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Mobile Applications as Carriers of Institutional Pressures: A Case of the Finnish Taxi Industry

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Nordic Contributions in IS Research (SCIS 2018)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 326))

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Abstract

While the worldwide market expansion of Uber has raised controversy, Uber has also received praise for its mobile phone app. Its many features – taxi ordering, pricing, real-time location information, paying, and service evaluation – have provided significant customer value. When Uber entered Finland in November 2014, few other taxi apps were available. Between 2014 and 2018, this shortage of taxi apps turned into an abundance, with many companies introducing their own taxi apps. By leaning on institutional theory, and more specifically by applying coercive, mimetic and normative pressures as a lens, we provide an explanation for why three Finnish taxi apps now resemble Uber in some features, whereas they differ in others. Based on our interviews, we can explain the present-day differences between these apps by coercive and normative pressures in the institutional environment of the Finnish taxi industry. We contribute to the IT and institutionalization research stream by illustrating how mobile applications as IT artefacts can be seen as carriers of institutional pressures materializing in the features they provide.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.lvm.fi/act-on-transport-services (15.5.2018)

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Interact Research Unit, Faculty of ITEE, University of Oulu, PO Box 8000, 90014, Oulun Yliopisto, Finland

    Karin Väyrynen & Arto Lanamäki

  2. Applied Information Technology, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Juho Lindman

Authors
  1. Karin Väyrynen
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  2. Arto Lanamäki
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  3. Juho Lindman
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Karin Väyrynen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Sune Dueholm Müller

  2. Department of Political Science, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Jeppe Agger Nielsen

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Väyrynen, K., Lanamäki, A., Lindman, J. (2018). Mobile Applications as Carriers of Institutional Pressures: A Case of the Finnish Taxi Industry. In: Müller, S., Nielsen, J. (eds) Nordic Contributions in IS Research. SCIS 2018. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 326. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96367-9_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96367-9_5

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