Special Issue on "How Emerging Technologies are Shaping and are Shaped by Strategy"

Abstract This paper attempts to provide a researcher-friendly approach for building theories to better understand how emerging technologies are shaping and are shaped by business strategy in enterprises. Mushiness connotes being soft, squashy, slushy, and elusive to having fixed boundaries and separability -- as the interaction between IT and strategy is. Ephemerality connotes being fleeting, short-lived and transient as emerging technologies in their continuous morphing appear to be. Hence the title of the paper. The paper first attempts to frame the issue in a way that is conducive to better theory building when concepts are mushy (as strategy in turbulent environments is) and ephemeral (as the half-lifes of emerging technologies are). The paper proposes that the relationship between emerging technologies and strategy cannot be well examined without taking into account a critical third constellation of variables related to the business environment. The paper then explains how each of these three constellations when viewed in turbulent environments, is replete with elements of mushiness and ephemerality. The paper illustrates how each of those phenomena are more like “clouds” than “clocks” in the parlance of Karl Popper. Based on that, the paper then argues that the theoretical examination of the relationship between these constellations is best examined through a conceptualization that is grounded in organizational actions and decisions faced by enterprises (and expressed as active verbs in the style of Karl Weick): strategy formation, emerging technology adoption, and environonmental sensing. Based on the conceptualization of the three constellations, the second part of the paper provides a “mindful” theorizing process for the researcher that manages this complexity. It draws on the notion of Rittel’s “wicked problems” and Checkland’s Soft Systems methodology to come up with a process and decision pathway that includes four sets of activities that we have named: Enactment, Engaged Instancing, Elaboration, and Exposition. Conceptual templates for guiding each of those activities are provided. The paper ends by examining the merits, perils, and promise of this mindful groundedness theorizing approach to the study of strategy and emerging technologies.