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We present a model of phenomenon-driven theorizing that may guide researchers in bridging art and science as they engage in pure theory development. The model seeks to leverage activities related to discovery and prescience (conceiving the theory), imagination and logic (constructing the theory), as well as storytelling and scripting (communicating the theory). We illustrate the model through a reflective inquiry into our recent work on data network effects. The model represents a balanced take on theory development and is useful for tempering the natural tendency in academia to drift toward the science of theorizing at the expense of the art of theorizing.

Digital infrastructures enable delivery of information services in functional areas such as health, payment, and transportation by providing a socio-technical foundation for partnership governance, resource reuse, and system integration. To effectively serve new purposes and emerging possibilities, however, a key question concerns how an infrastructure can be extended to cater for future services in its functional area? In this paper, we approach such digital infrastructure growth as a challenge related to the alignment of new partners whose capabilities spur innovative services that attract more users. We advance an initial typology that covers four growth tactics (i.e., adding services, inventing processes, opening identifiers, and providing interfaces) with potential to set extension of infrastructures in motion. We then explore the proposed typology by investigating the ways in which its particular tactics successfully extended the scope of a digital infrastructure for public transportation. Our insights invite IS scholars to engage more deeply in the development of growth tactics, which achieve infrastructure extensions that make service delivery durable.