Bottom-up learning, strategic flexibility and strategic change
Abstract
Purpose
How do firms make effective strategic change when competitive advantage deteriorates fast in a dynamic environment? Based on information-processing theory and organizational inertia theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how bottom-up learning affects the speed and magnitude of strategic change and if these relationships are contingent on strategic flexibility.
Design/methodology/approach
Using data of 213 firms in China, the authors conduct an empirical test of hypotheses through a stepwise multivariate regression approach.
Findings
The empirical study suggests that resource flexibility weakens the positive relationship between bottom-up learning and the speed of strategic change while strengthens the impact of bottom-up learning on the magnitude of strategic change. In addition, coordination flexibility strengthens the positive impact of bottom-up learning on the speed and magnitude of strategic change.
Originality/value
The findings not only provide a more nuanced and in-depth understanding of strategic change, but also offer strong guidance for firms on how to make better use of strategic flexibility in order to benefit from bottom-up learning.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Professor Slawomir Magala and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this paper and National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71272135, No. 71672142 and No. 71572142) for financial support.
Citation
Yi, Y., Gu, M. and Wei, Z. (2017), "Bottom-up learning, strategic flexibility and strategic change", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 161-183. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOCM-12-2015-0241
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited