Eyes Wide Shut: Organizational Field Transparency as a Driver of Inertia to Discontinuous Innovation

Abstract

The failure of industry incumbents to prosper or even survive from periods of discontinuous innovation has been consistently linked to organizational inertia. Recent work has unbundled the structure of inertia into two key determinants: 'resource rigidities' and 'routine rigidities'. In this study, we elaborate our understanding of the conditions under which these two forms of inertia are likely to occur, by drawing on the notion of Organizational Field Transparency, central to Institutional Theory. Using field data from 51 case studies that capture responses to discontinuous threats and opportunities, we show that as managers' experience of their organizational field transparency varies (opaque, semi-transparent, transparent, semi-hazy or hazy) so does their sensitivity to discontinuous threats and opportunities, which varies the legitimacy and intensity of resource and routine rigidities. We offer our findings as a novel conceptual progression in the form of ten propositions, which also have significant implications for dealing with heterogeneity in technology management and innovation research.