Beyond substitution: How virtual representations stabilize operational paradoxes in new product development

Virtualization technologies—digital twins and virtual prototyping—are widely promoted as efficiency levers in new product development, yet we know little about how increasingly central virtual representations reorganize prototyping work over time and how ensuing contradictions become workable. We address this gap through a longitudinal case study of ALPHA, a luxury fashion engineering firm, tracing its virtualization trajectory (2015–2024) via 53 interviews plus archival and internal documents. Virtualization did not converge toward full digital substitution. As virtual representations became coordination hubs, three interdependent tensions persisted: optimization versus physicality, digital expertise versus craft knowledge, and collaboration intensification versus digital dependence. We theorize these as stable and habitable operational paradoxes—contradictory yet mutually enabling demands embedded in everyday prototyping work—stabilized through socio-technical configuration rather than cyclical reframing. We identify three stabilization mechanisms: interdependent representational architectures coupling physical prototypes with 2D/3D artefacts; epistemic authority that governs the enactment of digital competences while preserving craft-based evaluative closure; and partitioned discretion that combines traceability-critical digital workflows with bounded flexibility near material validation. We translate these insights into a diagnose–design–govern roadmap for building hybrid prototyping systems that accelerate iteration without displacing embodied expertise or inducing disabling rigidity.