Digital technology enables the transformation of work and workplaces. Previous digital workplace transformation (DWT) literature has shown how organisations add new digital technologies to create new workplace routines. However, such an emphasis on addition may hinder scholarship from recognising that some established workplace technologies and routines must disappear for new ones to emerge. Adopting the concept of deinstitutionalisation, we examine the rationale for and the process of how an organisation abandons workplace routines that conflict with its intended DWT. Referring to this as subtraction logic, we advance two contributions. First, we conceptualise how deinstitutionalisation of established workplace routines and technologies unfolds in DWT by outlining a process model that synthesises addition and subtraction. Second, we highlight the underlying rationales for DWT. With these insights, we shift the gaze from the dominant addition logic, which advocates for appropriating new digital technologies, to the equally important value of subtraction, i.e., removing existing workplace technologies (or inscribed institutional rules) to abandon workplace routines that conflict with the intended DWT. Hence, our study highlights the oft-ignored subtraction logic in DWT.

数字技术使工作和工作场所发生转变。以前的数字工作场所转型 (DWT) 文献展示了组织如何添加新的数字技术来创建新的工作场所程序。然而，这种对加法的强调可能会阻碍学术界认识到一些既定的工作场所技术和惯例必须消失才能出现新的技术和惯例。采用去制度化的概念，我们研究了一个组织如何放弃与其预期的 DWT 相冲突的工作场所常规的基本原理和过程。将此称为减法逻辑，我们提出了两个贡献。首先，我们通过概述综合加法和减法的过程模型，概念化已建立的工作场所惯例和技术的去制度化如何在 DWT 中展开。第二，我们强调 DWT 的基本原理。有了这些见解，我们将目光从主张采用新数字技术的主导加法逻辑转移到同样重要的减法价值，即删除现有的工作场所技术（或规定的制度规则）以放弃与意载重吨。因此，我们的研究强调了 DWT 中经常被忽略的减法逻辑。