Challenges to Implementing Disruptive and Digital Technologies

Implementing digital technologies requires adapting an organization’s structure, control, culture, norms and routines to opportunities and challenges associated with these technologies. Similar to prior disrup-tive technologies, digital technologies can also be disruptive in certain contexts and their implementation initiatives face challenges. Are these challenges unique or similar to those faced by organizations implementing prior technologies? We answer this question through a systematic review of the literature published during the past ten years in the 8 journals of the AIS Basket of 8. First, we classify literature based on the implemented technology: non-IT, functional-IT, network-IT, enterprise-IT and digital. Second, we adopt a general framework from the strategy implementation scholarship and use it as a theoretical guide for classifying the studied implementation challenges in the literature. And, finally, identify how digital technologies provide some unique mechanisms that have the potential to overcome many of the challenges faced when organizations implement disruptive technologies