How Fear Can Affect the Pursuit of Novel Technologies in Incumbent Firms

Abstract

Despite often being the source of novel technological breakthroughs, incumbent firms frequently fail to capitalize on these opportunities. We examine the potential role that emotion – specifically, fear – can play in this process, through a 24-month ethnographic study of a communications incumbent attempting to commercialize a novel security technology called Quantum Key Distribution . Our findings suggest, counterintuitively, that fear might actually facilitate the pursuit of novel technologies in incumbents, under the right circumstances. We therefore nuance the literature on fear in the pursuit of novelty by suggesting how – and under what conditions – fear can behave as a motivator and inhibitor respectively. Moreover, in identifying how actors involved in the pursuit of novelty may experience fear of failure and fear of missing out, we advance existing unidimensional conceptualizations of fear. Finally, we propose that how novel technologies are emotionally framed to other organizational actors may depend on the position of the communicator in the organizational hierarchy.