Institutional Stance Filtering in Digitalization Opportunity-Making
研究中小企业主/经理如何通过两种制度立场过滤器（人文实用主义立场和未来主义立场）筛选数字化机会，并揭示这些过滤器如何通过判断暂停、立场共振阈值和伤痕残留而演变。
The fast-evolving and emergent nature of digitalization opportunities brings challenges for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). These challenges present the question of how SME owners/managers filter digital opportunities. In this study, we build a middle-range theory of institutional stance, shedding light upon SME owner/manager perceptions of what constitutes important digital knowledge in opportunity-making. In doing so, we demonstrate how SME owners/managers filter and, therefore, shape digitalization opportunity-making. Specifically, we uncover two stance filters that SME owners/managers draw upon—a human pragmatist stance filter and a futurist stance filter—both of which are enacted in the pursuit of digitalization opportunity-making. Moreover, our findings provide further fine-grained insights into how stance filters evolve via suspension of judgment, stance resonating thresholds, and scarring remnants. We conclude that digitalization opportunity-making is not resolved with a binary or reductionist framing but by understanding the evolutionary nature of the institutional navigation process.