Paradoxical Framing: How Executives Publicly Frame Competing Technologies in Times of Ambidexterity

Abstract

The literature shows that organizational executives engage in strategic technology framing that favors their own technologies to acquire resources from external stakeholders. Yet technological discontinuities may require organizations to become ambidextrous and invest in new, disruptive technologies. This raises the question of how executives deal with the paradoxical situation of having to simultaneously promote competing technologies in times of organizational ambidexterity. To investigate question, we draw on an in-depth case study of four largest electric utilities in Germany during energy transition between 1998 and 2016. We show that even as organizations entered new technologies, strategic technology framing by CEOs and leaders of old business units continued to primarily favor old technologies. At the same time, however, the executives leading the new business units engaged in strategic framing that favored the new technologies, resulting in leaders within the same organization promoting competing technologies. To resolve the resulting tensions, executives used four frames that portrayed technologies as complementary rather than competing: (1) bridging, (2) ramping, (3) hedging, and (4) balancing frames. Overall, our study contributes to the literature on strategic framing by providing a more nuanced understanding of how strategic technology framing differs across individuals within the same organization. Moreover, we advance the literature on ambidexterity by showing how the investment in competing technologies affects firms’ public portrayal of technologies with potentially important implications for strategic change.