Determine the future, then shape the present? Alfred Schütz' "Multiple Realities" to explore the co-evolution of digital transformation and institutional logics

Pierre Quesson ()
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Pierre Quesson: CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: Theorizing the process of digital transformation, of societies or organizations, remains a difficult task. Institutional theory and institutional logics have been keen on addressing this problem and researchers have investigated how institutional logics shape the interaction of humans and digital technologies, data or platforms, from an in-design or in-use standpoint. However, virtualization of our everyday world entails the apparition of new spaces where these interactions take place, with different rules of the game. Our proposal is to study how the interaction of humans and digital technologies during a digital transformation process unfold in both the physical world and the digital realm. Returning to the roots of institutional theory, we draw on Alfred Schütz concept of multiple realities to analyze a digital transformation case from a French industrial organization. We propose a process of digital transformation in three steps, where top management team theorize a new institutional logic in the digital realm, then progressively materializing it with incremental changes in the physical world, thus blending the boundaries of the extant reality of organization's employees with a digital world strategically designed to embed changes.

Keywords: Institutional theory; Multiple realities; Finite provinces of meaning; Alfred Schütz; Institutional logics; Digital transformation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-06-20
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05249902v1
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Published in Alberta Institutions Conference 2025. Crafting Futures: Institutions and their Implications, Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta, Jun 2025, Banff, Canada

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