Brice DATTÉE

Through a 21-year longitudinal study of the relationship between Italian supercar manufacturer Automobili Lamborghini and its parent, German carmaker Audi AG, we examine how a unit’s degree of organizational autonomy is renegotiated over long periods of time. Using detailed empirical data, we develop a process model of the dynamics of organizational autonomy in a unit–parent relationship. This process model shows an ongoing dialectical tension between parent managers’ autonomy-reduction efforts and unit managers’ autonomy-extension efforts, and it reveals oscillations in the unit managers’ discretion over resource-orchestration decisions. Driving this dialectic are parent managers’ appraisal respect for the unit, their search for firm-wide strategic integration, and unit managers’ organizational identity and concern for distinctiveness. Our process model captures concurrent feedback loops that endogenously produce these oscillations between lower and higher autonomy. We then conceptualize a harmonic domain in the unit–parent relationship, in which these oscillations persist without deviating toward amalgamation or separation. Finally, we develop a theory of change in autonomy by identifying a theoretical link between resource orchestration and specific dimensions of organizational identity. Our study highlights the dialectical, dynamic, and ongoing nature of organizational autonomy.

Innovation ecosystems are increasingly regarded as important vehicles to create and capture value from complex value propositions. While current literature assumes these value propositions can be known ex-ante and an appropriate ecosystem design derived from them, we focus instead on generative technological innovations that enable an unbounded range of potential value propositions, hence offering no clear guidance to firms. To illustrate our arguments, we inductively study two organizations, each attempting to create two novel ecosystems around new technological enablers deep in their industry architecture. We highlight how ecosystem creation in such conditions is a systemic process driven by coupled feedback loops, which organizations must try to control dynamically: firms first make the switch to creating the ecosystem following an external pull to narrow down the range of potential applications; then need to learn to keep up with ecosystem dynamics by roadmapping and preempting, while simultaneously enacting resonance. Dynamic control further entails counteracting the drifting away of the nascent ecosystem from the firm's idea of future value creation and the sliding of its intended control points for value capture. Our findings shed new light on strategy and control in emerging ecosystems, and provide guidance to managers on playing the ecosystem game.