The Link Between Organizational Agility And VUCA – An Agile Assessment Model

Abstract

This paper summarizes the elements of agility listed in contemporary scientific literature and aligns them to the four different forces described by the acronym VUCA. There is a general consensus that organizational resilience and agility are crucial elements to gain sustainable competitive advantage especially since the arresting economic changes during the pandemic year 2020. There is little agreement though how precisely organizational agility responds to volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). By systemization of frameworks and models from the literary sources the aim is to create a combined model. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to develop a model that can practically be employed to evaluate the agile status quo of an organization. It should support practitioners to distinguish between the different requirements each part of the VUCA acronym requires. The design of this study is a conceptual paper which proposes a new corporate agility model with direct linkages to the requirements of VUCA forces. It derives from, and builds on, existing scientific literature while integrating a comprehensive set of existing agile frameworks. The result of this research is a model which defines distinct enablers, sensing capabilities, agile practices, and responses as answers to VUCA forces. It highlights that certain elements reinforce and link to each other to transform an entire organization agile. Surprisingly, leadership and strategy are not incorporated as elements but rather seen as conditions that subordinate the iterative learning approach of this model. Originality is given as the created model provides a set of elements leaders can implement or use to assess organizational agility. Furthermore, it supports how to deal with strategy and leadership in the transitional process. Relevance is given as during the worlds COVID-19 crises the economic and governments changes in terms of volatility and uncertainty were especially challenging for organizations.

Empowering leadership during the COVID-19 outbreak: Implications for work satisfaction and effectiveness in organizational teams

“…With teams established as a core and versatile unit for organizing work, this organization proceeded by introducing organizational constructs to aggregate multiple teams. The main reason for this organizational design was the pursuit of agility (Bundtzen and Hinrichs, 2021) and optimal use of human resources within the organization (Meslec et al, 2023). Based on the results of our study, we infer that this setup aimed toward agility also brought resilience.…”

“…Resilience was illustrated by the capacity to handle a very disruptive crisis like the COVID-19 outbreak. Agility and resilience can be seen as two sides of the same coin, both addressing the challenges of increased VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) environments (Bundtzen and Hinrichs, 2021), with agility in a more positive context and resilience in a more negative context. We did not directly evaluate team resilience, but we believe that the lack of disruptive effects in relation to this global threat is indirectly illustrative of resilience.…”

Ефективність Бізнесу: Макро- Та Мікровиміри

“…The principles of process documentation form eleven steps: step one -define and name the process; step two -define the scope of the process; step three -find the process limits; step four -identify the process triggers; step five -find the process endpoint; step six -identify the process inputs; step seven -brainstorm the business process sub-process; step eight -organize the sub-processes sequentially to create a business process flow; step nine -describe the participants and ones admitted responsibility for identifying process risks or sustainability measures to monitor the process [17]. Once all the steps of process creation are completed, we can say that the process will work efficiently and smoothly [18].…”

How do the technological capability and strategic flexibility of an organization impact its successful implementation of Industry 4.0? A qualitative viewpoint

“…The technology-acquiring capability of organizations to acquire both front-end technologies and base technologies of I 4.0 will result in core capabilities in technical systems in both hardware and software aspects of technology. This will help the organization to acquire both front-end and base technologies of I 4.0 to build, integrate, reconfigure existing/new technology to create both internal and external competence to address volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) (Bundtzen and Hinrichs, 2021) business environment leading to competitive advantage. Therefore, we propose.…”