Organizational Adaptability: Synthesizing Emergent and Deliberate Innovation Processes Into an Evolutionary Model

This article develops an evolutionary model that synthesizes emergent and deliberate innovation processes to explain how organizational adaptability is constituted. Existing research on “emergent” innovation processes tends to view these as diametrically opposed to “deliberate” action, applying each attribute with little nuance and relying on an under-complex understanding of the interplay between evolutionary mechanisms. We translate insights from Niklas Luhmann's concept of adaptation processes and sociocultural theory of evolution into the organizational innovation management context to address these limitations. The resulting model systematically integrates distinct means–ends and end–means logics and identifies an intermediate “third” space where emergent dynamics prevail. Our model demonstrates how and why deliberate and emergent innovation processes are interdependent rather than mutually exclusive, jointly contributing to an organization's ability to both adapt to and shape its environment. After unfolding the subtle interplay between deliberate and emergent innovation processes from three coherent perspectives, we derive three related propositions. These insights, we argue, advance the theoretical discussion and practical understanding of innovation management in increasingly complex and uncertain environments, thereby providing a foundation for future research on emergent innovation processes and adaptability.