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2025 AOM Annual Meeting

OMT

17161: Hidden Value of Resources: Insights from Exaptation for Innovation, Strategy & Organizational Change

Friday, July 25, 2025
15:30 - 18:00 CEST (GMT+2)
Location: Copenhagen Business School: Kilen- Ks43
Session Type: PDW (workshop)
Orientation: Research
Shareable link: https://cdmcd.co/ZK8x4R
Scholars are increasingly exploring technological exaptation as a driver of key innovations. Borrowed from evolutionary biology, exaptation refers to the process by which traits (or technologies) that originally evolved (developed) for one purpose are repurposed to serve another. Recognizing the transformative power of technological exaptation has opened new avenues for research into innovation and creativity, which we are only beginning to explore. This PDW seeks to take stock of the current research on exaptation and explore the concept’s usefulness. After all, if past technological innovations can be applied to uses that were originally unimagined, the same can be true of organizational routines, cognitive schemas, identities, and more. If so, a deeper understanding of exaptation can benefit a wide range of organizational theories, from the “garbage can” model of organizations to a better understanding of how technologies can become general-purpose technologies through exaptation to dynamic capabilities, schemas, and organizational cultures. This PDW will bring together a diverse set of scholars of innovation, information systems, organizational theory, and strategy to explore these possibilities. Through a series of presentations and roundtable discussions, we will examine the theoretical foundations of exaptation, debate its applications across domains, and explore methodological approaches and future research directions.