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Summary Managing Technological Change Articles and Lectures
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By: tschill • 9 months ago
Is incomplete for the year of 2023-2024
By: kirstenknoll • 9 months ago
Hi, I am sorry to hear you missed that. But it also says in the description it is written in 2022/2023!
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Week 1: Technological and organizational changeFrom a strategic perspective, technological change refers to the process of introducing new
technologies or the modification of existing technologies in the organization with the aim of
achieving a competitive advantage or achieving organizational goals.
Business model: ‘strategy of the firm’, the way a firm promises to capture and create value.
Operating model: encompasses the systems, process and capabilities that enable the
delivery of the goods and services to the firms’ customer.
Technological changes examples:
- Rise of e-commerce
- Automation in manufacturing
- 3D-printing
- Blockchain technology
- Renewable energy
- Artificial intelligence
High costs of information processing in organizations (hierarchy, mass production) have
fallen massively due to the adoption of IT.
Information technology: computer-based technology for the storage, accessing, processing
and communication of information
Digital technology: as combinations of technologies information, computing,
communication, and connectivity technologies and include instances such as cloud
computing, mobile technology, social media or big data analysis.
Tripsas, M. (2009). Technology, identity, and inertia through the lens of “The Digital
Photography Company”. Organization Science, 20(2), 441-460.
Organizational identity: can be either internal or external perceptions of what people hold
of an organization.
- Internal: shared understanding by organizational members regarding what is central
distinctive and enduring about an organization > guides key strategic decisions.
- External: how outside audiences view the organization > either provide legitimacy or
trigger confusion
Continuity provides stability but radical events can initiate major changes in identity which is
difficult to manage.
Seemingly minor shifts from a technological standpoint may challenge the existing
organizational identity if, by pursuing the new technology, the organization violates the core
features associated with its existing identity.
1
,Technologies that deviate from expectation associated with an organization’s identity =
identity-challenging technologies, leading to two questions:
1) How does an organization’s identity affect its filtering of technological opportunities and
its ability to respond to identity-challenging technologies?
2) When an organization’s pursuit of an identity-challenging technology results in a shift in
identity, how does the change process unfold?
Case of Linco: spin off from SemiCo > flash memory cards business, was booming > identity
was hard to establish externally because category did not exist > as The Digital Photography
Company. New CEO wanted to pursue new technological opportunities and change identity
> identity ambiguity > acquisition by memory company gave new identity.
Contributions of the study:
- Enhances understanding of why the pursuit of new technological opportunities can
be so problematic: Changing capabilities or routines or beliefs had broader
implications for identity.
- Deepens understanding of organizational identity: internal and external
organizational identity and environmental interactions.
- Importance of strategic renewal in small, young organizations
Sources of inertia: technological change and identity.
Established firms have particular difficulty adapting to competence-destroying technological
change that requires the acquisition of fundamentally new knowledge and routines.
Even if a firm engages in exploration, cognitive elements can cause problems.
Interpretations of the new technology, focus on existing customer, beliefs about fungability
of internal resources can all drive suboptimal behavior.
Identity threat: inconsistencies between internal identity and internal perceptions of
external identity. Management recognition of the need to change identity, and not just alter
strategy or operational tactics, is crucial is firms want to avoid this trap = organizational
behavior literature.
Sociology literature focused on external identity and inertia. Valuation of reliability creates
risks associated with deviation from established external identity.
Identity guides the development of capabilities, the acquisition of knowledge, the evolution
of routines and procedures and the framing of issues > technological change can be identity-
challenging, so research on this.
Model of Identity Change in Response to Technological Opportunities phases:
1. a self-reinforcing dynamic supporting the original identity
2. a period of identity ambiguity triggered by pursuit of identity-challenging technological
opportunities
2
,3. convergence on a new identity with a new self-reinforcing dynamic
Linco’s identity was reflected in the capabilities, routines, procedures, and beliefs of the
organization, creating a strong link between identity and action. E.g., not investing in
fabrication facility since photography company with retail presence, not memory company
& HR recruited employees with interest in photography.
Linco employees’ ability to see other technical opportunities was limited, only focused on
Digital Photography identity. Were using USB flashes, threat, but did not see it as potential
commercial opportunity.
Ambiguity in new identity: could help in opening members to alternatives but need desired
future goal. Linco CEO lacked a desired alternative identity. E.g., introduced MP3 player,
why? Wide range of proposed products. Initial actions provided a change signal, creating
ambiguity, but routines associated with digital photography identity persisted both within
and outside the organization.
Conclusions:
- Identity directs and constraints actions. Routines, procedures, information filters,
capabilities, knowledge base and beliefs of an organization all reflect its identity.
- In identity-challenging technologies, there are significant obstacles to adopt it.
1. identity filters a firm’s technical choices
2. self-reinforcing dynamics among identity, organizational action and the industry
and technological context create a strong impediment to change
Radical, competence-destroying technologies are even harder to combine with identity
challenging changes.
Trade-offs between pursuing technology and associated risky shifting organizational identity
or maintain consistent identity. For organizations facing a complete transition from one
technology to another the issue is more complex > technology is often identity-challenging
because creates an entirely new product category or industry with new functions.
NOT what path to choose, but importance of analyzing the identity implications of
technology.
New external identity began forming before a new internal identity finally solidified in
response to an external imperative in the form of an acquisition offer.
Future research:
- on whether certain types of identities are better than others
- whether some types of identity changes are easier than others
- relationship between strategy and identity
- inertia associated with identity; how should managers accomplish identity changes
with new technology.
3
, Lyytinen, K., and Newman, M. (2008). Explaining Information Systems Change: A
Punctuated Socio-Technical Change Model, European Journal of Information
Systems(17:6), pp. 589-613.
This paper is a guide to help you understand the different elements and their role in the
change process.
Information system (IS) change is concerned with generating a deliberate change to an
organization’s technical and organizational subsystems that deal with information.
Often change is seen as a stepwise linear model where technical and social change are
separated. Grand theories of social change and structure were never meant to be a guide in
building rich, generalizable, and localized socio-technical explanations of IS change.
How can they explain such a complex change with reasonable accuracy and generalizability
but, yet, render these explanations simple enough? Goal of the study is to propose one
approach to theorize about the IS change that meets these goals. Why and how IS change
takes place?
The change of information systems covers the generation, implementation, and adoption of
new elements in an organization’s social and technical subsystems that store, transfer,
manipulate, process, and utilize information.
Change is uncertain (predict the impact), ambiguous (vary over time with context) and hard
(scale and scope of effort necessary).
Four streams of IS research that sought (either descriptive or prescriptive) explanations for
IS change:
1. Descriptive, causal models of IS change: describe how start and end states of the IS
change interrelate. Close box the process of change and its organizational environment
2. Normative IS development process models: focus on how IS change can be produced by
defining guidelines and routines for enacting the change, like IS development activities.
Both believe that IS change involves only one dimension (social or technical) and its nature
is linear and cumulative.
3. Studies of IS adaptation: characterize the dynamics of the system use and its change,
focus on uncertainty and ambiguity associated when connecting it with socio-technical,
political and strategic shifts in the organization and environment.
4. Studies of IS failure: why planned changes were not realized and why the process failed
to deliver the system. Focus on ambiguity, uncertainty and scale. Extreme nature of
outcomes view IS failure as abrupt changes.
All mostly focus on one level of change and tend to forego interactions with multiple
systems and the organizational environment. Starting point for IS change framework but IS
change is complex, multi-level and episodic where simultaneous processes interact create
unpredictable and dynamic change outcomes.
4
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