Beyond flexibility: building and managing the dynamically stable organization

Article Abstract:

A historic change is occurring in today's competitive environment, one that demands an equally historic response from managers. In the past, managers competing on low cost needed to concentrate on "mass production" - hierarchical structures, specialized process capabilities, stable systems, and meeting the demands of large, growing markets - while managers seeking to differentiate their product needed to focus on "invention" - introducing new products and processes, fluid structure, malleable systems. But today, managers must be positioned to build an organization that combines the best of mass production and invention. They must create a new kind of organization - a "dynamically stable" organization that is capable of serving the widest range of product demands (dynamic) while building on the firm's long-term process capabilities and know-how (stability). (Reprinted by permission of the publish publisher.)

Product development, Mass production

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Achieving dynamic stability through information technology

Article Abstract:

The dynamically stable organization serves the widest range of customers and changing product demands while building on long-term process capabilities and collective firm-wide knowledge. Critical to achieving a dynamic stability is the strategic management of information. This article discussses three primary challenges for information systems. The first challenge involves providing managers with the capability to rapidly identify and use information about product and process know-how resident throughout the firm. The second challenge involves providing information to managers about the appropriate allocation of capabilities and know-how given rapid, unpredictable product or process change. The third challenge is associated with the need to link functions and organizations "horizontally" to increase speed and flexibilityof response. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Usage, Information technology, Organizational behavior

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Commitment versus flexibility?

Article Abstract:

This article unbundles the relation between commitment and flexibility by distinguishing between firm-specific and usage-specific resources. This distinction turns out to be valuable because firm-specificity does not always imply (nor it is always implied by) usage-specificity. Firm-specific resources are more strategic than usage-specific resources. More broadly, the distinction between these two kinds of specificity helps explain why the tension between commitment and flexibility can easily be overdone: the two aren't always negative measures of each other. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Strategic planning (Business), Commitment (Psychology)

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