Relationship Between Theories

The four core frameworks are not stacked as parallel justifications. Each answers a different question, and the answers chain.

TOE supplies the dimensions, not the functional form

TOE identifies what matters — technological, organizational, and environmental context — but it does not specify how those contexts combine. The conventional additive reading is a modelling convention that the framework itself does not require. This leaves room to keep TOE’s dimensions while replacing its functional form, which is what this study does.

P-E Fit supplies the functional form

P-E Fit theory holds that outcomes depend on correspondence between two dimensions, and that misfit in either direction is costly. It also arrives with an established estimation protocol: polynomial regression with surface statistics, rather than difference scores. Applying that protocol to the T and E dimensions of TOE converts a vague claim about “alignment” into a testable surface geometry with named coefficients and directional predictions.

Sociotechnical Systems explains why fit should matter here

P-E Fit explains how to model congruence but not why congruence should govern this particular outcome. Sociotechnical theory does: technical and social subsystems must be jointly optimized, and optimizing one alone degrades the whole. Awareness without infrastructure, and infrastructure without awareness, are the two failure modes that this predicts — which is exactly the incongruence penalty the surface analysis is built to detect.

Configurational Equifinality explains what a surface cannot show

A response surface describes one continuous function with a single optimum. It cannot represent the possibility that structurally different firms reach high effectiveness by different routes. Configurational analysis can. The two are therefore complementary rather than competing: the surface characterizes the average geometry, the configurational analysis characterizes the discrete routes through it.

The chain, stated compactly

TOE fixes the dimensions → Sociotechnical Systems argues that those dimensions must be jointly optimized → P-E Fit provides the estimator for joint optimization → Configurational Equifinality recovers the multiple routes that a single estimated surface averages over.

Where the framing is still contested

Transposing P-E Fit from the individual to the firm–environment level is a real move, not a notational one, and the draft has not yet settled whether it claims that as a theoretical extension or as a methodological application. Organizational-level theories of complementarity and dynamic capabilities make overlapping predictions and must be engaged rather than bypassed. This is an open item — see Questions and Answers.