Robust Organizational Fitness for Reinventing Strategy in Rapidly Changing Industry Landscapes

Abstract

In fast-changing industry landscapes, companies are often engaged in both adaptive (reactive) and inventive (proactive, newly-shaping) change processes, and these require different types of organizational fitness capabilities. Our research of more than a decade conducted in a wide range of industries (See "About our Research") reveal that many companies are predominantly focused on past successes and internal difficulties, and do not possess the necessary robust capabilities to also inventively deal with rapidly changing industry landscapes. This seems due to the fact that many individual and group managerial minds are not able to view organizational fitness in its proper perspective, because of inadequate traditional strategy approaches being utilized. The paper provides insights into the concept and application of organizational fitness, and indicates how managers could benefit from guidelines to develop and manage robust organizational fitness capabilities.