Paper Number
ECIS2026-2362
Paper Type
SP
Abstract
Organizations across industries are simultaneously pursuing digital transformation and sustainability transformation – a “twin transition” that promises synergistic value, yet routinely exposes competing demands. While emerging work highlights complementarities between the twins, less is known about how organizations experience and navigate the tensions that arise when they are pursued together. Drawing on the paradox lens from organizational theory, this paper conducts an exploratory, embedded case study of “BankIT,” a major European IT service provider. We identify four persistent tensions – cost efficiency vs. sustainability impact, IT as enabler vs. IT as sustainability concern, individual sustainability values vs. organizational inertia, and fast IT iteration cycles vs. slow sustainability institutionalization – which are navigated through a portfolio of splitting, suppressing, adjusting, and opposing responses. Our preliminary results reframe the twin transition from an alignment task to ongoing navigation, underscoring the need to render “accidental sustainability” visible and to institutionalize structures for continuous navigation.
Recommended Citation
Stumkat, Daria L. and Stockhinger, Jan, "Navigating The Twin Transition: A Paradox Perspective On Concurrent Digital and Sustainability Change" (2026). ECIS 2026 Proceedings. 7.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2026/twin/twin/7
Navigating The Twin Transition: A Paradox Perspective On Concurrent Digital and Sustainability Change
Organizations across industries are simultaneously pursuing digital transformation and sustainability transformation – a “twin transition” that promises synergistic value, yet routinely exposes competing demands. While emerging work highlights complementarities between the twins, less is known about how organizations experience and navigate the tensions that arise when they are pursued together. Drawing on the paradox lens from organizational theory, this paper conducts an exploratory, embedded case study of “BankIT,” a major European IT service provider. We identify four persistent tensions – cost efficiency vs. sustainability impact, IT as enabler vs. IT as sustainability concern, individual sustainability values vs. organizational inertia, and fast IT iteration cycles vs. slow sustainability institutionalization – which are navigated through a portfolio of splitting, suppressing, adjusting, and opposing responses. Our preliminary results reframe the twin transition from an alignment task to ongoing navigation, underscoring the need to render “accidental sustainability” visible and to institutionalize structures for continuous navigation.
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