organizational adaptation

Determinants of Organizational Vigilance: Leadership, Foresight, and Adaptation in Three Sectors

Published Research

Why are vigilant organizations better at developing foresight than their rivals and acting faster on the insights and alerts? Four attributes were hypothesized to explain the difference between vigilant and vulnerable organizations.…Read More

Information Technology, Organizational Delayering, and Firm Productivity: Evidence from Canadian Microdata

Working Papers

This proposal explores how information technology and innovation in digitization affect organizational structure. Similar to earlier wave of IT adoption that substituted certain routine tasks, we plan to use the Workplace and Employee Survey from Canada to show that this new wave digitization and IT investments can induce a structural change in organizational hierarchies that differ from prior technologies. …Read More

Organizational Evolution and Dynamic Capabilities

Published Research

This article examines the importance of plasticity and diversity in organizational adaptation and with respect to dynamic capabilities. It begins by conceptualizing what elements comprise a dynamic capability within an evolving organization using the contrast between templates (genotypes) and realized practices (phenotypes).…Read More

Three Facets of Organizational Adaptation: Selection, Variety, and Plasticity

Published Research

When considering the adaptive dynamics of organizations, it is important to account for the full set of adaptive mechanisms, including not only the possibility of learning and adaptation of a given behavior but also the internal selection over some population of routines and behaviors. In developing such a conceptual framework, it is necessary to distinguish between the underlying stable roots of behavior and the possibly adaptive expression of those underlying templates.…Read More

Hidden but in Plain Sight: The Role of Scale Adjustment in Industry Dynamics

Published Research

While much is understood about the general pattern of industry dynamics, a critical element underlying these dynamics, the rate of the expansion of individual firms, has been largely overlooked. We argue that the rate at which firms can reliably increase their scale of operations is a critical factor in understanding the structure of industries.…Read More

Organizational Constraints to Adaptation: Intrafirm Asymmetry in the Locus of Coordination

Published Research

We assemble a panel data set of firms in the U.S. defense industry between 1996 and 2006 to examine the drivers of heterogeneous incumbent firm adaptation following the industry-wide demand shock of September 11, 2001.…Read More

Redesigning Routines for Replication

Published Research

One factor affecting the replicability of routines is the template of what gets replicated. There isn’t much work on where this comes from. One view is that the routine is discovered over time. Another view is that in some cases firms prefer to copy the last incarnation exactly.…Read More

Persistence of Integration in the Face of Specialization

Published Research

Although the stylized model of industry evolution suggests that firms transform from vertical integration to specialization over time, many industries still exhibit a continued persistence of integrated firms. In exploring this puzzle, I draw on detailed firm-level data from the semiconductor industry to analyze how integrated incumbents, beyond shifting to the specialized mode, reconfigured in the face of industry’s vertical disintegration.…Read More

A Hegelian Dialogue on the Micro-Foundations of Organizational Routines and Capabilities

Published Research

This paper aims to further the alignment among different theoretical approaches and future scholarship on the complex themes related to the micro-foundational processes characterizing the emergence and development of organizational routines and capabilities. It has been constructed with a typical Hegelian structure represented by a thesis, an antithesis and an attempt of a synthesis, each presented by different scholars.…Read More

Reproducing Knowledge: Inaccurate Replication and Failure in Franchise Organizations

Published Research

The recognition that better use of existing knowledge can enhance performance has spawned substantial interest in the replication of productive knowledge within organizations. An enduring belief is that when expanding by replication, organizations can and should strive to adapt to fit the salient characteristics of new environments.…Read More