How does technological opportunism affect firm performance? The mediating role of resource orchestration

Despite widespread acknowledgment of the disruptive effects of digital technologies on firm performance, the mechanisms underlying such effects have not been adequately explained. To fill this gap, we consider two sub-components of technological opportunism (TO), that is, technology-sensing capability (TSC) and technology-responding capability (TRC), and investigate their effects on firm performance from the perspective of resource orchestration (RO). Using survey data from 350 Chinese companies across diverse industries, we find that three RO capabilities – structuring, bundling and leveraging – play different roles in the TO-performance relationship. In particular, resource structuring and leveraging fully mediate the TSC-performance relationship. In contrast, the TSC-performance relationship is fully mediated by resource structuring. Our findings contribute to the growing body of research on technology adoption by offering new theoretical explanations for the mechanisms behind the TO-performance relationship. Our study also helps companies develop effective ways to deal with digital disruption.