Call for papers: special issue on Strategic Agility for International Business Sustainability
摘要截稿:
全文截稿: 2019-02-28
影响因子: 3.821
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CCF分类: 无
Overview
Strategic agility is defined as the “ability of the organization to renew itself and stay flexible without sacrificing efficiency” (Doz and Kosonen 2008a; 2008b; 2010, as cited in Junni et al., 2015, p. 596), as well as “the ability of an organization to continuously adjust strategic direction and develop innovative ways to create value (Weber and Tarba 2014, as cited in Ivory and Brooks, 2017, p. 2). But, even though the notions of “renewal” and “adjustment” can be viewed from diverse perspectives of varied organizational settings, the focal point of agility still lies on a business’ competency to build and retain the flexibility to adapt to an array of factors and forces; including new ideas, technologies, socio-economic concerns and variables, target markets’ norms and values, as well as the concerns of different government and non-government organizations therein. The purpose of such strategic adaptation/renewal would be to become and remain agile enough to allocate/reallocate organizational resources and to structure/restructure organizational strategies and processes, focusing on the extant or latent socio-economic concerns and without sacrificing the core organizational policy and efficiency, in order to deliver stakeholder value in a way that would be expected and accepted by all stakeholders, so that either a new business opportunity would be explored or an extant business risk would be neutralized.
In general, an important goal of strategic agility is to adapt to the changes pertaining to an extant socio-economic concern or to introduce a new idea related to a latent market need that “enables higher advantage in collective and individual levels, compared to the prior strategies and processes to enhance socio-economic development” (Shams, 2016, p. 761), which is particularly important for international businesses towards sustaining their market-offerings across national borders and relevant socio-economic contexts. However, the extant literature on strategic agility argues that we have limited knowledge to fully and proactively exploit the potentials of business firms to introduce flexibility in their local or international operations, without sacrificing their core values and current efficiency, in order to survive and prosper in the domestic and cross-border markets. For example, “however, the agile development literature is largely anecdotal and prescriptive, lacking empirical evidence and theoretical foundation to support the principles and practices of agile development” (Lee and Xia, 2010, p. 87). Apart from only three published papers in MIS Quarterly in 2010 and 2011 (i.e. Lee and Xia, 2010; Lu and Ramamurthy, 2011 and Tallon and Pinsonneault, 2011), a literature search reveals that no paper is published on strategic agility in the current decade since 2010 in leading mainstream management and international business journals, such as Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, and Journal of International Business Studies. It indicates a significant research gap in this particular research stream.
“Numerous studies have documented the positive effects of IT (information technology) capability on organizational performance but our knowledge of the processes through which such gains are achieved remains limited due to a lack of focus on the business environment” (Chen et al., 2014, p. 326). From this perspective, IT literature lacks understanding on the implications of business process agility and business environmental factors on IT capability to reinforce organizational performance (Chen et al., 2014). There are ongoing calls for new theories of management decision support system (DSS) to develop greater insights from broader contexts, in order to proactively include all organizational members, and available infrastructure and technology in the DSS (Clark et al., 2007). This is usually imperative for DSS, related to strategic agility for developing better insights on the dynamic business environments, in order to understand how the organizational members, infrastructure and technology could better be integrated in a firm’s overall DSS. However, little is known on this issue in the context of information technology (Chen et al., 2014). In support of this view, Arbussa et al. (2017) argue that more research is needed to explore appropriate strategic agility-driven business models, in order to prolifically and promptly support business firms’ DSS from the diverse perspectives of different organizational settings in local and international markets.
Strategic agility in the context of human resource management (HRM) is important to train the frontline staff-members, in order to let them aware about the changes, so that they can be more efficient in their interactions (or transactions) with customers. Nevertheless, in terms of strategic agility in HRM, researchers noted that “the nature and patterns of vertical work relationships between buyers and suppliers is a key subject of inquiry in organization and management research. However, the mechanisms conducive to transforming transaction-based relationships into commitment-based relationships (among buyer and supplier, e.g. frontline staff-members) remain elusive” (Carmeli et al., 2017, p. 1). In the context of agile cross-cultural management strategies, there are some works on how global or multinational enterprises (MNEs) learn their different local (host countries’) norms and values, in order to remain agile in their various global locations; however, there is very little understanding on how "MNE’s local employees learn, assimilate and modify their personal behavior (e.g. values, norms) and professional competence (e.g. standards, goals, language, knowledge, capabilities) in order to fit the MNE’s global mindset and global competence set so that they can be internationally reassigned” (Luo, 2016, p. 29), which is important for global corporations and MNEs to remain agile proactively in their international management. Also, Mao et. al. (2015) argues that limited information is available on the extent to which organizational knowledge management capabilities could effect on strategic agility.
Considering the prospective business risks and uncertainty, proactive agile decisions are imperative to avoid marketing myopia; however, not many studies have analyzed the intersections at strategic agility and marketing myopia, in order to plan, implement and monitor strategic renewal decisions (Johnston, 2009). “Although flexibility…and adaptability…(in strategic agility) have been flagged as important characteristics of the dynamic PMI (post-merger integration) process, prior work has not applied the concept of strategic agility to the management of the (international) acquisition process” (Junni et al., 2015, p. 596). In terms of agility in international supply chain management, the contemporary literature acknowledges “gaps in understanding and development of agility and flexibility in supply chains” (p. 379), which are related to “conceptual, contextual and methodological gaps” (Fayezi et al., 2017, p. 379). In terms of offshore outsourcing, Choi et al. (2017) reported that “flexibility (,which is a key element in strategic agility) as a driver of outsourcing has received limited attention with the exception of a few early authors, including Quinn and Hilmer (1994) and Linder (2004)” (p. 3). On the one hand, “agility and sustainability are regarded as performance measures for contemporary organizations” (Vinodh, 2016, p. 1015). On the other hand, sustainability and strategic agility both are established research streams: “researchers have focused on the areas of sustainability and agility individually, but they have not explored (profoundly) how these could complement each other and help organizations become more efficient and competitive” (Singh and Vinodh, 2017, p.113). In terms of corporate sustainability, academic research should develop insights from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, in order to understand the association of strategic agility and business sustainability at individual-, as well as organizational-level constructs (Ivory and Brooks, 2017).
We understand that strategic agility and organizational sustainability are mutually instrumental to long-term success in both local and international business management. However, the discussion thus far demonstrates that we have very limited insights on the individual, as well as, on the reciprocal impacts of extant strategic agility and sustainability literature and practice on the progress of different functional areas of international business management. In general, stakeholder relationship management has diverse implications for both business sustainability and strategic agility. However, we lack proper understandings on how to proactively leverage stakeholder relationships and engagement, in order to fully exploit its prospective wide-ranging potential on the varied contexts of strategic agility (Axon, 2016; Chebbi et al. 2015; Chebbi et al. 2017) and business sustainability (Shams, 2016; Campanella et al. 2016; Vrontis et al. 2017). As a consequence, this special issue aims to enhance our understanding on how stakeholder relationship management could play an antecedent role in international businesses’ strategic agility management, in order to ensure the businesses’ sustainability in different cross-border markets.
“Strategic agility comprises three organizational meta-capabilities: strategic sensitivity, collective commitment, and resource fluidity” (Ivory and Brooks, 2017, p. 1), which “requires having a keen awareness of incipient trends, the ability to quickly make bold decisions, and knowing how to reconfigure business systems and redeploy resources” (Gurkov et al., 2017, p. 12). In this context, the targeted papers for this special issue will analyse “the cause and consequence of stakeholder relationships and interactions, as a stakeholder causal scope (SCS)” (Shams, 2016, p. 676) to nurture strategic sensitivity, collective (stakeholder) commitment and resource fluidity, in order to plan, implement and monitor agile decision(s), in response to the incipient trends to sustain businesses in the international markets. Original conceptual and empirical (qualitative, quantitative and mixed) studies from any international businesses’ functional area that span theoretical boundaries and disciplines to develop new insights on “the impact of stakeholder relationship management on strategic agility management for international business sustainability” are welcomed to be submitted. The relevant topics include, but are not limited to:
- emerging perspectives of stakeholder theory and its impact on strategic agility and business sustainability in international market;
- big data management, decision support system and SCS analysis for strategic agility and international business sustainability;
- stakeholder causal scope(s) in different types of international businesses, i.e. transnational, business, multinational business and global business for agile decision making to contribute to cross-border sustained competitive advantage;
- new insights from different extant and emergent stakeholder relationship management constructs to influence strategic agility for international business sustainability;
- SCS analysis, co-creation, strategic agility and its impact on international business sustainability;
- insights from international stakeholders’ perceptions for agile decision making to support international business sustainability;
- misinterpretation of international stakeholders’ perceptions and international business myopia, and its impact on strategic agility and international business sustainability;
- SCS and strategic agility for international business growth strategies and exploring additional revenue sources for international business sustainability;
- SCS analysis for entry-mode decision making in international business, and strategic agility for organizational sustainability;
- SCS related to risks and uncertainty in international business, and strategic agility for international business sustainability;
- stakeholder relationship management and the impact of cross-cultural management on strategic agility for international business sustainability;
- SCS in international business standardisation – adaptation decision, strategic agility and international business sustainability;
- SCS at the conflict-regions, and strategic agility for international business sustainability;
- different emerging perspectives of SCS, strategic agility and international business sustainability.