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Researchs disagree over the extent to which organizations can introduce
innovations such as e-commerce within existing organizational structures.
Some argue that such innovations require completely autonomous
innovating units. Yet, such autonomous units may have difficulty making
use of scale, skills and infrastructure in the established organization. This
paper attempts to resolve the apparent conflict by building and testing a
new theoretical model of organizing to adopt a discontinuous innovation.
Using concepts from Technology Strategy and Organization Theory, it
builds a hybrid model in which organizations simultaneously build new
subunits and levarage existing ones to adopt the innovation. Two characteristics of each component in the innovation translate to two
aspects of subunit-level organization design. The theoretical model is
tested using a novel database of organizational structure and financial performance for the e-businesses launched by 36
incumbent retailers. The
study contributes to theory by helping to resolve a long-standing debate
and contributes to practice by providing guidelines to help managers in
organizing to adopt innovations. |
