500-year-old monasteries outperform at digital transformation (U. of Zurich)

Maybe I'm just slow this morning, but I had trouble figuring out what this story was about. The actual title on the linked article is "Historic co-determination helps monasteries navigate digital change across three countries". It's a press release for a recent paper by Danko and Ross of the University of Zurich "Dinosaurs of the organizational landscape facing technological disruption: Liability of aging and exaptation in monastic orders". It's about how old monasteries are coping with modern technology. The paper seems to be available in full here:

Abstract

Some organizations remain adaptable across centuries while others struggle to evolve and ultimately fade into irrelevance. Only a handful of theories can explain this extraordinary adaptability. We test two competing theoretical perspectives in imprinting research: Liability of aging suggests that older organizations are at greater risk of disruption by modern technologies, but older organizations can also repurpose their imprinted structures and processes to their advantage in a process termed exaptation. To resolve this contradiction, we analyze Catholic religious orders and their monasteries. They represent the oldest extant organizations, were founded in various historical eras, and are facing contemporary challenges posed by digitalization. Our quantitative and qualitative findings indicate that the orders with historically decentralized imprints show higher adaptability in embracing digital innovation. Our results confirm that long-term adaptability is increased in organizations whose imprinted decentralized logics provide a propensity for exaptation. However, these long-standing organizations are also more wary of the negative effects of digital disruption and appear to shield their organizational core more strongly. We contribute to imprinting research by shedding light on the intricate relationship between historically imprinted organizational logics and contemporary organizational practice and highlight the often-underappreciated importance of exaptation for long-term adaptability.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004873332...

Whats is always interesting about monestic life and its emergence (minus light sabers) is that society across cultures has created spaces for people who dont fit. This need has been recognized and supported for thousands of years.

The monks likely have the time to think about implementation, and feeling like they’re part of an institution that transcends them and that they value for its own sake, they likely have an incentive to invest effort into maintaining and improving it.

Both of these are unlike, say, corporate environments, where the core work uses up almost all available time and where most people are looking mostly to extract something from the organization.

Religion is one of the best at marketing and fund-raising since millenias. Why is it surprising that they adapt to new tech? They have done it for printing press before that.

Researchers discover that monks (who are actually human beings) can deliberate, adapt and problem solve. Together. Like adults. Crazy world we live in that this has been proven possible.

Religion was behind the spread of printed books, at least here in Europe, so this seems in line.

Well, AI is the New Messiah, and very VC backed at this point, so no surprise.

In my country most monasteries are becoming luxury hotels so yes, they are adapting remarkably well to these times.