Integrating Institutional Entrepreneurship Into the Technology Acceptance Model for a Holistic View of Digital Transformation in Large Trailblazing Corporations

ABSTRACT Through triangulated analysis of 2024 10‐K reports produced by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), alongside independent third‐party assessments, this study investigates the interplay between radical digital transformation initiatives and institutional entrepreneurship (IE) in three distinctive large companies which aim to revolutionize their respective sectors of activity, that is, Tesla, Meta, and Amazon, respectively leaders in automotive/energy, social media/metaverse, and retail/cloud computing. Digital transformation integrates advanced technologies into operations, while IE reshapes regulatory, industry, or societal frameworks to support innovation. The research aims to derive potential research avenues based on recent and accurate data gathered about practical applications of IE in an evolving context of AI‐powered digital transformation. Tesla leverages autonomous driving and energy solutions, Meta advances AI and the Metaverse, and Amazon integrates e‐commerce and AWS, each engaging in IE to navigate barriers. The content analysis reveals that Tesla influences EV regulations and charging standards, while Meta shapes privacy laws and virtual norms. Finally, Amazon attempts to counter antitrust scrutiny while setting delivery and cloud benchmarks. Collected evidence from each report underscore three common IE strategies revolving around regulatory influence, industry standard‐setting, and society norm‐shifting. All strategies illustrate how digital leaders construct their institutional environments. Based on these findings, an extension of the Technology Acceptance Model is proposed, emphasizing the predictive role that IE can play in influencing users' attitudes and intentions toward groundbreaking technologies.