, just as our understanding of how the gramophone turntable became a musical instrument in the New York hip hop com- munity in the late 1970s is deeper for knowing something about the properties of the Technics SL1200 turntables used without which it would likely never have occurred—for ex- ample, the direct drive that made it possible to manipulate the platter manually without damaging the device, and where the motor had sufficient torque to bring the platter up to speed again quickly on being released (Faulkner and Runde 2009)— so our understanding of the organizational consequences of something like blockchain technology might turn on knowing about the properties of (nonmaterial) data structures, crypto- graphic keys, consensus mechanism protocols, and the many elements of the material infrastructure required to maintain a geographically distributed ledger. Our theory provides a framework within which such properties can be captured in a systematic and, since it applies equally to material, non- material, and hybrid objects, unified way.

A third advantage of our theory is that it captures important specific features of digital objects, of which two in particular stand out. The first is the nonmaterial nature of computer files, a precondition for much of the digital world as we know it. We hope to have captured this property in a straight- forward way that is consistent with how most engineers and programmers on the ground think about it, and also dispels some of the apparent mystery reflected in descriptions of the “dubious” (Allison et al. 2005) or “ambivalent” (Kallinikos et al. 2013) ontology of bitstrings. The second feature is the object–bearer relationship and the capacity of bitstrings, and digital objects generally, to support multiple layers of bearers of a nonmaterial object. We see this part of our theory as an addition to the literature on nonmaterial objects (Allison et al.

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2005; Bhattacharjee et al. 2011; Ekbia 2009; Kallinikos et al. 2010, 2013; Leonardi 2010; Matook and Brown 2017; Quah 2003; Rayna 2008) and as a potential source of building blocks for further theorizing hybrid complexes ranging from relatively simple smart devices (Yoo 2010) to larger digital infrastructures and ecosystems (Henfridsson and Bygstad 2013; Tilson et al. 2010).

The final advantage we want to mention is a key by-product of our theory, namely that it offers an object-based definition of “digital object” that is theoretically grounded in flowing from a general conception of objecthood, able to account for why digital objects are specifically digital, and that covers both hardware and nonmaterial objects. This definition meets the usual criteria of a sound definition in using predefined terms that are simpler than the term defined, and in giving an if-and-only-if condition for when an entity satisfies the defi- nition. There are many ways in which definitions may be use- ful, ranging from providing points of departures for, guiding, and lending rigor to empirical research, to contributing to the project of providing distinctive foundations for the IS field as an independent discipline.10

Conclusion

Given their influence on organizations and organizing processes, there is a pressing need for more sophisticated understanding of digital objects. We have sought to respond to this need by articulating a theory of such objects that does justice both to their inherent properties and to their social aspects. In the process, however, we largely bypassed recent debates in IS about the nature and role of theory, debates that reflect a considerable variation in views on what counts as theory, how it should be used, and how much emphasis should be put on it (e.g., Alter 2015, 2017; Avison and Malaurent 2014; Grover and Lyytinen 2015; Markus 2014; Silverman 2014). While this is not the place to enter these debates, we close by noting Alter’s (2015) concern about the rapid pace of technological change undermining the long-term value of theorizing in IS and the questions this raises about whether and to what extent future developments in computing might render our theory obsolete.

Our view on this issue is that, due to the presently over- whelming preponderance of binary encoding and the bitstring, our framework will be able to accommodate most IT innovations—ranging from continued advances in the design and manufacture of integrated circuits to seemingly more radical changes such as the use of DNA as a new form of material bearer (Church et al. 2012)—for the foreseeable future. In some cases, however, it may well become neces- sary to extend our theory in particular ways. For example, if something like ternary computing were to catch on, this would require recognizing the tritstring as a further basic non- material bearer, which would in turn require a generalization of our notion of a digital object. And it is at least conceivable that new forms of computing will emerge in which the basic entities employed in the storage and manipulation of infor- mation are quite different from those we have described. At present, however, such developments seem some way off and, while it is interesting to speculate about how advances in areas such as quantum or biological computing may impact on our theory, we trust that it is robust enough to remain of relevance for some time yet.

Acknowledgments

This paper is a distant descendant of a paper called “The Social, the Material and the Ontology of Non-material Technological Objects” that has been circulating on the Internet for many years (Faulkner and Runde 2010). We would like to thank the following people for their input to the many subsequent versions that culminated in this one: the senior editor, associate editor, and anonymous referees of this journal; Aleksi Aaltonen, Michael Burcher, Tom Carrell, John Clarke, Ola Henfridsson, Matthew Jones, Jannis Kallinikos, Clive Lawson, Tony Lawson, Paul Leonardi, Kamal Munir, Bonni Nardi, Katherine Rock, Mark Thompson, Georg von Krogh, Youngjin Yoo, and, especially, Wanda Orlikowski whose work first led us into this fascinating area.

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About the Authors

Philip Faulkner is Reddaway Fellow, Director of Studies and Senior College Teaching Officer in Economics, at Clare College, Cambridge, and a Fellow of Cambridge Judge Business School. His research focuses on issues in social ontology, primarily the nature of technology, and decision making under extreme uncertainty, and he has published on these and other topics in journals including Academy of Management Review and MIS Quarterly. He presently serves as co-editor of the Cambridge Journal of Economics.

Jochen Runde is Professor of Economics & Organisation and Faculty Dean at Cambridge Judge Business School, and Professorial Fellow and Director of Studies in Management at Girton College, Cambridge. He is co-editor of the Cambridge Journal of Economics, an Associate of the Cambridge Social Ontology Group, and his main areas of research are the ontology of technology, decision making under extreme uncertainty, and explanation in the social sciences.

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