A Process Model of Incumbents’ Initiatives to Build New Complementary Assets

Many incumbent firms are confronted with technological changes that threaten their complementary assets. Alas, there is scant research about the intra-organizational processes that enable effective responses to this type of discontinuity. Our multiple case study in the European chemical industry illustrates how incumbents manage strategic initiatives that develop new complementary assets, namely digital platforms for selling and distributing chemicals. Drawing on research of strategy processes and complementary-asset discontinuities, we develop a multi-level process model of gradual uncoupling: to build novel complementary assets, initiatives must first uncouple from horizontal relationships with line and functional middle managers, and subsequently uncouple from top management control. We show that alternative incumbent outcomes, such as knowledge transfer and/or modifications of existing complementary assets, result from processes that fail to engage in uncoupling. Our main contributions are to (1) provide a process perspective on incumbent adaptation to complementary-asset discontinuities, (2) contextualize extant literature on strategy processes for this type of change, and (3) detail how incumbents can leverage their core business to build digital platform businesses.