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9780198290902

Building the Flexible Firm How to Remain Competitive

by
  • ISBN13:

    9780198290902

  • ISBN10:

    019829090X

  • Format: Hardcover
  • Copyright: 1998-04-09
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press
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Summary

How do firms cope with changing environments? Is flexibility really thesolution? How can we measure a firm's flexibility? Can a more flexible firm becreated?Based on an Igor Ansoff Award winning study, Henk Volberda's Building theFlexible Firm shows how flexibility has become the new strategic challenge forcontemporary firms. Although traditional organizational forms have worked wellin the relatively stable environments of the past, the globalization of markets,rapid technological change, shortening product life cycles, and increasingaggressiveness of competitors have radically altered the ground rules forcompeting in the 1990s and beyond. Increased competition forces firms to movemore quickly and boldly than before, and to experiment in ways that do notconform to traditional administrative theory.This book offers a wealth of insights into the way firms can increase theirflexibility. It is based on extensive interviews with practitioners andsupported by many longitudinal case studies on flexibility improvement withinlarge corporations. The author provides a strategic framework which explainswhat types of flexibility are effective under different organizationalconditions and environmental characteristics. He also demonstrates an integratedmethod for diagnosing a firm's flexibility and for guiding the transition togreater flexibility and responsiveness.The Igor Ansoff AwardThe Igor Ansoff Strategy Award is an international award given to a person whohas distinguished himself by making an outstanding theoretical or practicalcontribution to the development of strategic management and strategic thinking.The award was established in The Netherlands jointly by Coopers and Lybrand andthe Faculty of Technical Business Administration of the University of Twente.Igor Ansoff was professor at the Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, theVanderbilt University, Nashville, the European Institute for Advanced Studies inManagement, Brussels and Stockholm, and the US International University, SanDiego. He has been appointed Fellow by both the American Academy of Managementand the International Academy of Management, and is also Honorary Chairman ofthe Strategic Management Society of Japan.

Author Biography


Henk W. Volberda is Professor of Strategic Management at the Rotterdam School of Management.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
xviii
List of Tables
xxi
List of Abbreviations
xxiii
Introduction
1(10)
(Mis)conceptions of Flexibility
1(3)
A Strategic Approach
4(3)
Structure of the Book
7(2)
Who should Read this Book?
9(2)
A Revision of Management and Organization
11(19)
Acceleration of Competitive Change
11(6)
Changes in Dominant Management-Thinking
17(9)
A Postmodern Management Perspective
26(4)
Flexibility, The Hallmark of Postmodern Organization
30(51)
An Asset for Strategic Surprise
31(11)
Maintaining a Dynamic Fit
42(11)
A Capacity to Reflect on the Learning System
53(9)
Facilitating Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Innovation
62(11)
Tensions within Theories: Change and Preservation
73(8)
Grasping The Paradox of Flexibility: A Multidimensional Concept
81(26)
An Inquiry into Definitions of Flexibility
82(7)
Dimensions of Dynamic Control
89(7)
The Management and Organization Design Challenge: A Multidimensional Definition of Flexibility
96(11)
The Managerial Task: Creating Flexible Capabilities
107(15)
Flexible Capabilities versus Specialized Routines
108(4)
Managerial Roles in Capability Development: Horizontal, Vertical, and Ideological Management
112(4)
The Flexibility Mix: Types of Flexibility
116(6)
The Organization Design Task: Reducing Organizational Barriers
122(62)
Technological Barriers
124(12)
Structural Barriers
136(26)
Cultural Barriers
162(22)
Resolving the Paradox: Flexibility under Various Levels of Competition
184(25)
Analysing Competitive Forces
186(4)
Analysing Competitive Dynamics: Dimensions of Environmental Turbulence
190(7)
The Metaflexibility: A Managerial Process of Matching
197(6)
A Strategic Framework of Flexibility
203(6)
Towards The Flexible Form
209(15)
A Typology of Alternative Flexible Forms
211(4)
Routinization of Enterpreneurial Firms: Decreasing Levels of Competition
215(4)
Revitalization of Large Established Firms: Escalating Levels of Competition
219(5)
How to Improve the Firm's Flexibility: Tools and Techniques
224(39)
The Flexibility Audit and Redesign Method
225(4)
Orientation: How to Start
229(4)
Diagnosis: Searching for Flexibility Gaps
233(6)
Transition: Orchestrating Trajectories of Change
239(6)
FARSYS: Automation of the Flexibility Audit
245(1)
Diagnostic Findings: Testing the FAR Method in Three Large Corporations
246(17)
Discovering Flexible Corporations of The Future: Managerial and Theoretical Implications
263(1)
Speeding up the Revitalization Process: A Trajectory of Radical Transformation
264(4)
Designing the Flexible Multiunit Corporation
268(7)
Dual Trajectories of Transformation
275(4)
Building the Flexible Firm: Equifinality and Managerial Choice
279(4)
Appendices
I Standardized Questionnaires of the FAR Method
283(28)
II Diagnostic Results of the Multi-case Longitudinal Study
311

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