The Need for Strategic Flexibility

Aaker, David A.; Mascarenhas, Briance

doi:10.1108/eb039060

Cited by 279 publications

(186 citation statements)

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“…Flexibility is defined as a firm's ability to rapidly change its policies and procedures to adapt to changes in the environment that bring uncertainty and significantly impact performance (Aaker & Mascarenhas, 1984;Rowe & Wright 1997). We believe in a strong fit between flexibility and recessionary environments, as recessions bring changes, uncertainty, and instability (Grewal & Tansuhaj, 2001;Ma et al, 2014), a context that demands flexibility.…”

Section: The Moderating Effect Of Flexibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies for Superior Performance in Recessions: Pro or Counter-Cyclical?

Conti¹,

Goldszmidt

Vasconcelos

2015

Rev. adm. empres.

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Estratégias para desempenho superior em recessões: pro ou contra-cíclicas? Estrategias para el desempeño superior en las recesiones: ¿pro o contra cíclicas?ABSTRACT Recessions are recurring events in which most firms suffer severe impacts while others are less affected or may even prosper. Strategic management has made little progress in understanding such performance differences. In a scenario of decreased demand, intensified competition, and higher uncertainty, most firms try to survive by pro-cyclically cutting costs and investments. But firms could take advantage of undervalued resources in the market to counter-cyclically invest in new business opportunities to overtake competitors. We survey Brazilian firms in various industries about the [2008][2009] recession and analyze data using PLS-SEM. We find that while most firms pro-cyclically reduce costs and investments in recessions, a counter-cyclical strategy of investing in opportunities created by changes in the market enables superior performance. Most successful are firms with a propensity to recognize opportunities, an entrepreneurial orientation to invest, and the flexibility to efficiently implement investments.KEYWORDS | Recession, cycle, opportunity, entrepreneurship, flexibility. RESUMO Recessões são eventos recorrentes nos quais a maioria das empresas sofre impactos severos enquanto outras são menos afetadas ou até prosperam. A gestão estratégica tem feito pouco progresso para entender tais diferenças de desempenho. Em um cenário de demanda reduzida, competição aumentada e muitas incertezas, a maioria das empresas tenta sobreviver cortando custos e investimentos, de maneira pró-cíclica. Mas as empresas poderiam aproveitar os recursos subestimados no mercado para investir, contra-ciclicamente, em novas oportunidades de negócios para superar a concorrência. Pesquisamos empresas brasileiras em várias indústrias sobre a recessão de 2008-2009 e analisamos dados usando PLS-SEM. Descobrimos que enquanto a maioria das empresas reduzem custos e investimento pró-ciclicamente durante as recessões, uma estratégia contra-cíclica de investir em oportunidades criadas pelas mudanças no mercado possibilitam desempenho superior. Firmas com propensão a reconhecer oportunidades, com orientação empresarial para investir e com flexibilidade para implementar os investimentos de modo eficiente são as mais bem sucedidas. PALAVRAS-CHAVE | Recessão, ciclo, oportunidade, empreendedorismo, flexibilidade. RESUMEN Las recesiones son eventos recurrentes en los cuales la mayoría de las empresas sufre impactos severos mientras que otras son menos afectadas o incluso RAE-Revista de Administração de Empresas | FGV-EAESP

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Section: The Moderating Effect Of Flexibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies for Superior Performance in Recessions: Pro or Counter-Cyclical?

Conti¹,

Goldszmidt

Vasconcelos

2015

Rev. adm. empres.

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“…Dealing with relations between the activities, i.e., control-flow as well as temporal and data constraints of the BP. 1 …”

Section: Problem Statementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Motivation overview. 1 Note that the considered scenarios are focused on the control-flow and the resource perspectives of the BPs and the data perspective is only partially considered.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Generating optimized configurable business process models in scenarios subject to uncertainty

Ramirez

Weber

Barba

et al. 2015

Information and Software Technology

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Keywords:Configurable business process models Constraint-based business process models Flexibility Robustness Planning and scheduling Constraint programming a b s t r a c tContext: The quality of business process models (i.e., software artifacts that capture the relations between the organizational units of a business) is essential for enhancing the management of business processes. However, such modeling is typically carried out manually. This is already challenging and time consuming when (1) input uncertainty exists, (2) activities are related, and (3) resource allocation has to be considered. When including optimization requirements regarding flexibility and robustness it becomes even more complicated potentially resulting into non-optimized models, errors, and lack of flexibility. Objective: To facilitate the human work and to improve the resulting models in scenarios subject to uncertainty, we propose a software-supported approach for automatically creating configurable business process models from declarative specifications considering all the aforementioned requirements. Method: First, the scenario is modeled through a declarative language which allows the analysts to specify its variability and uncertainty. Thereafter, a set of optimized enactment plans (each one representing a potential execution alternative) are generated from such a model considering the input uncertainty. Finally, to deal with this uncertainty during run-time, a flexible configurable business process model is created from these plans. Results: To validate the proposed approach, we conduct a case study based on a real business which is subject to uncertainty. Results indicate that our approach improves the actual performance of the business and that the generated models support most of the uncertainty inherent to the business. Conclusions: The proposed approach automatically selects the best part of the variability of a declarative specification. Unlike existing approaches, our approach considers input uncertainty, the optimization of multiple objective functions, as well as the resource and the control-flow perspectives. However, our approach also presents a few limitations: (1) it is focused on the control-flow and the data perspective is only partially addressed and (2) model attributes need to be estimated.

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“…[1] The classic definition by Aaker and Mascarenhas holds that flexibility represents the "ability of the organization to adapt to substantial, uncertain and fast occurring (relative to the required reaction time) environmental changes that have a meaningful impact on the organization's performance". [2] Most of the definitions found in the literature make reference to the aspect of flexibility in strategic dimension. Few, however, manage to address strategic flexibility as such, and even if they do, they lack a consistent approach to the notion at hand.…”

Section: Strategic Flexibility -A Theoretical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%