Old wine in a new bottle? Organizational implications of digitalization

Digital technologies have revolutionized the field of innovation management, opening up new possibilities and opportunities for product and innovation processes. While the impact of digitalization on creativity and knowledge creation has been acknowledged, the specific influence of digital technology adoption on the creative phase of innovation remains relatively unexplored. Drawing on data from an established Italian company, the analysis captures the evolving dynamics of digitalization and its implications for organizational trade-offs during the creative phase of innovation. Our taxonomy identifies five organizational and managerial tensions brought forward by digitalization: (1) increasing optimization vs decreasing organizational slack and diversity; (2) increasing collaboration vs defocusing; (3) increasing need for "digital" skills vs decreasing reliance on legacy experience-based skills; (4) increasing openness vs decreasing control; (5) increasing flexibility vs decreasing stability. The study directly informs the debate on whether digital technologies are simply “old wine in new bottles” when it comes to management and organization theories. Our stance, based on an inductive case study, is that it might be time to rethink some of these building blocks. The taxonomy serves as a valuable guide for managers, providing insights into the organizational and managerial implications of digitalization on creativity and knowledge creation