Digital transformation by outflanking: How peripheral agents transform resisting organizations

Abstract

Information systems scholars have long investigated how to design and implement Information Technology (IT) systems that realize organizations’ strategic, transformative goals. Most studies of this kind posit that transformation originates and is executed from the top, relegating others to the role of bystanders and/or recipients of the change. However, transformation by peripheral agents is possible and sometimes even necessary, given the inherent conservativism of top management and the disruptive and political nature of Digital Transformation (DT). To our knowledge, only few studies have examined the conditions or processes whereby DT originates from the periphery, and no study has theorized such conditions. To address this void, we theorize such transformation as a process of outflanking wherein peripheral agents deploy IT systems to initiate, promote, and actualize the DT of a resisting organization encumbered by high political inertia. The concept of outflanking is inductively inferred from the longitudinal study of a successful 15-year DT journey experienced by a mid-sized Swedish city. The case narrates the city’s DT as a political process and draws on a rich data corpus collected from multiple sources (interviews, archival data, system documentation). Our analysis reveals that during outflanking, peripheral agents deployed three IT-use tactics—shielding, enrolling, and repurposing—which led to successfully overcoming the strong and persistent political inertia. The surprising findings invite a fuller theorizing of the roles IT can play as a means during DT and the (peripheral) actor heterogeneity in initiating, enabling, and effectuating DT. Given the rise of distributed, flexible, and powerful low-cost IT solutions that offer peripheral agents ample opportunity to outflank the core’s resistance, tactical IT use and peripheral agents’ role in DT will likely grow in significance in the future.