We Are the Change: How Work-related Identities Influence Inertia during Digital Transformation

To maintain a competitive edge in the context of an ever-increasing range of digital appli-cations and services, incumbent firms initiate a process of digital transformation. Never-theless, the tendency to adhere to established organizational forms and processes, even in the face of superior alternatives, has been observed to impede the pace of digital trans-formation. We thus answer the following question: How do work-related identities affect different inertia dimensions in digital transformation? By answering this research ques-tion, this study demonstrates the influence of different work-related identities, namely organizational identity, team identity, professional identity, and job identity. It contrib-utes to the theoretical understanding of the influence of work-related identities on differ-ent dimensions of inertia and provides practical insights toward a deeper understanding of the differential impact of digital transformation and to anticipate the potential for identity to arise inertia in the transformation process.