In this paper, we develop a process model of trajectory shifts in institutional entrepreneurship. We focus on the liminal periods experienced by institutional entrepreneurs when they, unlike the rest of the organization, recognize limits in the present and seek to shift a familiar past into an unfamiliar and uncertain future. Such periods involve a situation where the new possible future, not yet fully formed, exists side-by-side with established innovation trajectories. Trajectory shifts are moments of truth for institutional entrepreneurs, but little is known about the underlying mechanisms of how entrepreneurs reflectively deal with liminality to conceive and bring forth new innovation trajectories. Our in-depth case study research at CarCorp traces three such mechanisms (reflective dissension, imaginative projection, and eliminatory exploration) and builds the basis for understanding the liminality of trajectory shifts. The paper offers theoretical implications for the institutional entrepreneurship literature.
PurposeDuring hyper‐competition, disruptive technological innovations germinate causing significant changes in software development organizations' (SDOs) knowledge. The scope and flexibility of the SDO's knowledge base increases; its volatility and the demand for efficiency grows. This creates germane needs to translate abstract knowledge into workable knowledge fast while delivering solutions. The aim of this article is to examine SDOs' responses to such learning challenges through an inductive, theory‐generating study which addresses the question: how did some SDOs successfully learn under these circumstances?Design/methodology/approachThe article takes the form of an exploratory, theory‐building case study investigating seven SDOs' web‐development activities and associated changes in their learning routines during the dot‐com boom.FindingsThe SDOs increased their ability to learn broadly, deeply, and quickly – a learning contingency referred as "hyper‐learning" – by inventing, selecting and configuring learning routines. Two sets of learning routines enabled broad and flexible exploratory‐knowledge identification and exploratory‐knowledge assimilation: distributed gate‐keeping; and brokering of external knowledge. Likewise, two sets of learning routines enabled fast and efficient exploitative‐knowledge transformation and exploitation: simple design rules; and peer networks. The authors further observed that SDOs created systemic connections between these routines allowing for fast switching and dynamic interlacing concurrently within the same organizational sub‐units. The authors refer to this previously unidentified form of organizational learning as parallel ambidexterity.Originality/valueThe study contributes to organizational learning theories as applied to SDOs by recognizing a condition where knowledge scope, flexibility, efficiency and volatility increase. It also argues a new form of ambidexterity, parallel ambidexterity, was created and implemented in response to this set of requirements. Parallel ambidexterity differs from traditional exploitative forms where SDOs focus on improving and formalizing their operational knowledge and improving efficiency. It also differs from traditional explorative forms where SDOs focus on identifying and grafting and distributing external abstract knowledge by expanding knowledge scope, flexibility. Most importantly, parallel ambidexterity differs from the widely recognized forms of sequential and structural ambidexterity because exploration and exploitation take place at the same time within the same unit in holographic ways to address volatility. Here learning outcome are applied directly and fast to the tasks for which the learning was initiated.
This case study describes the design and implementation of a course that uses technology-mediated distributed small group discussions between two universities, one in the United States and the other in Hungary, as the primary teaching method in a graduate-level management course. Furthermore, it describes how students'learning outcomes in the learning environment were measured using an integrative complexity measure. To create a learner-centered active learning environment, various Internetbased communication tools were used to connect students in the two locations. The authors found that despite various hindrances due to technical breakdowns and geographic separations, students were able to produce complex and comprehensive arguments after three sessions. Several implications for future distance learning and the use of information technology in classrooms are discussed.
Changes in the technologies of representation in a heterogeneous, distributed sociotechnical system, such as a large construction project, can instigate a complex pattern of innovations in technologies, practices, structures, and strategies. We studied the adoption of digital three-dimensional (3-D) representations in the building projects of the architect Frank O. Gehry, and observed that multiple, heterogeneous firms in those projects produced diverse innovations, each of which created a wake of innovation. Together, these multiple wakes of innovation produce a complex landscape of innovations with unpredictable peaks and valleys. Gehry's adoption of digital 3-D representations disturbed the ecology of interactions and stimulated innovations in his project networks by: providing path-creating innovation trajectories in separate communities of practice, creating trading zones where communities could create knowledge about diverse innovations, and offering a means for intercalating innovations across heterogeneous communities. Our study suggests that changes in digital representations that are central to the functioning of a distributed system can engender multiple innovations in technologies, work practices, and knowledge across multiple communities, each of which is following its own distinctive tempo and trajectory.
Organization design in its verb form is explored through a study of the design practices of a major contemporary architect, Frank O. Gehry, and his firm, Gehry Partners, LLP. Through four case studies, we explore how the organization design of his architectural projects is an outcome of Gehry Partner's design gestalt. We argue that this design gestalt is a primary source of their organization designing and is composed of an architectural vision, the tight coupling of multiple representation technologies, and a commitment to a collaborative process of design and construction. These elements of design together form a holistic, organizing pattern—their design gestalt—that is evident in all of Gehry Partners projects, both their buildings and their organizational forms. We offer three characteristics of organization designing—focus on form giving, relation to environment, and temporality. We argue that developing a design gestalt and strengthening the capacity for organization designing is crucial for firms in our increasingly knowledge- and experience-based economy.
We offer a path-centric theory of emerging technology and organizing that addresses a basic question. When does emerging technology lead to transformative change? A path-centric perspective on technology focuses on the patterns of actions afforded by technology in use. We identify performing and patterning as self-reinforcing mechanisms that shape patterns of action in the domain of emerging technology and organizing. We use a dynamic simulation to show that performing and patterning can lead to a wide range of trajectories, from lock-in to transformation, depending on how emerging technology in use influences the pattern of action. When emerging technologies afford new actions that can be flexibly recombined to generate new paths, decisive transformative effects are more likely. By themselves, new affordances are not likely to generate transformation. We illustrate this theory with examples from the practice of pharmaceutical drug discovery. The path-centric perspective offers a new way to think about generativity and the role of affordances in organizing.
Integration and control are pivotal goals of enterprise information system implementations. However, misalignments inevitably occur between the system and organizational practices, and these misalignments are generally thought to undermine the goals of integration and control. We report on a longitudinal study of NASA's enterprise information system implementation, and we focus on how misalignments in procurement and project management routines affect integration and control. We show how different elements of routines dynamically adjust over time to enable stable system implementation, increasing integration and control throughout the agency. Greater integration and control on the organizational level were enabled by less-than-complete integration and control at the local level. Dynamically adjusting routines serve as "shock absorbers" that on one hand help promote the stability necessary for organization-wide enterprise-system-driven control and integration, and on the other hand allow for local self-organization.
The digital age has seen the rise of service systems involving highly distributed, heterogeneous, and resource-integrating actors whose relationships are governed by shared institutional logics, standards, and digital technology. The cocreation of service within these service systems takes place in the context of a paradoxical tension between the logic of generative and democratic innovations and the logic of infrastructural control. Boundary resources play a critical role in managing the tension as a firm that owns the infrastructure can secure its control over the service system while independent firms can participate in the service system. In this study, we explore the evolution of boundary resources. Drawing on Pickering's (1993) and Barrett et al.'s (2012) conceptualizations of tuning, the paper seeks to forward our understanding of how heterogeneous actors engage in the tuning of boundary resources within Apple's iOS service system. We conduct an embedded case study of Apple's iOS service system with an in-depth analysis of 4,664 blog articles concerned with 30 boundary resources covering 6 distinct themes. Our analysis reveals that boundary resources of service systems enabled by digital technology are shaped and reshaped through distributed tuning, which involves cascading actions of accommodations and rejections of a network of heterogeneous actors and artifacts. Our study also shows the dualistic role of power in the distributed tuning process.
