Organisational Adaptability to Disruptive Technologies among Kenyan Commercial Banks

Abstract

While organisations endeavour to meet the needs of ever-discerning customers, advances in technology elicit responses by organisations in order to remain relevant to the unfolding technological environment. Such responses constitute organisational adaptability. Drawing from the dynamic capabilities view of the firm, we examine the response to disruptive technologies, specifically, mobile phone banking technology by commercial banks in Kenya through a cross-sectional survey of 71participants from 42 banks in Kenya and find that commercial banks adapt to mobile banking through resource reconfiguration, knowledge management and organisational learning. Based on our findings we conclude that when faced with disruptive technologies, organisations should consider adapting by reconfiguring resources, learning and building knowledge management capability. These findings have implication for theory since they contribute to the understanding of how organisations are likely to respond to disruptive technologies.