The Role of Cultural Fit in the Adoption of Fashionable IT: A Blockchain Case Study

Investments in fashionable IT do not make organizations more successful than investments in less fashionable alternatives. Many organizations nevertheless associate with fashionable IT to signal compliance with norms of progress and rationality. These decisions can be risky as fashionable IT is often surrounded by wishful and unbalanced discourse, especially in the ‘fashion up-swing’. Engagement with fashionable IT thus requires the ability to navigate hype narratives and fit the new technology into the adopting organization. Fit needs to be established in many regards, such as political and technological. In this paper, we explore a third and so far, understudied perspective: cultural fit between the values attributed to the fashionable IT through the fashion discourse and those of the recipient organizational context. Through an inductive case study of two blockchain projects, we find that cultural fit can equally be an important determinant for successful adoption of fashionable IT. Moreover, we develop a process theory for how cultural fit can be established through a process of cultural sensemaking and dissonance reduction along two recursive pathways. Adopting organizations can change their implementation of fashionable IT systems and re-frame the narratives surrounding them to fit their organization’s cultural values. Alternatively, they can transform their local or overarching organizational culture by integrating values attributed to the fashionable IT. Overall, we contribute a much-needed organizational culture perspective to IT fashions and extend the discussions on IT cultural conflict.