Organizational agility and HRM strategy: Do they really enhance firms' competitiveness?

This article intended to emphasize and explicate the conceptual framework of organizational agility that discusses organizational spirit, capability, flexibility, nimbleness, and speediness. Whereas, the key activities of HR specialists involved in operational matters are progressively observed as a source of competitive advantage in today's severely competitive and fast changing markets. Similarly, it has been a competitive marketplace expansion; thus, nowadays, the situation is really difficult to enhance sustainable growth for the firms' side. Hence, the purpose of this article is to reveal that HR strategy enables organizations or firms to understand the value of internal and external customers, knowledge of competitors, products, technology, and sources of competitive advantage. It is all important to ascertain that the success of a business is founded along the belief that an organization achieve competitive advantage by making use of its people adequately and efficiently. Therefore, this article exemplifies some research propositions that how firms can respond rapidly and flexibly to the changing environment without facing market turbulence. Following this, the research aims to understand whether organizational agility and value of HR can really create a difference and influence on business performance. Finally, the result of this study highlights the importance of organizational agility and human resource's effectiveness which have an influence on enhancing organizational performance and competitive abilities. (C) AIMI Journal

Cybernetics and the agility question

The ability to sense and respond effectively to fluctuations in an environment is the fundamental problem addressed by cybernetics. When applied to the context of the organizational IT function, agility denotes the capacity of the IT function to perceive &quot;signals&quot; from its internal and external environments, to interpret these, and respond appropriately. The processing of such signals requires the selection and filtering of information to drive decision-making for response in a timely way. The challenge for the IT function is processing an overwhelming collection of signals, in un-standardized formats, and from overlapping sources, that tends to overload decision-makers. Informed by a cybernetic model, we studied how the IT function enables agility. We found evidence (1) that the more mature the policy processes of the IT function, the more the IT function will create agility in information systems; (2) The more mature the intelligence processes of the IT function to look outside the organization, the more the IT function will create agility in information systems and; (3) The more mature the control processes of the IT function that focus on the current use of information systems, the more the IT function will create agility in information systems.<br /

Strategic Responses to the COVID Pandemic: Empirical Evidence of Shifts in Digital Transformation Strategy

While there have been numerous reports on the increased utilization of digital solutions during the COVID pandemic, this says little about how organizations have reconfigured their digital transformation strategies. In this study, we utilize panel data from a national measurement of digital maturity conducted with over 300 organizations and over 15,000 respondents in the public sector to analyze the effect of the pandemic on the aggregate digital transformation strategy. As the results show, the pandemic was handled through the sequential combination of two unique digital transformation strategies. First, organizations responded by decreasing the emphasis on organizational capabilities and increasing the emphasis on technological capabilities in 2020. Second, organizations shifted over to a strategy that increased emphasis on organizational capabilities and decreased the emphasis on technological capabilities in 2021. This is discussed as an organizational response to exogenous disruption in general and digital transformation strategy in particular

Misaligned Values in Software Engineering Organizations

The values of software organizations are crucial for achieving high performance; in particular, agile development approaches emphasize their importance. Researchers have thus far often assumed that a specific set of values, compatible with the development methodologies, must be adopted homogeneously throughout the company. It is not clear, however, to what extent such assumptions are accurate. Preliminary findings have highlighted the misalignment of values between groups as a source of problems when engineers discuss their challenges. Therefore, in this study, we examine how discrepancies in values between groups affect software companies' performance. To meet our objectives, we chose a mixed method research design. First, we collected qualitative data by interviewing fourteen (\textit{N} = 14) employees working in four different organizations and processed it using thematic analysis. We then surveyed seven organizations (\textit{N} = 184). Our analysis indicated that value misalignment between groups is related to organizational performance. The aligned companies were more effective, more satisfied, had higher trust, and fewer conflicts. Our efforts provide encouraging findings in a critical software engineering research area. They can help to explain why some companies are more efficient than others and, thus, point the way to interventions to address organizational challenges.Comment: accepted for publication in Journal of Software: Evolution and Proces

How the Effects of IT Capability and Knowledge Capability on Organizational Agility are Contingent on Environmental Uncertainty and Information Intensity

Although the relationship of information technology (IT) capability and knowledge capability with organizational agility has been documented, limited information is available on the extent to which these two capabilities affect organizational agility. Attempts to understand the effect of IT and knowledge capability on organizational agility in the presence of contextual factors have also been few. Based on data collected from 123 organizations in China, we examine the moderating effects of two contextual factors (environmental uncertainty and information intensity) on the relationship of IT and knowledge capability with organizational agility. We contribute to current knowledge by showing that environmental uncertainty positively moderates the effects of IT capability and knowledge capability on organizational agility and that information intensity positively moderates the effects of knowledge capability on organizational agility. While we find that both IT and knowledge capabilities have positive effects on organizational agility, knowledge capability is more effective than IT capability

Verslo analitikos judrumas, informavimo judrumas ir organizacinis judrumas: tyrimų gairės

In assuring organizational agility, informing activities play a key role by sensing the environment for important changes. A special part has to be assigned to business intelligence (BI) activities, since their exact task is to monitor the environment and detect important issues to provide ground for well-informed responses. In turbulent business environment, BI function has to adjust dynamically to maintain the quality of produced insights. A survey on published research has shown that many sources stress the importance of agile BI on organizational agility in general. However, the importance of managerial and especially cultural factors for the role of informing in building up agility competencies is under-researched. The technology factors of agile informing that create preconditions for organizational agility are much better researched and evaluated than their human and managerial counterparts. There appears to be a need for consistent research approach in favor of the less researched human and managerial factors. The goal of this paper is to define research framework by addressing agility issues at three levels: organizational, information and BI agility. This framework is going to serve as a foundation for planned research on the factors of BI agility.Siekiant organizacijų judrumo (angl.&nbsp;agility), kuris suprantamas kaip gebėjimas greitai ir adekvačiai reaguoti į permainas, svarbus vaidmuo tenka informacinei veiklai, kurios pagalba veiklos aplinkoje siekiama aptikti svarbių permainų požymius. Ypatingas vaidmuo tenka verslo analitikos (angl.&nbsp;Business intelligence) veikloms, kadangi jų tiesioginė užduotis yra stebėti aplinką ir atpažinti svarbius reiškinius siekiant pagrįstų atsakomųjų veiksmų. Turbulentiškose verslo aplinkose verslo analitika turi dinamiškai prisitaikyti, siekiant išlaikyti sudaromų įžvalgų kokybę. Paskelbtų tyrimų apžvalga parodė, kad daugelis šaltinių pabrėžia judrios verslo analitikos svarbą visos organizacijos judrumui. Tačiau vadybinių ir ypač kultūrinių veiksnių įtaka stiprinant informavimo vaidmenį judrumo kompetencijų plėtrai yra nepakankamai ištirta. Iš veiksnių, sąlygojančių organizacinį judrumą, technologiniai veiksniai yra žymiai geriau išnagrinėti ir įvertinti nei žmogiškieji ir vadybiniai veiksniai, ir galima konstatuoti, kad egzistuoja nuoseklių tyrimų poreikis pastarųjų veiksnių atžvilgiu. Šio straipsnio tikslas yra apibrėžti būsimųjų tyrimų karkasą, nagrinėjant judrumo klausimus trimis lygiais – organizaciniu, informaciniu ir verslo analitikos. Šis karkasas turi tarnauti pagrindu planuojamiems verslo analitikos judrumo tyrimams

IT Project Selection in an Agile Organisation

Organisations face a persistent challenge in achieving sustained competitive advantage in the rapidly changing business landscape. Organisational agility (OA), enabled by information technology (IT), offers hope. However, organisations that pursue agility encounter incompatibility with IT project selection (ITPS), where projects are selected and funded before implementation. Existing literature highlights the dual capability of ITPS to enable and disable agility, underscoring its continued importance for agile organisations. To tackle the incompatibility between ITPS and OA, this study presents a case study conducted at Infrastructure Co, an agile organisation that actively undertakes ITPS. Findings show the need for a redesign of traditional ITPS governance to facilitate agility. Infrastructure Co achieved this by delegating and decentralising ITPS processes and decisions away from the enterprise-project-management-office into projects. This study contributes by presenting revelatory empirical findings, addressing this important new research question

Evolving IT Organizational Identity as a Source of IT-enabled Enterprise Agility in China

Prior research has proposed that IT may hinder the attainment of enterprise agility; how to prevent this hindrance and further achieve IT-enabled enterprise agility remains unknown. Because IT organizational identity can be an important guidepost for eliminating the hindrance, the purpose of this paper is to explore how to achieve IT-enabled enterprise agility through an evolving IT organizational identity. By drawing upon recent thinking in the enterprise agility and organizational identity literature, this paper proposes a process model of IT organizational identity evolution to argue that the process of recreating an IT identity leads an enterprise to attain IT-enabled agility. In the present study, the case of China’s Haier Group is comprehensively analyzed based on the process model. Our study not only contributes to the knowledge of organizational identity and broader concepts of enterprise agility, but also provides useful means for practitioners to establish appropriate IT organizational identities over time

A Case Study of Healthcare Information Technology Implementation: Agile-Innovative Capability Development Process

With the advances in Information Technology (IT), the potential of IT in enabling enterprise agility has received increasing attention from practitioners and the academia in recent years. However, despite the recent advance of knowledge on agility and IT innovation, the relationship between the adoption of IT and enterprise agility is often treated as a “black box” and empirical validation of the relationship between IT and enterprise agility is still scare. Moreover, the importance of agility in healthcare sector has largely been ignored. Our study proposes a three-stage process model that describes and analyzes the ways how agility and innovative capabilities are implemented and managed during the innovation of healthcare IT in a hospital. Theoretical and practical contributions were shared and documented in this paper

Assessing the Impacts of IS Strategy through the Development of Dynamic Capabilities

Of central importance to the functioning of the IT department is its information systems strategy. While research attention has been copiously given to other areas relating to the strategic value of IS, fewer studies have assessed the impact of the IS strategy itself, which can be an important avenue through which firm performance may be realized. As such, drawing upon the dynamic capabilities perspective, we propose a model of IS strategy and its impacts. Responses from 271 CIOs were collected via an online-based survey to test the proposed model. Results suggest that while innovative strategies reinforce dynamic capabilities development, undefined strategies tend to prove detrimental to development, and conservative strategies tend to neither help nor hurt. The impact of strategy on performance is mediated through dynamic capabilities, with the IS Innovator leading in performance, followed by the IS Conservative, and lastly the IS Undefined, whose lack of strategy proves harmful