Building on the Generative Potential of Digital Technologies in Organisations with a Public Remit

Digital technologies have transformed innovation and competition, leading to important questions on organisations’ technological choices, the nature of inter-organisational relationships, and their strategies. This paper explores how incumbent organisations that pursue value creation and value capture for the public interest harness the generative potential of digital technologies. Drawing on primary and secondary data collected in 2015-2022, this paper explores the response of the BBC to the disruption of digital technologies and related changes in the competitive arena. The generativity of digital technologies demands large audiences to deal with unprompted change; experimentation takes place in many forms with often unexpected outcomes, however, organisations with a public remit cannot pursue all opportunities on a large scale. Despite the BBC having a platform-like response aligned with the response of other incumbents who have been exposed to similar stimuli, the mandate of delivering societal impact steers how the organisation develops its technological infrastructure, experimental activities, and inter-organisational relationships. Ultimately, we show how the public remit can “steer” how organisations can harness the generativity of digital technologies shedding light on possible new sources of value and innovation.