Digital innovation and the becoming of an organizational identity

Abstract

Today, companies often face rapid and substantial change of their business environment. To stay competitive, firms are forced to engage in continuous innovation of their products and services. Moreover, the digitization of society and organizations has led to an increase in radical and disruptive innovations across all industries and trades. As a result, companies often find it difficult to develop an organizational identity – a shared understanding of “who are we” and “what makes us different from others”. In this article, we combine extant theory on both digital innovation and identity formation processes to develop a conceptual model of identity formation, highlighting the dynamics between innovation and identity formation. We use our model to discuss symptoms that organizations might experience when engaging in digital innovation, shaping the process of identity development. Finally, we suggest future research topics to investigate the relationship between innovation and identity formation processes.