Investigation of new and incumbent organisational forms identity dynamics during the ad-tech form emergence in the marketing industry

Understanding how new organisational forms emerge is still a key area of research in organisational and management theory (OMT). Theorists looking beyond institutional entrepreneurs and institutional logics have began to examine the role of identities in facilitating and locating emerging institutional arrangements like new forms in their prospective fields. This thesis adopts this perspective to examine how the ad-tech organisational form emerged during a period of crisis in the marketing industry caused by rapid succession of technological innovation that reordered the media landscape, changed consumer behaviours, and precipitated into widespread social changes. Specifically, I address the question ‘how do emerging organisational forms shape their identities in contexts where new technology is affecting the established industry?’
Using data from a ten-year longitudinal qualitative study of a sample of 594 firms drawn from the marketing industry, I find that: [1] the ad-tech form emerged through a phase process of emergence, differentiation and convergence in which both the new and incumbent form identity claims changed in response to the other [2] The emerging form frame their capability differences as competence enhancing, and conformed to existing institutional templates for value claims to minimise their differences with incumbent forms and avoid conflict. [3] Incumbent’s mimicry of new form features support new form emergence as do merging or acquiring entrepreneurial firm, which both lends legitimacy to emerging forms. The study provides insights into how new organisational form emergence in fields undergoing change may occur when emerging forms extend the collective identity of the field to encompass core features that dominant incumbents can coalesce around.