Stability and change in digital transformation: A repertoire model of institutionally embedded technology affordances

Digital transformation involves radical change—change in material technologies, certainly, but also a departure from the institutional referents that have guided organizational practice in the past. Still, even during transformation, some elements of the organizational system remain stable, and even new practices are not created out of wholecloth. Therefore, organizations must reconcile stability and change when they undergo digital transformation. We develop a “repertoire” model of institutionally embedded affordances that offers an institutional explanation for both stability and change of technology enactments in the context of digital transformations. The model explicitly attends to the way organizational actors construct, maintain, and alter repertoires of potential technology enactments in contemporary institutionally pluralistic contexts. Our model allows us to identify four key mechanisms of stability and change that characterize digital transformations: affordance reproduction; technology transposition; logic transposition; and affordance transposition. We highlight the central role of the repertoire for navigating the pluralism of institutions and technologies in contemporary organizing.