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How ESL Devices Transform into Connected Label Solutions: A Perspective of Actor Interaction and
Information Rebundling

value chain and interfirm relationships. Relatedly, digital innovation is enabled by the
inter-organizational level at the meso-level of actor ecosystem engagement (Alexander et
al., 2018). Further, digital transformation can also increase interactions among actors at
the macro level by creating different types of collaborative action to form value chains or

enhance existing ones in the ecosystem (Böttcher et al., 2021). These collective actions
can invite different kinds of actors to join the ecosystem to increase the capacity and
capabilities within the ecosystem, constituting a meta-ecosystem (Palmié et al., 2022).

2.5. Information Density: Dematerialization and Liquification
Density means the degree to which such mobilization of resources for a time/space/
actor unit can occur. The density opportunity is primarily driven by new technology,
which provides a breakthrough in the opportunity to restructure or reconfigure activity sets

(Normann, 2001). The restructuring can generate two major implications in the process,
namely shattering and re-linking a similar process, as mentioned by Normann (2001):

The density opportunity is driven primarily by new technology and, to a great extent,
by our imagination and mindsets … Such restructuring implies two basic processes.
The first is achieved by shattering activity sets and assets that used to be closely

linked to each other, and the second comes from being able to re-link activities and
assets that used to be impossible, difficult, very time-consuming, or too expensive
to put together … The first thing in this set of driving forces, thus, is related to the

ability to “break up” or “unbundle,” and the second to the ability to “link” and “put
together” or to re-bundle.

Shattering a set of activities can provide a mechanism to separate the information
from the physical world, a process known as dematerialization (Normann, 2001). As
Lycett (2013) notes, “Dematerialization highlights the ability to separate the informational

aspects of an asset/resource and its use in context from the physical world”. The separation
of information from the physical world requires a technological infrastructure to help
place information in free-flowing real time. For instance, Lycett (2013) explains this
dematerialization process in the disc rental model for the distribution of video content.
The disc rental business model already provides data on the subscriber queue. From the

subscriber’s perspective, the queue can provide data on how the resources of the disc

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