Related Theories

Primary Theories (Currently Employed)

1. Resource Dependence Theory (RDT)

  • Origin: Pfeffer & Salancik (1978)
  • Core idea: Organizations must interact with their environment to acquire critical resources; boards manage these dependencies
  • Application: Directors provide technical expertise as a resource to reduce environmental uncertainty
  • Extension in this study: Introduction of “Resource Fossilization” and temporal validity constraint

2. Human Capital Theory

  • Origin: Becker (1964)
  • Core idea: Education is an investment with returns; knowledge is an asset
  • Application: Education vintage determines the depreciation rate of technical human capital
  • Key insight: Half-life of engineering knowledge is 2.5-5 years (Shearer & Steger, 1975)

3. Technological Discontinuities Theory

  • Origin: Anderson & Tushman (1990, 2018)
  • Core idea: Distinguishes competence-enhancing from competence-destroying technological change
  • Application: GenAI is a competence-destroying discontinuity for traditional IT governance

Supplementary Theories (Proposed)

4. Upper Echelons Theory

  • Origin: Hambrick & Mason (1984)
  • Core idea: Strategic choices reflect executives’ cognitive bases shaped by their backgrounds
  • Application: Education timing forms cognitive frames that determine how directors interpret and respond to GenAI
  • Relevance: Explains why vintage matters – educational era creates lasting cognitive imprints

5. Absorptive Capacity

  • Origin: Cohen & Levinthal (1990)
  • Core idea: A firm’s ability to absorb new knowledge depends on related prior knowledge
  • Application: Temporal dimension of “related prior knowledge” – outdated technical education weakens capacity to absorb GenAI-related new knowledge
  • Relevance: Supports H1 – recent vintage directors face lower absorption costs

6. Dynamic Capabilities

  • Origin: Teece (2007)
  • Core idea: Sensing-Seizing-Transforming framework for organizational adaptation
  • Application: Board’s “sensing” capability varies with education vintage
  • Relevance: Complements RDT’s static limitations with a dynamic perspective

7. Institutional Theory

  • Origin: DiMaggio & Powell (1983)
  • Core idea: Organizations adopt structures for legitimacy, not just efficiency
  • Application: Decoupling phenomenon – appointing technical directors for institutional legitimacy rather than substantive competence
  • Relevance: Explains why Tech Committees may be ineffective (H2)

8. Negative Transfer Theory

  • Origin: Educational Psychology
  • Core idea: Prior learning can interfere with acquisition of new knowledge
  • Application: Deterministic thinking from older CS education hinders understanding of probabilistic GenAI
  • Relevance: Provides psychological mechanism for H1’s old vintage effect

9. Competence Trap

  • Origin: Levitt & March (1988)
  • Core idea: Past success with existing competencies suppresses exploration of new approaches
  • Application: Directors with track records in legacy tech exploitation resist AI exploration
  • Relevance: Explains inertia beyond simple knowledge gaps