Business Excellence, Vol. 8 No. 2, 2014.
Original scientific paper
BUSINESS DESIGN FOR MAXIMIZING BENEFITS OF ORGANIZATIONAL FLEXIBILITY AND ORGANIZATIONAL WISDOM
Melita Balas Rant
; Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana
Abstract
Strategic management literature states that the toughest business challenge is to merge organizational experience and wisdom of age with plasticity and flexibility of youth. Past research has shown that some companies have been known to couple the wisdom of age with the flexibility of youth. An example of this is the hidden champion type of companies. This paper studies the phenomenon of coupling the wisdom of age with the flexibility of youth on the sample of 95 hidden champion type of companies from Central and Eastern Europe. The research design combines multiple data-collection sources, qualitative and quantitative methods, multiple investigators, grounded theory approach and inductive reasoning with deduction. Research has come up with a set of tentative findings of how a firm can remain flexible and adaptable long enough that business wisdom is sufficiently gained
about the market structure, namely: (1) by carefully allocating scarce resources to business activities in order to gain the wisdom of age; (2) by using leadership as an instrument mechanism to gain flexibility; or (3) by keeping the value proposition fluid to gain flexibility; or
(4) by fixing the value proposition in order to gain the wisdom of age faster. The research has some severe limitations in the form of limited reliability of data and limited generalizability. Research is original in at least two ways: (1) it offers tentative insight into the grand strategic
management dilemma of plasticity-irrationality vs. inertia-rationality, and (2) it researches multiple-countries of the CEE region.
Keywords
plasticity; rationality; globalization; niche players; value proposition; value chain; leadership
Hrčak ID:
133233
URI
Publication date:
22.12.2014.
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