From technical conversion to social transformation: Organizational interpretations and public discourse in the case of the digital transformation

Poschmann, Philipp; Walgenbach, Peter Article From technical conversion to social transformation: Organizational interpretations and public discourse in the case of the digital transformation Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (SBUR) Provided in Cooperation with: Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft für Betriebswirtschaft e.V. Suggested Citation: Poschmann, Philipp; Walgenbach, Peter (2025) : From technical conversion to social transformation: Organizational interpretations and public discourse in the case of the digital transformation, Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (SBUR), ISSN 2366-6153, Springer, Heidelberg, Vol. 77, Iss. 2, pp. 229-265, https://doi.org/10.1007/s41471-025-00210-z This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/323727 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ORIGINAL ARTICLE https://doi.org/10.1007/s41471-025-00210-z Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (2025) 77:229–265 From Technical Conversion to Social Transformation: Organizational Interpretations and Public Discourse in the Case of the Digital Transformation Philipp Poschmann · Peter Walgenbach Received: 5 October 2023 / Accepted: 7 March 2025 / Published online: 7 April 2025 © The Author(s) 2025 Abstract Digital transformation is widely considered to be a critical issue with farreaching impacts on corporations, industries, and society. While business research generally supports this view, there has been limited insight into how corporations, as both primary drivers and recipients of digital transformation, have shaped the development of this understanding. In this study, we adopted a discursive perspective from institutional theory and examined the interplay between organizational and public interpretations of digital transformation. Using a topic modeling approach with map analyses, we analyzed annual reports and media publications—including newspapers, magazines, and the industry trade press—published in Germany between 2005 and 2017. Our findings reveal that interpretations of the digital transformation evolved over time, which we trace back to a co-constitutive relationship between organizational and public discourse. Specifically, we conclude that structures of public discourse may shape new organizational interpretations and contribute to a shared understanding among organizations and vice versa. Further, we find that the various media types in public discourse play distinct roles in shaping organizational interpretations. Our study contributes to business research by offering new insights into digital transformation and the relationship between organizations and the issues in their environment. Keywords Digital transformation · Institutional theory · Organizational interpretations · Frame · Public discourse · Topic modeling · Map analysis Philipp Poschmann · Peter Walgenbach Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Chair of Organization, Leadership, and Human Resource Management, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Carl-Zeiss-Straße 3, 07743 Jena, Germany E-Mail: [email protected] Peter Walgenbach E-Mail: [email protected] K 230 Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (2025) 77:229–265 1 Introduction Digital transformation is widely recognized as a pivotal issue impacting corporations, industries, and society at large. In recent years, researchers from a number of different disciplines have explored the nature of the issue, leading to a variety of understandings. Some define digital transformation primarily as an intra-organizational change process (Hanelt et al. 2021; Verhoef et al. 2021), while others emphasize the role of broader societal mechanisms and implications (Hinings et al. 2018; Vial 2019). Despite such differences regarding the scope of the issue, researchers largely agree that its consequences extend beyond merely the improvement of existing processes through new technologies; instead, digital transformation redefines value propositions and shapes organizational identities (Baiyere et al. 2023; Wessel et al. 2021). This definition also corresponds to understandings of digital transformation that can be perceived from public discourse. However, existing research has largely overlooked how corporations themselves—as both primary drivers and affected parties—understand digital transformation. Consequently, the existing research provides limited insight into the role corporations have played in shaping our established understandings of the issue. The aim of our study was to investigate the following question: How did corporations’ understandings of digital transformation develop over time, and to what extent are they related to public understandings of the issue? The question of how organizations understand issues in their environments is vital for a number of different perspectives in business research. These perspectives contend that organizations constantly monitor their environments for new issues that may become relevant to their daily practices, which would include the digital transformation of industries and society. This is critical for organizations because addressing such issues provides them with opportunities to signal conformity to their audiences’ expectations (Meyer and Rowan 1977), to adjust internal structures and processes (March 1994), or to reshape their relationships with other organizations (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978). A central assumption in this context is that issues do not have an objectively given meaning for organizations but are socially constructed by a diverse set of actors (Lefsrud and Meyer 2012; Munir 2005). Based on this assumption, digital transformation has no objectively given meaning; instead, understandings of it are ascribed by corporations and other actors. Addressing our research question allows us to both better explain corporations’ influence on the understanding of digital transformation and to provide new insights for business research into how organizations perceive and shape issues in their environments. We adopted the discursive perspective in institutional theory to examine the interplay between organizational and public understandings of digital transformation. According to this perspective, actors construct the meanings of social objects by producing texts in and across different discourses (Phillips and Malhotra 2017). With these texts, organizations intentionally or unintentionally express their interpretations of an issue’s nature and potential consequences (Hoffman 1999; Litrico and David 2017; Meyer and Höllerer 2010). As the number of contributing organizations increases, discourse is likely to be influenced by emerging inter-organizational dynamics that may lead to either contestation or shared understandings among orK Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (2025) 77:229–265 231 ganizations (Fligstein and McAdam 2012; Lounsbury et al. 2003). At the same time, an issue receiving a high level of organizational attention may also gain public awareness and be addressed in public discourse (Fiss and Hirsch 2005). Public discourse refers to the interrelated set of texts found in various media, such as magazines and daily newspapers that reflect on and contribute to the public perception of an issue (Gamson and Modigliani 1989). As in their organizational equivalents, public discourses may vary in terms of structural dynamics, such as the consistency of understandings across media (Phillips et al. 2004). Applied to the context of our study, the discursive perspective suggests that corporations and media interpret digital transformation in various, potentially interrelated discourses, which are characterized by specific dynamics. Empirically, we examined the organizational and public discourse surrounding the digital transformation in Germany between 2005 and 2017. For this purpose, we analyzed approximately 1,200 annual reports from 99 German corporations as well as about 66,000 media publications from German newspapers, trade industry press, and magazines. In line with recent recommendations in organizational research, we applied a topic modeling approach to study the development of interpretations in both forms of discourse over time (Fligstein et al. 2017; Hannigan et al. 2019). To examine the development of various interpretations and the crystallization of shared understandings, we analyzed the topic modeling results with a recently introduced map analysis (Goldenstein and Poschmann 2019; Hannigan et al. 2022; Matthe et al. 2023), combined with a complementary deep reading of representative texts (Croidieu and Kim 2018;Nelson2020,2021). To derive theoretical inferences from the development of interpretations, we rely on computationally intensive theory development (Berente et al. 2019; Lindberg 2020; Miranda et al. 2022). Our study makes several contributions to business research on digital transformation and the relationship between organizations and issues in their environments. First, we provide the insight that the contemporary public understanding of digital transformations highly corresponds with the understanding of corporations, indicating a co-constitutive relationship between multiple discourses. This insight implies that researchers of digital and other transformation processes should more strongly take interpretative processes around corporations and public discourses into account when creating theoretical models. Second, our findings demonstrate that the emergence of a new understanding and the crystallization of a shared understanding among organizations is influenced by the structure of public discourses and vice versa. Third, our findings also show that some types of media in the public discourse appear to act as intermediaries, promoting the spread of uniform understandings in specific ways. These findings underline that researchers interested in organizational discursive activities should more explicitly consider the role of public discourses and their structures—an as yet largely neglected influence factor. Finally, based on our methodological approach and our findings, we highlight potential avenues for future research. K 232 Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (2025) 77:229–265 2 Digital Transformation in Germany Digital transformation has become an essential issue for a variety of organizations and industries (Hanelt et al. 2021; Hinings et al. 2018; Verhoef et al. 2021;Vial 2019). Researchers in computer science assume that the issue and its associated digital technologies will affect most corporations in Germany over the next few years (Mertens et al. 2017; Mertens and Wiener 2018). To address the contemporary demands of digital transformations, many large corporations have already introduced structural solutions, such as implementing a Chief Data Officer (Aiken and Gorman 2013) or reporting on their Corporate Digital Responsibility activities (Wynn and Jones 2023). The significance of the issue is also demonstrated by the fact that foundations and associations are also involved in the debate. For example, the Hans Böckler Foundation, a funding organization that promotes the concept of worker participation in Germany, has published an extensive report on the digitalization of the workplace. Other examples include the Association of Public Broadcasting Corporations in the Federal Republic of Germany, which published a report on the spread of digitalization in television, and the German Association of the Chemical Industry, which published a study on the potential of “Chemistry 4.0.” Comparable attention toward digital transformation can be observed in public debates. Figure 1illustrates the occurrence of the term “Digitalisierung” in German news coverage from 2000 to 2017.1The figure shows marginal occurrence of the term prior to 2007, with a subsequent steady increase and, starting in 2013, a significant boom in its use. This increased use is also evident in the many new terms related to “digitalization” that have emerged in Germany, such as “Industry 4.0,” “big data,” “digital change,” and “digital revolution” as well as a general inflation of the phrase “digital x” (Baiyere et al. 2023; Mertens and Wiener 2018). In addition, the German government is also a central player in the digitalization debate. In 2013, the German government published its “Digitale Agenda 2014–2017,” an outline promoting a set of principles to support the digitalization of German corporations, industries, and society. During the past several years, researchers have extensively explored the notion of digital transformation, investigating its meaning, influencing factors, and potential impacts. Reflecting the richness of the issue, research on digital transformation has been approached from diverse disciplines and perspectives, including strategic management (Karimi and Walter 2015;Mattetal.2015), organizational research (Fiedler et al. 2023; Hinings et al. 2018), marketing management (Kannan and Li 2017; Lamberton and Stephen 2016), and information systems research (Agarwal et al. 2010; Yoo et al. 2010). To synthesize these diverse insights, researchers have also conducted comprehensive literature reviews, in which they have developed mul1Frequencies were calculated through an analysis of all German business-related newspaper articles provided by the LexisNexis database (https://www.nexis.com) containing the keyword “Digitalisierung” (more detail is provided in the methods section). In this context, we also tested the occurrence of the other potential keywords “digitaler Wandel” and “digitale Transformation.” We found that these words were used significantly less in public discourse during the observed period. For example, in 2017, the term “digitaler Wandel” appeared only about 180 times in German newspapers and the term “digitale Transformation” about 780 times, while the term “Digitalisierung” was mentioned over 30,000 times (see Fig. 1). K Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (2025) 77:229–265 233 Fig. 1 Number of German newspaper articles containing the word “Digitalisierung” (German for digitalization or digital transformation). (Source: LexisNexis1) tidisciplinary and integrative frameworks for digital transformation (Verhoef et al. 2021). These frameworks suggest that the progress of digital transformation is influenced by a variety of contextual factors, such as the adoption and use of digital technologies, organizational strategic responses, and competitive dynamics among corporations (Vial 2019). The outcomes of digital processes, therefore, depend on the complex interplay of these factors, leading to diverse effects on organizations, economies, and society (Hanelt et al. 2021). This complex interplay of contextual factors and outcomes has led researchers to emphasize that contemporary digital transformation differs significantly from earlier IT-enabled transformations in organizations. In the early 1990s, through an investigation of the adoption of new enterprise resource planning systems, researchers demonstrated how information technologies altered organizational structures and improved intra-organizational processes (Henderson and Venkatraman 1992; Venkatraman 1994). However, while such IT-enabled organizational transformation was aimed at supporting existing value propositions within organizations, digital transformation is expected to profoundly redefine value propositions and even shape organizational identities (Baiyere et al. 2023;Wesseletal.2021). This fundamental shift in the perception of the impact of technologies demonstrates the importance of digital transformation within the study of organizational and management research (Vial 2019). Given this importance, several terms used in the discourse on the issue require distinction: digitization, digitalization, and digital transformation. Verhoef et al. (2021) argue that these terms represent different phases of digital transformation, each with a varying degree of elaboration. Similarly, Baiyere et al. (2023) emphasize that these terms reflect the evolving meanings of digitalization over time. According to the authors, the term “digitization” refers to the use of technology to convert analog information into a digital format, fitting into an “engineering (or computer science) paradigm” (Baiyere et al. 2023, p. 465). In contrast, the term “digitalization” signiK 234 Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (2025) 77:229–265 fies a shift of understanding regarding the desired outcomes: from converting analog information to transforming organizations, industries, and society. This understanding aligns with a “management (or social science) paradigm” (Baiyere et al. 2023, p. 465). This latter meaning corresponds with the definitions of the term “digital transformation” in the literature described above and suggests that digitalization and digital transformation share a similar semantic meaning. These insights raise questions regarding organizational and public understandings of digital transformation. While researchers have developed a thorough understanding of the issue’s role for organizations and society, they have so far overlooked how digital transformation is perceived and interpreted in organizational and public discourses. It is reasonable to assume that these discourses develop diverse understandings of this development and its potential impact, just as seen in research on digital transformation. For example, some researchers view digital transformation as an intra-organizational phenomenon (Hanelt et al. 2021; Verhoef et al. 2021), whereas others emphasize its broader societal mechanisms and implications (Baiyere et al. 2023; Hinings et al. 2018;Vial2019). However, the current literature on digital transformation does not provide insight into how the issue is understood in organizational and public discourses or what mechanisms shape these discourses. This also leaves open the question of the extent to which organizations themselves have contributed to the currently established understanding of digital transformation. 3 Theoretical Background 3.1 Discourses, Issues, and Organizational Interpretations The discursive perspective in institutional theory provides a valuable lens through which to analyze how interpretations of issues emerge and evolve within organizational environments. Proponents of this perspective contend that the establishment of interpretations is significantly influenced by actors in various discourses (Phillips and Oswick 2016). In this view, discourses “bring a social object into being” through an interrelated set of texts (Phillips and Malhotra 2017, p. 403). That is, actors produce texts through sensemaking processes, allowing them to introduce new interpretations or reinforce those that already exist within discourses (Phillips et al. 2004). According to Phillips and Malhotra (2017), discourse analysis—the study of how texts construct social objects, such as issues—enables researchers to closely explore the establishment of meanings and the factors influencing this process. Applied to the context of our study, the discursive perspective implies that issues in organizational environments are not naturally occurring phenomena; instead, they are brought to life by actors in discourses. Organizations develop interpretations of novel issues, such as the contemporary digital transformation, because such issues lack an inherent meaning for organizations (Munir 2005). To make sense of an issue, organizations construct interpretations to help them understand the nature of the issue and its potential consequences for daily operations, industries, and society (Bansal et al. 2018;Hoffman1999;Kaplan 2008). Without such interpretations, the markers used to refer to a particular K Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (2025) 77:229–265 235 issue in discourse are empty words that need to be filled with meaning (Meyer and Höllerer 2010). For example, in Germany, the marker “Digitalisierung” is often used in the context of digital transformation, but without further clarification, its nature and consequences remain unclear. Therefore, as organizations engage with digital transformation, they must define what is being digitized and assess its potential impact. Interpretations are not developed arbitrarily; instead, organizations employ established interpretive frames. These frames, often described as “schemata of interpretation” (Goffman 1974, p. 21) or “interpretive packages” (Gamson and Modigliani 1989, p. 3), provide organizations with guidance that allows them to define the nature and consequences of an issue in line with established meanings within their environment (Benford and Snow 2000; Cornelissen and Werner 2014;Grayetal. 2015; Purdy et al. 2017). Because frames emphasize certain aspects of an issue while neglecting others, by employing these frames, organizations reduce the complexity that typically surrounds new issues. Early research on issue interpretations concluded that organizations mainly choose between two basic frames: understanding a new issue as either an opportunity or a threat (Jackson and Dutton 1988). However, more recent studies have shown that organizations also employ more specific frames to interpret issues (Gioia and Thomas 1996;Hoffman2001; Meyer and Höllerer 2010). For example, Munir (2005) showed that Kodak, a market leader in the photography industry, created a frame through which new digital technologies appeared infeasible for the mass market and, consequently, interpreted these technologies as insignificant or even useless for itself, competitors, and customers. Fligstein et al. (2017) demonstrated that economic experts “failed to anticipate the risks involved in the 2007–2008 financial crisis principally because of their overreliance on the frame provided by academic macroeconomics” (2017, p. 904). In the context of our study, when organizations use an economically oriented frame, they are likely to interpret digital transformation in terms of costs and revenues or supply and demand—and neglect other aspects, such as social or environmental impact. The literature has identified two key mechanisms important for the emergence and establishment of frames (Gray et al. 2015): Inter-organizational dynamics and the import of frames from other discourses. In the following, we will focus on both of these mechanisms. 3.2 Organizational Interpretations and Inter-Organizational Dynamics In institutional theory, a core assumption of the discursive perspective is that organizations may trigger inter-organizational dynamics when they introduce their interpretations to discourses. Interpretations in texts unfold their impact on discourses as other actors interact with these interpretations (Hoffman 1999; Phillips et al. 2004). In our context, organizations perceive and are influenced by other organizations’ interpretations of issues in their environments (Wooten and Hoffman 2017). Previous research in this context has addressed two main types of inter-organizational dynamics. First, inter-organizational dynamics in discourses can lead to isomorphic patterns among organizations. Isomorphism refers to a process by which organizations in K 236 Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (2025) 77:229–265 a common environment become more similar on various dimensions (DiMaggio and Powell 1983)—in our case, based on their shared interpretations and employed frames. This isomorphism may result from the mutual perception and orientation between organizations in a common discourse (O’Sullivan and O’Dwyer 2015). As organizations increasingly use the same frames and develop similar interpretations, they become part of a cluster of organizations with a shared understanding (Lounsbury et al. 2003). That is, organizations may adopt an already-shared understanding with the intention of reducing uncertainty about the appropriate interpretation of an issue (DiMaggio and Powell 1983) or to signal a particular social position (Beckert 2010). For example, based on the frames used, an organization may be perceived as either part of a group’s mainstream or part of a periphery, advocating for a different interpretation. Second, inter-organizational dynamics in discourses can lead to contestation among organizations. Contestation in a discourse may occur when the actors involved follow different interests and, therefore, employ competing frames (Battilana 2006; Meyer and Höllerer 2010). The use of frames is important not only for organizations to signal a particular social position but also for defining new central and peripheral positions in a discourse. For example, Litrico and David (2017) found that centrally positioned organizations tend to reject new frames emerging from more peripheral organizations. Central actors are often interested in maintaining the status quo, while peripheral actors aim at establishing new interpretations (Fligstein and McAdam 2012; Reay and Hinings 2005). Indeed, the establishment of new frames may change the existing infrastructures of industries and lead to disadvantages for previously successful organizations (Ansari et al. 2013;Grayetal.2015). Hoffman thus concludes that, in this situation, organizations’ sensemaking activities around issues are less likely to produce isomorphic patterns but instead “resemble institutional war” (1999, p. 352). 3.3 Organizational Interpretations and Public Discourses Another key mechanism for the emergence and establishment of frames is the importation of frames from other discourses. That is, organizations may adopt a frame from another discourse outside the organization’s scope (Gray et al. 2015). For example, Zilber (2006) showed that generic societal frames sedimented in various public discourses served as templates for the Israeli high-tech industry to form specific interpretations of the high-tech issue. These generic frames “set forth a vocabulary of legitimacy by answering questions about the values, motivations, and justifications of high tech” (Zilber 2006, p. 292). Lawrence and Phillips (2004) highlighted the link between public discourse and industries in their study of commercial whalewatching in Canada. The authors showed that a shift in the perception and meaning of whales in public discourse was an important element in the advent of a novel industry, namely whale-watching. Both examples demonstrate that public discourse can influence organizations in the development of their interpretations. We further argue that not only can organizations import frames from public discourses, but also vice versa. That is, the media may also import frames from organizational discourses. Public discourse is characterized by the fact that the media are K Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (2025) 77:229–265 243 Fig. 5 Organizational interpretations of digitalization in annual reports over time: (a) a map of topics indicating thematic orientations in organizational discourse and (b) a map of how corporations interpreted digitalization according to the thematic orientations For each data source (i.e., media publications and annual reports), we created a two-dimensional map space showing how text documents relate to groups of topics with significant co-occurrence. These spaces can be used to indicate which interpretations of digitalization can be found in the text documents. From a technical perspective, we created the map spaces by using standard principal component analysis on document-topic matrices that show the frequency with which topics occur in individual text documents (see Appendix B for technical details). Topics that appear as groups in the map spaces frequently also co-occur in the text documents and largely determine the dimensions of the map spaces. According to our theoretical background, these groups of topics represent the frames—in the sense of interpretive packages—that can be found in the two data sources. The two map spaces were used in our further investigation to map interpretations from individual publications based K 244 Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (2025) 77:229–265 Fig. 6 Development of a similar understanding of digitalization among corporations over time: (a)average Euclidean similarity among corporations per year, based on their thematic orientations; (b) number of corporations from the sample with statements on digitalization in their annual reports; and (c) map of how individual corporations interpreted digitalization according to the thematic orientations (coordinate system corresponds to that in Fig. 5) on the frames used and explore the change in interpretations by corporations and public discourse on a large scale. Figure 4presents maps visualizing the interpretations of digitalization in the media publications from 2005–2017. These maps demonstrate (a) the clusters of topics that constitute interpretations of digitalization in the public discourse and (b) how these interpretations have evolved across different types of media publications over time. The interpretations identified in public discourse can be categorized along two dimensions: Digitalization is understood as either a technical conversion or a social transformation, and the consequences are discussed with either a business-oriented or a public focus. Figure 5presents maps of interpretations and their changes of the corporations in our sample, based on their annual reports. Similar to public discourse, corporate interpretations can be categorized along two dimensions: corporations understand digitalization either as a technical conversion or a transformation, and they focus on either implementation aspects or strategic considerations. K Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (2025) 77:229–265 245 We also investigated the similarity of interpretations to uncover the crystallization of common understandings among corporations over time. As a basis for this analysis, we analyzed the document-topic matrices representing corporate interpretations. That is, each corporation is represented as a vector containing the relative prevalence of topics used in the corporation’s statements (Poschmann et al. 2024). We followed the ideas of Mohr (1998), who argued that common understanding is a relational construct that can be determined through similarity measures. Accordingly, we used the standard Euclidean distance measure (Manning and Schütze 2000)and calculated the average similarity between the corporation’s topic vectors. Figure 6visualizes the development of a shared understanding of digitalization among corporations over time. The figure demonstrates (a) the development of the average Euclidean similarity, (b) the number of corporations from the sample with statements on the issue in their annual reports, and (c) the position of individual corporations in the map space introduced in Fig. 5to visualize how corporations with similar interpretations constitute clusters of shared understandings. In the following, we will use the identified time periods to describe in detail the development of the interpretations that can be observed based on these figures. 6 Findings 6.1 Period 1: Digitalization as the Technical Conversion of Analog Media During the first period studied (2005–2009), there were relatively few statements referring to digitalization. Despite the low number of statements in media publications and annual reports, the findings suggest a stable understanding of digitalization as a technical conversion. In this context, digitalization referred to the conversion of analog media into a digital format. Most media publications were characterized by the technical interpretation of digitalization. For example, articles published during this period discussed the growing conversion of various media, including photographs, music, and television, to a digital format. Articles in the industry trade press interpreted the technical conversion of analog media primarily as a tension between digital media, new marketing opportunities, and financial aspects—they emphasized the business aspects of digitalization. For example, they considered the anticipated revenue from new media:2 “The growth of traditional media will flatten out significantly. However, thanks to digitalization and the associated differentiation of offerings, electronic media can continue to expect rising revenues.” (Industry trade press article, 2007) Newspaper and, later, magazine articles focused primarily on the nature and impact of digitalization, with less emphasis on corporations and more on the general public. For example, newspaper journalists reported that the digitalization was altering specific aspects of the arts: 2All quotations from media publications and annual reports were translated by the authors. K 246 Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (2025) 77:229–265 “Experts are already talking about the end of photography. Its foundations have been shaken by digitalization. Photography has lost its ability to bear witness to reality because it no longer has an original film carrier and can be manipulated at will through image processing.” (Newspaper article, 2005) Most corporations also showed a consistent technical understanding of digitalization. Corporations addressed the consequences of implementing new technologies for the production of digital products and the delivery of new media. For instance, a German mass media corporation stated in its annual report that “digitalization is leading to the emergence of new distribution channels and end devices as well as to changes in traditional media use” (Annual report corporation #1, 2006). This statement shows that corporations linked digitalization to a technical conversion that would lead to tangible technical improvements for industries and customers. However, the discourse was characterized by only a small number of corporations dealing with digitalization. Further, corporations did not develop a clearly recognizable shared understanding, as they vary widely in their interpretations. For example, some companies associated digitalization primarily with growth through new technologies and the digital conversion of products and services, while others even referred to the risk of new technology for its business: “Due to the digitalization and growth strategy, information technology is becoming increasingly important when it comes to establishing new or expanding existing business models.” (Annual report corporation #2, 2007) “We serve the future topic of digitalization through the production of silicon wafers for the semiconductor industry. The increasing digitalization of products and ever-growing demand for silicon in consumer electronics products are driving volume growth.” (Annual report corporation #3, 2008) “Risks from communication and information technology: Due to the increased digitalization of all data, [corporation #4] relies on IT systems and data centers. To prevent data loss, appropriate security measures and regular maintenance are being employed to reduce IT security and system failure risks as much as possible.” (Annual report corporation #4, 2007) 6.2 Period 2: Increasing Abstraction of Interpretations and Changing Discourse Structures Findings indicate that the second period studied (2010–2012) was characterized by the emergence of the interpretation of digitalization as a social transformation. In sum, corporate interpretations of digitalization became increasingly abstract. That is, they became detached from the earlier understanding of digitalization as a technical aspect and the conversion of analog media into digital form. We found that corporations began to use a transformative frame, emphasizing that digitalization enables the transformation of entities such as firms, industries, and states, as well as processes and structures. Based on the interpretations in media publications, we also observed a changing public discourse structure. K Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (2025) 77:229–265 247 Publications in the industry trade press and magazines began to interpret digitalization not only as a technical conversion but also as a more abstract transformation. The industry trade press emphasized the business implications more strongly than other types of media publications. In turn, newspaper articles focused on public aspects of digitalization, and magazines took both a business and a public focus. However, in newspapers, the technical understanding was still preferred as the dominant interpretation of digitalization. Indeed, there was almost no change in their interpretation of digitalization compared to the previous period. For example, newspaper articles discussed the impact of the increasing digitalization of music: “This whole sub-genre of the fine arts has been killed by the CD. You can’t be creative on twelve-by-twelve centimeters. Even worse, as music became digitized, the great works of the past were shrunk down to such a tiny format that today, no one can even comprehend the aesthetic appeal an album cover once had.” (Newspaper article, 2010) Similar to the developments in magazines and the industry trade press, corporations also began to adopt the transformative frame and understand digitalization as a development that extended beyond the mere conversion of analog data. Some corporations combined this new interpretation with more strategic considerations of digitalization’s implications. For example, in a German chemical corporation’s annual report, digitalization was considered one of several trends for which a solution was sought: “We are also focusing on creating innovative products and applications for new markets and to serve future trends. These include rising energy demand, urbanization, digitalization, and prosperity growth.” (Annual report corporation #3, 2012). In addition, we observed a higher similarity of interpretations among corporations in the first two years of the second period. However, following these years, the similarity of interpretations reached its lowest mark in 2012—a year that was also characterized by the first significant increase in the number of corporations addressing digitalization. While more corporations included statements about digitalization in their annual reports, their interpretations became increasingly fragmented, constituting clusters of corporations with different frames. That is, the corporations that entered the discourse during this period did not introduce new interpretations; instead, they largely adopted the existing but rather weakly represented interpretation: digitalization as a transformative process. 6.3 Period 3: Settling of Discourse Structures and Crystallization of a Shared Understanding of Digitalization as Social Transformation The third period studied (2013–2017) is characterized by a strong reinforcement of the transformative frame among corporations and an increased employment of this frame in public discourse. That is, based on the transformative frame, a common understanding of digitalization crystallized among several corporations. At the same K 248 Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (2025) 77:229–265 time, public discourse, which had been somewhat fragmented, converged again. That is, different media publications shared more similar interpretations of digitalization. Digitalization was now understood in every type of media publication as a social transformation, not limited to the conversion of analog media. Whereas in the past, newspaper articles focused on the conversion of public archives through the digitization of administrative records, during this period, they emphasized the transformative consequences of digitalization for education and everyday life as well as politics and infrastructure. The industry trade press, on the other hand, continued to emphasize business aspects: “Digitalization has already arrived in the business world, and small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular, are faced with the challenge of systematizing the entire organization of work processes, providing them on a consistently electronic basis, and interlinking them.” (Industry trade press article, 2013) Despite several changes in previous periods, the intermediate position taken by magazines stabilized during this period. That is, magazines clearly developed interpretations that depicted a mixture of the interpretations found in newspapers and the industry trade press. These intermediate interpretations are characterized by their consideration of both the public and business aspects of digitalization. For corporations, the interpretation of digitalization as a social transformation became the dominant understanding during this period, whereby the specific focus often remained vague. For example, in its annual report, a German corporation active in agriculture and energy stated, “The true achievement of digitalization is that the real world is taking advantage of the virtual world. [...] This also means that every company will have to find its own position with regard to digitalization” (Annual report corporation #5, 2014). This quote illustrates that corporations considered digital transformation a critical issue but leaves unspecified the concrete changes and consequences that the corporation anticipated. The similarity of interpretations among corporations depicts a clear center-periphery structure. That is, during this period, a core of corporations with a common understanding of digitalization emerged. Although the corporations at the center interpreted digitalization as a social transformation, they also varied in their focus on strategy or implementation and the degree to which they addressed technical aspects. For example, in its annual report, a German railway corporation addressed the technologies that were part of its digitalization strategy: “Digitalization offers railways an opportunity for an unprecedented surge in development. The rapid development of digital technologies offers fundamentally new opportunities for making railroads fit for the future. [...] Remote diagnostic systems and innovative obstacle detection systems allow trains to run more reliably and on time, resulting in fewer breakdowns.” (Annual report corporation #6, 2017) The corporations that did not adopt the shared understanding either still preferred the more technical interpretation of digitalization or adopted the new interpretation to such an extent that no reference to technical elements can be found. For example, K Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (2025) 77:229–265 249 the following quote from a German consumer goods manufacturer illustrates how corporations employed the transformative frame and developed an abstract interpretation of digitalization without any technical reference: “By accelerating the digitalization of the entire corporation, we want to successfully grow, strengthen our relationships with customers and consumers, optimize our processes, and fundamentally transform the corporation.” (Annual report corporation #7, 2016) The cluster of corporations with a shared understanding consists not only of corporations that had newly entered the discourse but also of corporations that had changed their interpretations compared to the first period. The isomorphic patterns that emerged in the final period become particularly visible when we compare them to interpretations from the first period. Above, we illustrated that in the first period, a publishing corporation and a chemicals manufacturer associated digitalization primarily with growth and the digital conversion of products and services, while a fashion corporation even referred to digitalization as a risk for its business. However, in the final period, the same corporations associated digitalization with the transformation of corporations, business models, and processes: “The overall good business performance in the past year confirms our company’s strategy of consistent digitalization.” (Annual report corporation #2, 2017) “Digitalization does not happen overnight. Over the next few years, it will be a constant companion on our journey into the digital age. Our answer to this is: We are taking the initiative.” (Annual report corporation #3, 2017) “The Group is also striving to achieve efficiency gains and accelerate operational processes through the digitalization of its business model.” (Annual report corporation #4, 2017) 7 Discussion The aim of this study was to explore how corporations’ understandings of digital transformation have evolved over time and how this relates to public understandings of the issue. Using the discursive perspective from institutional theory, we analyzed interpretations of digital transformation in organizational and public discourses in Germany. Our findings reveal that interpretations in both discourses have shifted over time. In the first period studied, both corporations and media understood digitalization primarily as technical conversion of analog media into digital data. During the second period examined, corporations began employing a new frame through which digitalization could be interpreted more abstractly: the transformation of entities, such as processes, organizations, and society. At the same time, public discourse became more fragmented, as magazines and the industry trade press also started using the new frame, while newspapers continued to focus on the technical understanding of digitalization. In the final period examined, most corporations employed the transformation frame, leading to the crystallization of a shared understanding of K 250 Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (2025) 77:229–265 digital transformation. Public discourse also re-converged since the media predominantly employed the transformative frame in their publications on the issue. We propose that these shifts indicate a complex, co-constitutive relationship between organizational and public discourses. In what follows, we derive theoretical inferences in the context of this co-constitutive relationship. We then discuss our study’s theoretical contributions to organizational literature on digital transformation and institutional theory and, finally, suggest possible avenues for future research. 7.1 Toward a Theory of Co-Constitution of Organizational and Public Discourses Our first theoretical insight is that the emergence of new frames in an organizational discourse appears to be closely linked to changes in the structure of a public discourse. This insight is based on the observed temporal overlap between the adoption of a new frame by organizations and shifts in the coherence of public discourse. Specifically, these shifts were marked by a reduced similarity of interpretations among different media types due to the employment of an abstract frame (Phillips et al. 2004). Abstract frames, such as the transformative frame in our case, provide flexibility that allows actors to engage in discourses without committing to specific positions (Strang and Meyer 1993). In other words, the existence of abstract frames broadens the range of possible interpretations of an issue in public discourse (Gamson and Modigliani 1989). Therefore, we propose the following proposition: P1 The emergence of abstract frames in organizational discourse on an issue reduces coherence among media in public discourse on the same issue. Our second theoretical insight highlights the relationship between the structure of public discourse and the development of a shared understanding among organizations. In our study, the emergence of a new frame within organizational discourse did not immediately result in a higher similarity of interpretations because many corporations continued to employ the established frame. However, as interpretations in public discourse became increasingly abstract and diverse, we found that more organizations began to participate in the discourse with increasingly similar interpretations, eventually leading to the crystallization of a shared understanding of the issue. This effect of abstract interpretations on activity in organizational discourses can be further amplified by a heightened media attention to an issue, intensifying institutional pressure on organizations to take a position on the issue (Aharonson and Bort 2015; Fiss and Zajac 2006). When organizations respond to this pressure by adopting established frames, they facilitate the emergence of isomorphic patterns in the discourse (DiMaggio and Powell 1983; O’Sullivan and O’Dwyer 2015). Therefore, we propose that the media coverage of an issue in public discourse may serve as a trigger and amplifier for the development of a shared understanding among organizations. Specifically, we propose the following: K Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (2025) 77:229–265 251 P2 An increasing abstract and intensive public discourse on an issue triggers increased participation by organizations in organizational discourse on the same issue. P3 An increasing abstract and intensive public discourse on an issue facilitates the crystallization of a shared understanding of the issue among organizations. Notably, we also observed that public discourse tended to re-converge as organizations developed a shared understanding. In other words, once organizations achieve a certain degree of consensus on an issue, media coverage of the issue may become more consistent. Media in public discourse do not construct interpretations arbitrarily but often align with established frames and explicitly incorporate on the positions of key organizations (Gamson and Modigliani 1989; Phillips et al. 2004). We thus assume that media will report more consistently on an issue when organizations achieve a shared understanding that can be reflected in public discourse. Thus, we propose: P4 The establishment of a shared understanding of an issue among organizations facilitates coherence among media in public discourse on the issue. Our third theoretical insight concerns the distinct roles that newspapers, magazines, and the industry trade press play in shaping the relationship between organizational and public discourses. These media types differ in their interpretations and their development over time. We found that newspapers tended to emphasize the public aspects of the issue, while the industry trade press focused more on businessrelated aspects. Magazines, in turn, alternated between these two orientations, often balancing public and business focuses. Furthermore, we found that the industry trade press and magazines adopted the transformative frame almost simultaneously with organizations and, thus, earlier than newspapers. We propose that media with strong ties to organizational discourse—in our case, the industry trade press and magazines—tend to adopt new frames emerging among organizations. In contrast, media with more distance to organizational discourse tend to react more slowly to changes in organizational interpretations. We propose that the strength of a media outlet’s ties to organizational discourse influences its responsiveness to new frames that emerge among organizations. Media with strong ties to organizational discourse, such as the industry trade press, are more attuned to changes in organizational interpretations, while those with weaker ties, such as newspapers, take longer to adopt frames established in organizational discourse. For example, in management magazines, practitioners often collaborate with journalists to write about their experiences with and opinions about a new issue. These experiences and opinions are then taken up by a wide readership in organizations, and they are multiplied throughout both organizations and the public. Therefore, we conclude: P5 Media with strong ties to organizational discourses (e.g., industry trade press) serve as bridges for the diffusion of frames and interpretations into public discourse on an issue. K 252 Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (2025) 77:229–265 P6 Media with weak ties to organizational discourses (e.g., newspapers) adopt organizational frames and interpretations of an issue more slowly. 7.2 Theoretical Contributions Our first contribution is to provide insight into how corporations influence the understanding of digital transformation. The common understanding among researchers underlines that digital transformation should be distinguished from IT-enabled transformations and technical digitization of information, as it incomparably reshapes value propositions and identities (Baiyere et al. 2023;Wesseletal.2021)andimpacts entire industries and society (Hinings et al. 2018;Vial2019). Our findings suggest that the interplay between corporations and media has contributed to the emergence of this digitalization-as-transformation frame and the development of a shared understanding among corporations. Therefore, we conclude that the discursive activities of corporations played a decisive role in shaping the digital transformation. While a small number of researchers on digital transformation have begun to emphasize the role of meaning-making activities of corporations (Van Doorn et al. 2023; Poschmann 2024), many studies still focus primarily on technological and structural drivers to explain the development of digital transformation in corporations, industries, and society (Hanelt et al. 2021; Verhoef et al. 2021;Vial2019). With a specific focus on interpretative processes, we can gain new insights into why corporations adhere to certain understandings of digital transformation, why some facets of the issue receive little attention in discourses, and to what extent individual corporations can shape widely shared understandings guiding digital transformation over time. We propose that in future research, the importance of interpretative processes and discursive activities by corporations and other actors should be explicitly recognized as key mechanisms shaping the notion of digital transformation specifically, as well as other issues in general. Our second contribution is that we have demonstrated how the structures of public discourses are interconnected with inter-organizational dynamics. Our findings indicate that the structure of public discourses may trigger and amplify the emergence of frames and isomorphic patterns in organizational discourses. Institutional research has traditionally conceptualized the wider environment of organizations in various ways: as a source of institutional expectations (Meyer and Rowan 1977), a relational network of peers (DiMaggio and Powell 1983), a place where disruptive events initialize contestation (Hardy and Maguire 2010; Schüssler et al. 2014), or a sociopolitical context that constrains the employment of frames (Meyer and Höllerer 2010). While these conceptualizations are valuable for understanding interpretative processes within and across organizations, they do not explicitly consider the influence of public discourses and their structure. In turn, while some research on discourses has already pointed to the role of such structures for change within discourses (Fiss and Hirsch 2005; Phillips et al. 2004), they have not explicitly addressed potential impacts on inter-organizational dynamics. We propose that future organizational research should consider changes in the structure of public discourses as a key factor for understanding the emergence of new frames and the development of isomorphic patterns among organizations. K Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (2025) 77:229–265 259 we relied on the labels of the individual topics and did a deep read of representative text passages. Specifically, based on the dimensions, we looked for interpretative similarities between the individual topics that were clustered together. In Step 3, we labeled the observations in the map space and drew connections between them. The connections drawn between the points on the basis of sequential years aided in visually tracking the development of interpretations over time. 8.3 Appendix C: Development of Topics over Time Table C.1 Estimates on the relationship between topics and time periods (organizational discourse) # Topic Intercept 2010–2012 2013–2017 1 New media 0.30*** –0.13*** –0.26*** 2 Digitalization as strategy 0.11*** 0.03 0.00 3 Top management issue 0.04* –0.02 0.03 4 Risks and opportunities 0.05*** 0.04* 0.03* 5 Future challenge 0.04*** 0.03 0.06*** 6 Consequences for production 0.04** –0.00 0.05*** 7 Expected success 0.05*** 0.01 0.03* 8 Digital products 0.15*** –0.06** –0.13*** 9 Consequences for customers 0.04*** 0.01 0.03** 10 Financial aspects 0.07*** 0.04 0.01 11 Product development 0.05*** 0.03 0.08*** 12 Responsibility 0.05** 0.01 0.06*** *** p< 0.001 ** p<0.01 *p<0.05 K 260 Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research (2025) 77:229–265 Table C.2 Estimates on the relationship between topics, time periods, and media sources (public discourse) # Topic Intercept 2010–2012 2013–2017 Magazine Newspaper 1 Politics and infrastructure –0.011 –0.00 0.05*** 0.02*** 0.06*** 2 Marketing opportunities 0.12*** 0.00 –0.03*** –0.04*** –0.07*** 3 Research 0.07*** –0.01*** –0.00 –0.01** –0.01*** 4 Engagement with digitalization 0.03*** 0.00 0.03*** –0.02*** 0.02*** 5 Digital media 0.11*** 0.04*** –0.09*** 0.06*** 0.06*** 6 Digital archives 0.07*** 0.00 –0.05*** –0.00 0.06*** 7 Financial aspects 0.07*** –0.00 –0.02*** 0.01*** 0.00*** 8 New business models 0.07*** 0.01*** 0.06*** –0.04*** –0.07*** 9 New technology 0.04*** –0.00 0.00* 0.02*** 0.01*** 10 Organizational instances 0.04*** 0.02*** 0.01*** 0.00 –0.00 11 Education consequences –0.01*** 0.00** 0.03*** 0.01*** 0.04*** 12 Industry consequences 0.12*** –0.01* 0.02*** –0.04*** –0.10*** 13 Daily life consequences –0.00* 0.01** 0.05*** 0.05*** 0.04*** 14 Online trade consequences 0.03*** 0.01*** 0.01*** 0.01*** –0.01*** 15 Online banking 0.04*** 0.01* 0.04*** –0.03*** –0.04*** 16 Digital TV 0.16*** –0.08*** –0.13*** –0.01*** –0.00*** 17 Digitalization as future topic 0.04*** 0.01*** 0.03*** 0.01*** –0.00*** *** p< 0.001 ** p<0.01 *p<0.05 Conflict of interest P. Poschmann and P. Walgenbach declare that they have no competing interests. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4. 0/. 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