Multilevel Antecedents of Organizational Speed: The Exemplary Case of a Small Italian R&D Organization

Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak has compelled many organizations to adapt to a rapidly changing environment. In this context, the aim of this article is to unveil how a small R&D organization has been able to rapidly take advantage of the opportunities offered by the COVID-19 outbreak and to understand the factors that have enabled organizational speed. Results of the qualitative analysis of this exemplary single case show that a combination of factors at the individual level (i.e., characteristics of the CEO and collaborators), organizational level (i.e., structure, resources, operative systems and processes, culture), and partner level (i.e., characteristics of the partner portfolio) is required to go through a very fast recognition–decision–execution process.

Behind the curtain of sustainable business models: the role of firm’s strategic agility in value creation

“…(2024) introducing this special issue by digging deeper into how firms leverage strategic agility to create not only economic but also social and environmental values (Teece, 2010; Boons and Lüdeke-Freund, 2013). Our conceptualization of strategic agility emphasizes speed and flexibility as the main drivers (Agostini and Nosella, 2021) along with attention toward stakeholder expectations. Secondly, we identify four different archetypes of business models based on the firm’s aspired value emphasis and its type of strategic agility.…”