Sammendrag
While there is considerable knowledge on issue framing as a critical tool for putting well-entrenched fields and their legacy inhabitants under pressure to change, little is known about how threatened field incumbents can turn issues into opportunities through advancing their own issue interpretation. Through an inductive, longitudinal analysis of field and organizational-level data in the Norwegian oil and gas sector (2007 to 2021), we develop a model of frame inversion which illuminates how contested field incumbents can turn issues into discursive and substantial business opportunities to remain relevant despite critical voices. Specifically, we show how oil and gas incumbents interpret the enduring issue of global climate change by integrating the established ‘profitable growth’ field frame into an ambiguous, low-carbon frame. Our model suggests that the arising ambiguous field frame creates an opportunity structure for incumbents to confront the issue through developing an ambidextrous strategy at the organizational level backed up by frame inversion. Frame inversion employs the novel field frame and inversely rewires it to re-legitimate contested lines of business. Our findings contribute to a dynamic perspective of framing by highlighting the interpretive framing dynamics across field and organizational level framing. We further enrich knowledge on the creation of opportunity structures through co-opting central field issues, and the tangible enactment of issue framing. Taken together, we advance research on incumbents’ market and non-market responses to climate change.
Vis fullstendig beskrivelse