The information systems literature has studied digital innovation extensively and focused
primarily on its commercial related objectives. Yet, digital social innovations seek to
solve social problems, while implementing commercially viable approaches. Drawing
from the social entrepreneurship literature and using computational social ...
The information systems literature has studied digital innovation extensively and focused
primarily on its commercial related objectives. Yet, digital social innovations seek to
solve social problems, while implementing commercially viable approaches. Drawing
from the social entrepreneurship literature and using computational social science
methods, we identify the peculiar utilitarian (commercial) and collectivistic (social)
identity orientations that shape digital social innovation (DSI). We use a sample of 292
DSI initiatives from Latin America and find that DSIs present both utilitarian and
collectivist identity orientation. We also find that the collectivistic identity orientation
tends to be more salient in less developed contexts. This allows us to discuss implications
for the research on digital social innovation and to open up a discussion on the role of
context and possible tensions that may emerge in combining both identity orientations.