Digital workplace transformation: Subtraction logic as deinstitutionalising the taken-for-granted

•Outlines the rationale and process of an incumbent car manufacturer’s digital workplace transformation.•Proposes subtraction logic to digital workplace transformation, and by extension digital transformation, in juxtaposition to addition logic echoed in prior literature.•Addition logic grounds in the appropriation of digital technologies’ affordances to create new workplace routines.•Subtraction logic emphasises removal of existing workplace technology (or inscribed institutional rules) to abandon workplace routines that conflict with the intended digital workplace.•Illustrates how workplace routines change when digital workplace transformation follows subtraction logic.•Synthesises addition and subtraction logic in one digital workplace transformation process model. 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.