Existing research suggests that the widespread application of digital technology in government can promote the ideal state of policy execution, characterized by “eff ective top-down communication and strict compliance with orders”. Why do grassroots governments still adopt the strategy of “the upper has policies, the lower has countermeasures” under “digital control”? By analyzing a case of land reclamation governance in County A of S Province, this study fi nds that while digital tools can strengthen governance, grassroots governments employ various coping strategies to dismantle “digital control”, revealing organizational inertia. The root cause lies in the tension of institutional logics, which forms the basis for such strategic responses. The embedding of algorithms intensifi es logical confl icts among grassroots implementers, further entrenching their behavioral inertia in strategic coping and ultimately leading to deviations in policy implementation. The contradiction between power centralization and governance flexibility limits the production of technical information;The conflict between technological uniformity and the complexity of governance objects leads to “technical compliance” replacing genuine target outcomes; The mismatch between increasing governance tasks and fi xed governance capacity results in incentive failures, prompting grassroots actors to seek fl exibility based on contingent logic.Moving beyond the dualistic technical–organizational perspective, this paper introduces institutional logic theory to enhance understanding of how policy implementers strategically respond to algorithmic technologies and the limits of technical governance. It suggests that future technical governance should shift from pursuing “more powerful control technologies” to exploring how to design “more resilient and adaptive intelligent governance systems” to reconcile the tension between technology and governance.