Organizing digital innovations

Digital innovations reshape the competitive landscape for machinery and plant engineering companies, challenging established organizational structures to integrate digital and physical products, and increasingly calling for open-innovation collaborations that leverage external knowledge and ecosystems. This study examines the new requirements of digital innovations. Based on a qualitative coding approach analyzing 19 expert interviews, the research reveals a progression in organizational adaptation and provides criteria to help companies select the appropriate approach. Companies typically begin with reactive, short-term, ad hoc solutions before evolving toward integrated, proactive models. The optimal approach is dictated by influencing factors related to the company and the innovation idea, such as corporate strategy, risk tolerance, degree of digitization, resource availability, and alignment of innovation with core operations. The study contributes a systematic framework for selecting digital innovation strategies, providing practical guidance for aligning organizational structures with digital imperatives, and suggesting future longitudinal and cross-industry research directions.