Exploring Strategic Orientations in the Age of Digital Transformation: A Longitudinal Analysis of Digital Business Model Patterns

In the course of digitalization, fundamental mechanisms according to which companies operate are changing. Companies are forced to develop new, digital capabilities, which in turn, alter a company's set of competitive moves and thus its business strategy. While much effort is undertaken to examine digital business strategy through several theoretical lenses, there has never been empirical research on archetypical strategic orientations regarding companies' adoption mechanisms to environmental changes in a digital context. This study fills named research gap by investigating if the established framework of Miles and Snow (1978) is still applicable in the digital age. In doing so, it examines the evolution of digital business models of 40 companies from 2007 until 2017. We found that all four orientations predominate, but that there are contextual dependencies in their application or change.