Disentangling the Concept and Role of Continuous Change for IS Research – A Systematic Literature Review

To ensure their business success in the digital age, organizations must continuously adapt to an increasingly hypercompetitive environment. Although the topic of continuous change has been addressed by previous research, we perceive a lack of attention on continuous change as an appropriate organizational change approach to tackle the challenges of digital business in the IS domain. Thus, our research goal is to analyze what IS research can learn from extant literature on continuous organizational change in today’s business environments. By carrying out a systematic literature review and analyzing 34 relevant papers, we identify and describe five major research streams which explore continuous change from different perspectives. Furthermore, we discuss links to well-known theoretical concepts to stimulate interdisciplinary exchange and we present a research agenda to transfer the identified results into the IS domain. Finally, we provide organizations with guidance to manage the challenges of digital business

Building Adaptive Capacity for Volatile Business Environments: A Longitudinal Study of the Establishment of a Digital Innovation Unit

To meet the challenge of digital transformation and remain competitive in an increasingly volatile business environment many incumbent companies have set up digital innovation units (DIU). Despite a steady increase in the body of knowledge, current research paints a rather static picture of DIUs due to a lack of studies that have collected data over an extended period of time to examine DIU-related processes. Based on empirical data from an in-depth, longitudinal case study with an incumbent machine manufacturer we examine the process of building a DIU and how the main organization can develop and expand its adaptive capacity (AC) in the process. We identify three mechanisms that positively impact the expansion of AC as well as five disturbing factors. Furthermore, we give first implications and point at the research avenue of the relationship between AC and trust