IT for the People: Driving Digital Innovation with Citizen Development

In the digital age, organizations must continuously adapt and innovate to maintain a competitive advantage. Citizen development is an emerging approach that empowers employees across business units to drive digital innovation through the use of low-code development platforms. However, we lack a comprehensive understanding of how exactly digital innovations are created by citizen developers. We conducted an interview study with 34 experts from 15 organizations across various industries to shed light on digital innovation creation with citizen development. We propose a process model that captures the activities through which citizen developers foster digital innovation. Our findings reveal that citizen development can be conceptualized as a meta-innovation (i.e., an innovation to innovate). Specifically, citizen development emerges as a methodological innovation driving incremental digital process innovation. Our research contributes to literature on digital innovation and citizen development, while offering practical insights for organizations seeking to harness the innovative potential of their employees.