Essays on the digital public infrastructures

Guide(s)

Banerjee, Shankhadeep

Department

Information Systems

Area

Information Systems

University

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

Place

Bangalore

Publication Date

3-31-2026

Year Awarded

March 2026

Year Completed

March 2026

Year Registered

June 2021

Abstract

Digital Public Infrastructures (DPIs) are digital tools and technologies of an infrastructural nature that serve the public welfare. Examples include verifiable identity systems, such as Singapore’s Singpass and India’s Aadhaar; digital payment systems, including India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Brazil’s Pix; and data exchange systems, like Estonia’s X-Road and Australia’s Consumer Data Right (CDR). DPIs represent a recently emerged phenomenon that has experienced worldwide diffusion and acceptance, driven by its success in the Indian context. They are crucial for countries to empower individuals, particularly vulnerable groups, spur market innovation, accelerate development, maintain and control national infrastructure, and ultimately achieve digital sovereignty. DPIs introduce a new ‘public’ dimension to digital infrastructures. Due to the multistakeholder involvement, the DPI phenomenon is illustrated from diverse perspectives within the practice community, leaving a contested theoretical understanding. As the growing acceptance and promising global impacts of DPIs attract the attention of academicians, their fragile theoretical foundation may lead to the development of their ad-hoc literature. This calls for understanding the phenomenon’s theoretical alignment with the existing, overlapping literature and for identifying its public manifestations. In Essay 1, we address this concern by using phenomenon-based theorization to theorize the DPI phenomenon. Based on their ontological foundations in terms of digital (infrastructures, commons, artifacts) and public (e-governance) characteristics, we determine public problem/opportunities, access, participation, spirit, and value as the key aspects that manifest DPI's publicness. We offer their association as a stage-wise conceptualframework. The proposed framework is applied to an emerging address management DPI in India, DHRUVA - Digital Hub for Reference & Unique Virtual Address, to ensure its explainability and generalizability. The study responds to the repeated calls for the theorization of digital artifacts and makes foundational contributions to the emerging DPI literature. DPI implementation is pivotal for economic growth, innovation, and societal progress. However, unlike stand-alone digital systems, which are ‘built’ from scratch, DPIs, akin to digital infrastructures, ‘evolve’ on an installed base. Theirshared, enduring, reinforcing, and public nature exacerbates their evolutionary challenges by increasing their complexity. We postulate that a lack of scholarly explanations, combined with the intricacies of the DPIs, makes it difficult for their stakeholders worldwide to comprehend their evolution mechanisms. Therefore, to untangle the complexity associated with the evolution of DPIs, Essay 2 examinesIndia's digital identity – Aadhaar and Europe’s data exchange – Gaia-X DPIs. Using the retroduction analysis approach of critical realism, we identify the generative mechanisms that engender the evolution of selected DPIs. The analysis deduced contextual rootedness, DPI value perception, and ecosystem fostering as the key generative mechanisms, at the macro-micro, micro, and micro-macro levels, respectively. The findings from this multi-country exploration seek to contribute to the discourse on DPIs and critical realism research. By examining experiences across different contexts, this research aims to guide implementers, managers, and policymakers in creating efficient and resilient DPIs that benefit stakeholders.DPIs are commonly associated with the Digital Public Goods (DPGs) and the Indian context. India’s DPG-DPI-based approach for digital social transformation is globally recognized for its scale and inclusivity, and has the potential to offer pivotal insights for state-led digital transformations. While conventional analyses attribute the approach’s effectiveness largely to technological aspects, we apply a novel perspective from the entrepreneurship domain, specifically the Effectuation Approach, in the third essay. Effectuation offers a way to facilitate business creation in uncertainties by utilizing available means, embracing affordable losses, and cocreating with stakeholders. Using an interpretive case study of publicly available data, we present a macro-level description of India’s DPG-driven expedition, which is anchored in three broad phases: Inception, Proliferation, and Globalization. This description is complemented by a micro-level case study of a specific DPG-based solution. Furthermore, we reinterpret the expedition through the lens of effectuation principles and process, and assimilate its lessons. Key learnings include: determining contextual acumen, adopting the digital building block approach, fostering a collaborative ecosystem, and prioritizing citizen welfare. These learnings are salient because they guide public institutions in navigating the uncertainties of large-scale digital transformation through our proposed effectual logics, adapted to state-led DPG-driven transformation. The study offers a novel perspective on the emerging literature on DPGs. By demonstrating the usefulness of the entrepreneurial effectuation approach for generating valuable IS insights applicable to governance, it adds to the literature at the intersection of IS, entrepreneurship, and public administration. The determined learnings and logics are useful for cost-effective social developments through future DPG-driven implementations, particularly in less developed contexts.

Pagination

211p.

Copyright

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

Document Type

Dissertation

DAC Chairperson

Banerjee, Shankhadeep

DAC Members

De, Rahul; Dharanikota, Spurthy; Srinivasan, R

Type of Degree

Ph.D.

Relation

DIS-IIMB-FPM-P26-11

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