Organisations evaluating disruptive technology transitions routinely default to incumbent performancemetrics, systematically undervaluing candidates whose value is created at organisational and ecosystemlevels rather than at the technical layer. We name this evaluation failure the performance trap and proposethe Multi-Level IS Value Framework (MIVF) as a theoretically grounded response. MIVF integrates threeIS lenses — IS Success, IT Business Value, and Digital Infrastructure / Service-Dominant Logic — into asingle tri-level diagnostic typology (Technical Substitution, Organisational Reconfiguration, EcosystemEmergence) and explicitly models cross-level decoupling, where firm-level capability deficits or fragmentedgovernance prevent technical superiority from realising organisational or ecosystem value. We illustrateMIVF using the systemic edge-cloud transition through the COP-PILOT Horizon Europe project, with aworked Smart Energy example showing how the same evidence yields opposing recommendations undertraditional and MIVF evaluation. We outline an empirical agenda across COP-PILOT's heterogeneouspilots.
Halimi et al. (Tue,) studied this question.