Veranstaltungsprogramm der VHB Jahrestagung

Significant technological change in an incumbent’s environment questions established capabilities and resources (Eggers and Park, 2018). The corresponding uncertainty of this change is likely to create political contestation by which strategic leaders aim to determine the incumbents’ adaption to technological change (Kaplan, 2008; Eggers and Park, 2018). This political contestation is characterized by strategic leaders’ attempts to (re-)shape change-guiding coalitions in order to influence the adaption according to specific interests.

However, the literature offers heterogeneous insights into the effects of political contestation on adaption to technological changes. While political contestation can create a variety of strategic alternatives to overcome resisting coalitions, it can also paralyze incumbents by creating an inward focus on power struggles and open conflicts.

This heterogeneity points towards so far omitted constructs explaining conditions under which the political contestation of strategic leaders drives the adaption of incumbents successfully. Yet, research on political contestation has tended to neglect research on cognitive mechanisms and vice versa (Kim, 2021). This focus resulted in a limited understanding of how specific framing behaviors shape the influence of political contestation on incumbent’s adaption to technological change. However, the investigation of cognitive framing processes is crucial, as political contestation concerns the pursuit of specific interests, and these interests, as well as motives of strategic actors, are grounded in and reinforced by their cognition (Kaplan, 2008).

In response, we explore the relationship between political contestation of strategic leaders and the adaption of incumbents to technological change under conditions of different framing behaviors. To do so, we investigate the technological change in the automotive industry from fossil-powered combustions engines to more sustainable alternative power units. We use unique, longitudinal data from 2010-2021 to test a set of hypotheses. This context allows us to investigate the effects of political contestation on adaption of the innovation portfolio’s breadth.

Firms rely on the creativity of their employees to drive innovation and secure competitive advantages. At the same time, in the modern workplace, teams collaborate increasingly often virtually, often also in a non-native language for many team members. Yet, the effects of working virtually on creative tasks and in a language that is foreign to many members have largely remained underexplored. This study addresses how the use of either their native or a foreign language (English) as team language affects creative performance in both face-to-face and virtual teams, which use a partially anonymous, synchronous technology. Results are based on an experiment with 95 dyadic virtual and face-to-face teams, with random assignment to either a foreign or native language work setting. Key insights are that the use of a non-native team language is detrimental to verbal creative performance, but that this is (partially) remedied by using the focal virtual technology (a chat-augmented audio-virtual collaboration setting); as well as by improved language proficiency in the team and/or reduced foreign language anxiety. Digital technology may thus help to alleviate some globalization-induced challenges to nurturing employee creative performance.

Organizations increasingly integrate agile processes into their conventional managed NPD portfolios to address growing complexity, dynamics, and turbulences in new product development (NPD). Besides organizational-wide agile transformations and hybrid approaches, most organizations use agile and conventional processes in coexistence depending on the specific characteristics of an NPD project within an NPD portfolio. As identified in previous literature, this leads to an emerging interface of conventional and agile NPD. However, there is a need for further investigation since the contradicting elements of conventional and agile approaches and associated tensions challenge existing knowledge and processes in NPD.

In response, we explore the following research questions: How can the interface of conventional and agile NPD be characterized? How can organizations manage the interface between the requirements of conventional and agile NPD?

We conducted multiple case study research. Preliminary results draw on a rich sample of archival data (more than 1,200 pages) and 63 interviews from two cases. By applying a paradox perspective on agility, our preliminary insights show how the coexistence of agile and conventional NPD processes reinforce paradoxical tensions that, in turn, challenge NPD. These insights extend our understanding of the conventional-agile interface and enable us to derive mechanisms to benefit from the contradicting elements by leveraging synergies from both approaches. Furthermore, we refine paradox theory by contrasting previous findings on paradoxical tensions in the context of conventional-agile NPD. Finally, we develop rich practical implications through an in-depth investigation of the emerging interface.