Organizational Transformation in the Context of Disruption: Studies on Digital Transformation, Identity Struggles and Disruption Sensitivities

This dissertation is dedicated to extending scholarly understanding of organizational transformation in the context of disruptive change. For this purpose, three independent studies explore both organizational- and individual-level aspects of organizational transformation. In doing so, this dissertation integrates two literature streams – disruptive innovation theory and organizational identity. Study 1 lays the ground by providing a descriptive, thematic analysis of organizational transformation induced by digital innovations and technologies. The paper systematically reviews 58 articles to critically assesses where, how and by whom research on digital transformation is conducted and how it unfolds at the organizational level. Studies 2 and 3 are located at the intersection of disruptive innovation adoption and organizational identity in the context of incumbent firms. Both studies apply an inductive, field-based single case design and primarily build on qualitative data gathered from 39 (Study 2) and 35 (Study 3) semistructured personal interviews at a major German car manufacturer. Study 2 examines how organizational identity change unfolds in an incumbent attempting to adopt multiple different disruptions at the same time, while Study 3 moves more towards the individual-level and attempts to understand how and why organizational members respond heterogeneously to disruption. Overall, this dissertation contributes in the following ways: (1) Studies 1 and 2 extend the conceptual- and organizational-level knowledge of disruptive innovation adoption during organizational transformation. In particular, Study 2 shows that different drivers of identity-induced organizational transformation become observable, dependent on the nature of a disruption, (2) Studies 2 and 3 extend the individual-level knowledge of organizational member’s attitudes and behavior during identity-threatening organizational transformation. For this purpose, Study 3 develops a typology which gives evidence for the existence of three types of member’s sensitivities and shows that identity and knowledge function as cognitive frames of reference to interpret change, whereas culture is seen as a contextual factor to support the transformation of identity and knowledge