What Makes Agility Fragile? A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Rigidity

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Li, Jin; Mukherjee, Arijit; Vasconcelos, Luis
• 署名单位: University of Hong Kong; Michigan State University; University of Technology Sydney; Universidade Nova de Lisboa
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2022.4512
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 3578-3601
• 关键词: organizational rigidity; worker initiative; standardized work processes; relational contract

摘要

We present a novel explanation of why organizations tend to lose their agility over time despite their efforts to foster worker initiative in adapting to local information. Worker initiative ensures efficiency but requires strong incentives. When incentives are relational and the firm faces shocks to its credibility, it may adopt standardized work processes that ignore local information but yield satisfactory (though suboptimal) performance. The adoption of such standardized processes helps the firm survive the current shock but inflicts inefficiencies in the future. Although the firm may recover, it becomes more vulnerable to future shocks, and consequently, more reliant on the standardized work procedures.