Technology, Identity, And Inertia Through The Lens Of "The Digital Photography Company"

Organizations often experience difficulty when pursuing new technology. Large bodies of research have examined the behavioral, social, and cognitive forces that underlie this phenomenon; however, the role of a firm's identity remains relatively unexplored. Identity comprises insider and outsider perceptions of what is core about an organization. An identity has associated with it a set of codes or norms that represent shared beliefs about legitimate behavior for an organization with that identity. In this paper, technologies that deviate from the expectations associated with an organization's identity are labeled identity-challenging technologies.