Socio-Technical inertia, Dynamic Capabilities and Environmental uncertainty: Senior Management Views and Implications for Organizational Transformation

While IT can be seen as leveraging dynamic capabilities, it can also be considered as a core organizational capability for exploitation, and thus as a dimension of socio-technical inertia. This paper investigates the latter. When the environment becomes uncertain or when organizations engage in an organizational transformation, inertia or the propensity of an organization to continue its run on the same path is dangerous. Based on a survey with 108 senior managers, this paper investigates the relationships between three dynamic capabilities and Socio-Technical (ST) inertia. Results supports the general idea that the greater the capability to sense weak signals, to routinize experience of past transformations, and to reconfigure strategic resources, the lower the ST inertia. Moreover, the effect of reconfiguring is amplified with the uncertainty of the environment. Identification and understanding of particular contingencies such as firm size and industry can shed additional light on this phenomenon.