Resilience Capacity and Strategic Agility: Prerequisites for Thriving in a Dynamic Environment

organizational resilience, strategic agility, competitive dynamics

Knowledge Resources, Exploration, and Exploitation: A New Perspective on the Interplay Between Innovation and Application

Knowledge resources are the fundamental ingredients used in exploration and exploitation and an overlooked source of distinction and tension between these two processes. In this paper we use a strategic lens to differentiate evidence-based knowledge resources from tinkerable knowledge resources. This conceptualization provides the basis for a bridge between the literature on the resource-based view of the firm and research into exploration and exploitation. We suggest that an examination of knowledge resources offers a new perspective for understanding exploration and exploitation, and suggests new opportunities for achieving organizational ambidexterity. A proposed model indicates the application consequences of match and mismatch across knowledge resources and knowledge flow activities in terms of exploration and exploitation. An agenda for future research is proposed along with steps that managers can take to develop exploration and exploitation capabilities in their firms by managing their knowledge resources more precisely and effectively.knowledge resources, exploration, exploitation, knowledge management

Developing a capacity for organizational resilience through strategic human resource management

Resilient organizations thrive despite experiencing conditions that are surprising, uncertain, often adverse, and usually unstable. We propose that an organization\u27s capacity for resilience is developed through strategically managing human resources to create competencies among core employees, that when aggregated at the organizational level, make it possible for organizations to achieve the ability to respond in a resilient manner when they experience severe shocks. We begin by reviewing three elements central to developing an organization\u27s capacity for resilience (specific cognitive abilities, behavioral characteristics, and contextual conditions). Next we identify the individual level employee contributions needed to achieve each of these elements. We then explain how HR policies and practices within a strategic human resource management system can influence individual attitudes and behaviors so that when these individual contributions are aggregated at the organizational level through the processes of double interact and attraction–selection–attrition, the organization is more likely to possess a capacity for resilience

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AS A STRATEGIC RESOURCE: AN ETHICAL AND SOCIETAL CHALLENGE

Organizations, particularly large multinational firms, have a substantial impact on the economies and societies in which they operate. Unfortunately some far-reaching influences are not anticipated, and, the consequences of these organizational actions can create long-term, adverse outcomes. Increasingly, indigenous knowledge has been recognized as a valuable strategic resource offering rare, inimitable, non-substitutable and effectively commercialized insights for new agricultural, biological, pharmaceutical, and aesthetic products. While the business case for industrialized companies to acquire and use indigenous knowledge is compelling, and the economic results of these activities are highly profitable, the unanticipated costs can be serious and irreparable, particularly for the communities that provided the original knowledge resource. This paper describes the strategic attractiveness of indigenous knowledge and provides examples of unintended, but severe, adverse consequences for the surrounding business and social ecosystems that can result from the use of this knowledge by non-indigenous firms. We articulate the business logic for the use of indigenous knowledge from the perspective of the resource based view of the firm. We then discuss the ethical concept of ‘respect for persons’ and argue that explicit consideration of this principle in the strategic decision making process would illuminate the previously unrecognized outcomes. We use a case example to illustrate how considering both the resource-based strategic value of indigenous knowledge and the principle of ‘respect for persons’ when making choices about the use of these resources would yield more desirable and more sustainable outcomes for both the firm and the indigenous community.Indigenous Knowledge, Resource-based View, Global Ethics As many have observed, organizations have a substantial but, at times, unacknowledged influence on the broad social and economic systems in which they are embedded (Coleman, 1974; Perrow, 1991; Stern & Barley, 1996). Organizations shift the structure of society through their influences on social life and occupational patterns. They shape the physical landscape through decisions that effect societal patterns from urbanization to immigration to transportation to agriculture. Corporate choices regarding labor, material, technology, information, and related resources and factors of production influence and constrain many facet of life in a global society. Organizations sway political activities through their direct influence on standards of living around the world, and through policies regarding preference or discrimination. Firms influence interactions across networks of activity from healthcare to agriculture to education to state sovereignty, to the strength of the economy. Organizational actions also create cascade effects on the larger society through a process of small wins (Weick, 1984), path-dependent actions (the decisions and options one faces for any given circumstance is constrained by the choices one has made in the past) (Williamson, 1993), and lock-in (Waldrop, 1992). Despite recognition of the pervasive power that organizations, particularly large multinational firms, have on society and the human condition, research focused on understanding, interpreting, anticipating, or deliberately influencing the consequences of organizational activity on the larger social system has been sparse (Stern & Barley, 1996). When an action is purposefully set in motion, it is generally assumed that the initiator sought or at least accepted the intended and anticipated outcomes. Otherwise the activity would not have been deliberately set in motion (Merton, 1936). Even though outcomes may be viewed negatively by another group of stakeholders, the adverse impact of anticipated outcomes is not a surprise. Furthermore, it is reasonable to presume that at least an informal cost benefit assessment of both the intended benefits and the recognized liabilities (from the perspective of the action generator) was conducted prior to making a strategic business decision. For example, the loss of green space is a recognized liability associated with increased commercial development and the loss of U.S. jobs is an acknowledged cost associated with outsourcing. These ‘downsides’ are often explicitly considered in the cost-benefit analysis preceding complex business decisions. We refer to these kinds of recognized and anticipated adverse consequences as ‘acknowledged costs.’ To prevent the implementation of business decisions that involve collateral costs that are recognized and accepted by decision makers, those in opposition must generally change the cost-benefit calculations by raising the cost of the adverse consequences from the point of view of the decision maker. However, many consequences of purposeful social action are unanticipated and therefore, not considered explicitly in the decision making process. At times unanticipated outcomes are a pleasant surprise. For example, when senior citizens became attracted to Nintendo’s Wii and emerged as a dominant market for this gaming system, the unexpected benefit was quickly rationalized post hoc and capitalized upon in revised strategic plans. At other times, however, unintended consequences are negative, severe, and difficult to undo. Unintended negative consequences parallel acknowledged costs in terms of their adverse impact, but they present a much more challenging problem in terms of prevention or reconsideration since their occurrence is a surprise. Unexpected consequences can arise for a number of reasons such as misreading initial conditions, errors in inferences about causal relations, influence from unexpected sources, poor execution of a plan, an overly narrow or parochial perspective, or mindless behavior that was purposeful but habitual so failed to account for new contingencies (Perrow, 1961). Merton (1936: 901) argues that unintended consequences generally arise from three sources: ignorance, error, or expediency. Regardless of the lack of intention or expectation, the adverse impact of some consequences of organizational action can be severe for both the firm and the larger society. This situation is the focus of our paper. This paper examines an important, but largely unrecognized impact of organizational action on global social and economic systems that results from the juxtaposition of current strategic management paradigms designed to help firms achieve competitive advantage in the knowledge economy, with current environmental, societal, and biological realities that are typically considered outside the relevant frame of reference for most corporate decision makers. The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm argues that strategies designed around resources that are valuable, rare, inimitable, non-substitutable, and readily exploited by a firm are a foundation for building competitive advantage (Barney, 1991). The knowledge-based view of the firm underscores the strategic importance of knowledge as a valuable intangible resource that often meets these criteria (Grant, 1996a; Spender, 1996). A firm’s absorptive capacity (defined as it ability to acquire, assimilate, transform and exploit new external knowledge (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990) is seen as a crucial strategic competence for enabling knowledge resources to yield competitive and performance benefits for an organization (Lane & Lubatkin, 1998; Zahra & George, 2002). Indigenous knowledge, often termed as traditional ecological or biocultural knowledge, is “knowledge developed by local people through direct interaction between human beings and nature” that indigenous people use in their everyday lives to sustain their existence (Maragia, 2006: 203). Because indigenous knowledge is created by the iterative interactions and relationships across a community over time as it blends culture, environment, and societal needs, it is a path-dependent, often causally ambiguous, intangible knowledge resource. Increasingly indigenous knowledge related to health and medicine, agricultural products, and livestock has been found to be a valuable, rare, and non-substitutable resource for products in great demand in markets that are more commercially developed than the source economies. Appetite suppressants, specialty foods, and pharmaceutical products are important examples. The dilemma arises in terms of the ways in which these resources are acquired and exploited. Observations of various commercial applications of indigenous knowledge suggest that strategic choices have been made that violate the ‘respect for persons’ principle and as a consequence create discord between a firm’s identity and its actions and set in motion adverse consequences that undermine societal well-being. It is not clear whether the societal consequences of applying the absorptive capacity and related strategic capabilities of large, technologically sophisticated, and economically advantaged firms to indigenous knowledge acquisition and commercialization are anticipated but potentially miscalculated, or whether they are unforeseen and therefore, unintended. While the remedies may be different depending on the extent to which societal consequences are foreseen, the analysis presented in this paper suggests that regardless of the intent, the way in which indigenous knowledge is being used may be undermining the sustainability of the very competitive strategies these organizations are using indigenous knowledge to initiate and simultaneously creating contradictions between a firm’s identity and its actions. We begin with an analysis of indigenous knowledge as a resource viewed from a contemporary strategic management perspective. Included in this discussion are several illustrative case examples of the commercialization of indigenous knowledge by multinational firms that led to notable business success as measured by conventional financial indicators such as return on investment, profitability, increased market share, and competitive advantage. This is followed by a more detailed examination of three of these illustrative cases using an ethical lens to articulate the societal consequences of these applications of indigenous knowledge. Our analysis suggests that adverse societal consequences, which may have been unanticipated, initiate technological and biological discontinuities that destroy the source of strategic value that the indigenous knowledge resource initially created. In other words, inappropriate use of indigenous knowledge undermines both business and societal sustainability. We argue that a strategic business analysis which incorporates ethical frameworks in evaluating the application of indigenous knowledge increases the probability that adverse consequences will be anticipated. Further we propose that explicit recognition of societal consequences of business decisions related to indigenous knowledge is the first step toward reorienting the cost-benefit calculations that lead to their selection.Indigenous Knowledge, Resource-based View, Global Ethics