Time to change: framing strategic change following disruption

Abstract

We examine the evolutionary process of decision-makers’ framing of strategic change to understand its contribution to the development of cognitive inertia. Cognitive inertia refers to decision-makers’ incapacity to timely challenge existing cognitive understandings in a context of disruptive change, resulting in a slower pace or lack of adaptation of those understandings and, ultimately, strategic inertia. Managerial cognition can be understood as a dynamic process of meaning construction, whereby meaning is created via framing practices. As such, framing practices are the interface between cognition and strategic responses. Adopting a grounded, interpretative case-study approach, we examine the framing practices of two media groups’ decision-makers as they frame the implications of digitization, a disruptive technological change, and develop strategic responses. We identify alternative framing paths and define the evolutionary process of framing. As such, we extend theory on the impact of managerial cognition on incumbent inertia in the context of disruptive technological change by unpacking the framing processes that relate to strategic inertia.