Building the Flexible Firm How to Remain Competitive

by Volberda, Henk W.

• ISBN13: 9780198290902
• ISBN10: 019829090X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-04-09
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

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