Building the Flexible Firm How to Remain Competitive

by Volberda, Henk W.

• ISBN13: 9780198295952
• ISBN10: 0198295952
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-06-10
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

How do firms cope with changing environments? Is flexibility really the solution? How can we measure a firm's flexibility? Can a more flexible firm be created? Based on an Igor Ansoff Award-winning study and now available for the first time in paperback, Henk Volberda's Building the Flexible Firm shows how flexibility has become the new strategic challenge for contemporary firms. Although traditional organizational forms have worked well in the relativelystable environments of the past, the globalization of markets, rapid technological change, shortening product life cycles, and increasing aggressiveness of competitors have radically altered the ground rules for competing in the 1990s and beyond. Increased competition forces firms to move morequickly and boldly than before, and to experiment in ways that do not conform to traditional administrative theory. This book offers a wealth of insights into the way firms can increase their flexibility. It is based on extensive interviews with practitioners and supported by many longitudinal case studies on flexibility improvement within large corporations. The author provides a strategic framework whichexplains what types of flexibility are effective under different organizational conditions and environmental characteristics. He also demonstrates an integrated method for diagnosing a firm's flexibility and for guiding the transition to greater flexibility and responsiveness.

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