Same but Different: Variations in Reactions to Digital Transformation Within an Organizational Field

Abstract

Researchers and practitioners are increasingly interested in understanding how organizations transform their value propositions and practices using digital technologies. While the extant literature offers important empirical and theoretical insights into digital transformation in individual organizations, we know little about how adopting organizations within an organizational field react differently over time to the same digital transformation initiative. This is unfortunate, as such insights could help scholars and managers understand option repertoires and constraints in handling digital transformation ideas that travel into organizations. Against this backdrop, we had access to a unique case over an eighteen-year period, which shows how organizations within the Danish home care field reacted differently to a nationwide digital transformation initiative on mobile technology use. To analyze this case, we applied virus theory as a promising perspective for examining how and why the same digital technology and transformation idea occasions different reactions in similar contexts. Our analysis highlights the emerging, fluctuating, and consequential nature of digital transformation within the Danish home care field, which has led to very different reactions across adopting organizations. Drawing on this analysis, we contribute to the expanding literature on digital transformation by providing theoretical and practical knowledge about variations regarding how organizations within an organizational field react over time to digital transformation ideas.