How Technological Frames and Focus Co-Evolve with the Organizational Environment

Cognitive frames of organizational members play an important role for the adoption and development of new technologies in organizations. While as a result technological frames have important ramifications for organizational performance, the factors that lead a specific frame to dominate within an organization remain insufficiently understood. Existing studies strongly focus on organization-internal factors, such as the background of managers or negotiation processes, and provide limited insight into the detailed mechanisms through which the organizational environment may shape differences in the technological frames of organizations. Therefore, in this paper we draw on a comparative case study of two leading research institutes for solar photovoltaic technologies in the US and Germany to investigate the drivers behind differences in their technological frames and focus. We show that the idiosyncratic regulatory and industrial environment affects the technological frames and focus in the organizations thro...