Process-Based Ideology of Participative Experimentation to Foster Identity-Challenging Innovations: the Case of Gmail and Adsense

Abstract

Prior research has examined how organizational identity can enable and constrain innovations. A complementaryliterature has examined organizational ideology as the basis for actions driving identity-enhancing innovations.We examine how organizational ideology can serve as the basis for identity-challenging innovations throughan in-depth study of the emergence of two innovations at Google—Gmail and AdSense. Findings from thisstudy highlight a process-based ideology of participative experimentation. We explicate the constituentelements of this process-based ideology, and discuss its implications for research on innovation and identity.

Becoming through doing: How experimental spaces enable organizational identity work

“…Processes of experimentation provide a fertile ground to investigate this phenomenon, as they engage organizational members in practices that might be linked to organizational identity work. For example, Garud and Karunakaran (2017) found that participative experimentation can foster identity-challenging innovations. This process is enabled by mechanisms that integrate thinking with doing, the materialization of ideas and collective engagement; thus, there are social, material, and cognitive aspects shaping how organizations foster identity-challenging innovations.…”

“…The centrality of experimentation led researchers to identify specific “experimental spaces,” which consist of “transitory social settings where field actors experiment with alternative action models” (Cartel et al, 2019: 3), and to link these experimental spaces to experimentation processes in and around organizations (Bucher and Langley, 2016; Cartel et al, 2019; Garud and Karunakaran, 2017). Some strands of this literature have noted the generative potential of spaces in creating novelty at the organizational and institutional levels (Bucher and Langley, 2016; Hardy and Maguire, 2010; Kellogg, 2009; Zietsma and Lawrence, 2010).…”

“…In response to environmental changes and strategic disruption, companies often engage in business model experimentation (Berends et al, 2016; Bojovic et al, 2018; Doz and Kosonen, 2010), that is, they deliberately and purposefully prototype, develop, and test business models either in a controlled lab-like setting or a real-life environment (Berends et al, 2016; Bojovic et al, 2018; Murray and Tripsas, 2004). Business model experimentation has the following two types of roles: a learning role, which occurs as companies learn about environment changes through experimentation and then adapt their business models (Berends et al, 2016; Bojovic et al, 2018), and a symbolic role, such as legitimation (Bojovic et al, 2018; Murray and Tripsas, 2004) or collective acceptance when participative experimentation leads to easier acceptance of identity-challenging technologies (Garud and Karunakaran, 2017).…”

“…The results of previous research suggest that identity-challenging innovations (Anthony and Tripsas, 2016; Tripsas, 2009) can be stimulated by processes of participative experimentation (Garud and Karunakaran, 2017), but little is known about how experimenting with new business models can affect organizational identity. This question becomes particularly important in times of strategic change, when managing a new identity is a challenge (Ravasi and Phillips, 2011).…”

Perspectives on Disruptive Innovations

“…For instance, 3M cultivated Kairos through its 15% "bootlegging rule", which allowed employees to use a portion of their work time to explore their own ideas, to develop a number of new products including a new kind of abrasive (Trizact) that disrupted its existing abrasive product (Garud et al, 2011). Similarly, as the disruptor, Google too cultivated Kairos through its 20% time for participative experimentation to disrupt existing email platforms with its Gmail platform (Garud and Karunakaran, 2018; see also Dougherty, 2016).…”