The adoption of emerging technology-driven media innovations. A comparative study of the introduction of virtual and augmented reality in the media and manufacturing industries

ABSTRACT Media companies often fail to successfully adopt emergent technology-driven media innovations. In order to analyse the pitfalls of implementation and to identify media-organisation-specific weaknesses, eleven cases from the media and manufacturing industries in Germany that adopted XR (which encompasses virtual, mixed and augmented reality technology) were compared. Several organisational drivers were especially important for successful adoption such as top management support, existence of an innovation champion, fit with the company/innovation strategy, cooperation with internal IT and long-term planning for the build-up of sustainable expertise within the companies. Whereas the media firms profited in some regards from their editorial background (i.e., high motivation of the projects’ innovation champions), the lack of strategic planning and limited internal IT resources were found to hamper a successful adoption.