Reconciling Deliberateness and Emergence in Digital Transformation Strategy Formation – An Organizational Improvisation Perspective

While current research on digital transformation strategy (DTS) promotes the usefulness of planning rationality, the role of serendipity and its impact on the DTS formation has been neglected so far. Given the environmental volatility and disruptions executives face today, we contend that reconfiguring through planning alone is impossible. Instead, as organizations encounter unexpected occurrences, they need to improvise with the means immediately at hand. In our study, we explore the intersection of DTS formation and improvisation. Drawing on Mintzberg and Waters’ (1985) strategy formation concept, we present a typology of three DTS formation approaches and analyze their viability for satisfying the demand for organizational improvisation in the DTS formation context. Our study contributes to the nascent discussion on strategic improvisation by shedding light on a crucial but latent layer of strategy-making that provides untapped insights for better understanding the mechanisms affecting DTS formation