There is continuing interest in how established firms can reconfigure their capabilities in response to technological change. While theory on this phenomenon predicts why some technical structural reconfigurations fit better than others, empirical research remains inconsistent on how and which social structures matter more than others. Our theory explains how important social structures (identity, power, and roles) exert influence when an established firm is responding to technological change by reconfiguring its technical structures in the capability base. Building on extant capability reconfiguration theory, we propose a typology that denotes dynamic disequilibrium and the social and technical antecedents and outcomes that follow. Our typology complements the explanatory power of extant capability reconfiguration theory in ways that explain the failure of a technology incumbent by analyzing its internal social structures as to its reciprocity to technical structures in capability configurations. As such, given technological change, we reveal opportunities for incumbents to capitalize on inherent social configurations and highlight threats to incumbents that ignore social configurations. Our work purports that social configurations can be sources of success and failure for an established firm.