Flexing the Frame: TMT Framing and the Adoption of Non-Incremental Innovations in Incumbent Firms

Abstract

Why do incumbent firms so frequently reject non-incremental innovations? One reason is due to the firm's top management team's (TMT) lack of frame flexibility, i.e., an inability to expand the organization's categorical boundaries so as to encompass a wider range of emotionally resonate capabilities in the context of innovative change. For incumbent firms, we argue that the way the TMT cognitively thinks about, and emotionally frames, non-incremental innovation and organizational capabilities drives innovation adoption. We show that frame flexibility is both cognitive, through claimed beliefs and understandings, and emotional, through claimed appeals to feelings and aspirations. First, we reexamine an assumption that cognitive frames are static and suggest how they evolve to become flexible -via shifts in perceived categorical hierarchies and in the ability to reconcile incompatible organizational capabilities.Second, we theorize and attend to the role of emotional frames in innovation adoption. Thus, we advance a model that articulates how cognitive and emotional framing affects the likelihood of non-incremental innovation adoption and, over time, the breadth of the organization's innovation practices. We delineate these processes, as well as the internal and external contingencies that influence them, and offer directions for future research.

CEO construal levels and firm innovation

“…The managerial cognition literature has shown how the same event can be perceived and framed as an opportunity, threat, both, or even ignored by managers Shepherd, Mcmullen, & Ocasio, 2017;. Raffaelli, Glynn, and Tushman (2017) highlighted the importance of executives' frame flexibility, arguing that the reason for why some firms fail in adopting non-incremental innovations lies at the inability of their executives to frame the innovation within the boundaries of firm's capabilities. They argue that narrow categorizations of firms' capabilities in the minds of executives hinder pursuing non-incremental innovation opportunities.…”

“…Existing research has shown the benefits of ambidexterity, as well as the barriers that firms face in creating a balance between exploration and exploitation (for reviews see Lavie, Stettner, &Tushman, 2010, and. Despite the importance of ambidexterity for firms' success and the crucial role of managers in enhancing firms' ability to be ambidextrous (Gibson & Birkinshaw, 2004;Hill & Birkinshaw, 2014;Raisch & Birkinshaw, 2008), the characteristics and behaviors of managers that augment ambidexterity are relatively unexplored.…”