Digital Technologies for Non-Committal Learning in Entrepreneurial Firms

Abstract

Entrepreneurial firms face significant uncertainty in their trajectory of emergence, whilst also lacking resources for large‐scale digital investments that could help them generate options for the future. We suggest they balance this dilemma by drawing on digital technologies to engage in non‐committal learning, i.e., for exploring multiple commercialization paths before committing any substantial resources to them. Through a 14‐firm multi‐case study, we show that digital firms do so in two main ways., First, digital firms generate digital façades (minimal, external‐facing digital objects such as outsourced portals or mock‐up dashboards) to create and capture early legitimacy signals. Second, they generate digital buffers (small‐scale pilots, add-on modules, or time-bound experiments) to support core workflows and collect performance data. Both ways allow digital firms to learn about and explore paths for their future without locking into full resource deployment and thereby create a new form of a digital option that is qualitatively different from those typically invested in by incumbent firms.