A Conceptual Model of Developing an Agile Work Environment

Abstract

This study has highlighted the need for an agile work environment to enhance companies’ performance, growth, and sustainability. In today’s rapidly changing business world, the goal of every individual and team in a company should be to deliver value to customers. The paper highlights theoretical and empirical evidence on the importance of an agile work environment and its positive effect on company performance. In addition, the paper provides insights into the important concept of developing an agile work environment and offers a conceptual model with five selected constructs, which can be leveraged to build an agile mindset in companies. Moving away from traditional leadership models, this paper highlights the significant role that agile leadership can play in enhancing effectiveness and performance, even in long-established large companies. The empirical research was based on 468 randomly selected medium and large Slovenian companies. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test the model. The empirical results show that changing and adaptive agile companies are the ones that thrive more easily in an environment that is unpredictable and characterized by rapid change.

Back to the Essential: A Literature-Based Review on Agile Mindset

“…The biggest issue when transitioning to an Agile organization is acquiring Agile Mindset by team members [27,43,44]. Many studies mention the key role of Agile Mindset and the necessity of internalizing it in order to succeed in various cases including the transition to agility [6,14,22,41], effective and sustained usage of Agile approaches [34,39], achievement of enterprise agility [6], effective teamwork [30], scaling Agile [6,38], Agile team's productivity, responding to crises [16], onboarding for new-comers [42], helping team members in reducing negative behaviors [26], and having a proper culture, competitive advantage and project success [5,26]. A team that does not adopt the Agile Mindset is likely to have less task responsibility, be disengaged, demotivated, and avoid challenges [16].…”

“…While Agile approaches have their native grounding in software development, today they are spreading across a broad range of industries and functions as well as research fields [1]. At the same time, organizations are facing great challenges in transitioning to Agile [1][2][3][4][5] and some of the transitioning attempts fail [1,6], simply because of the actor's mindset involved in the process [1]. It is a reminder that regardless of tools, methods, or frameworks, the adoption of Agile comes down to the people who make up the organizations [2].…”

“…Developers develop applications and systems mostly for people, and always with people. They design and shape technology and processes and are always one of the significant factors directly affecting their organizations and the success of projects [1,5,7]. They may cause serious problems.…”

Organizational Resilience in the Face of Disruptions

“…An agile and adaptable culture was highlighted as a crucial takeaway. An organization's responsiveness to shifts in its external environment is enhanced by its ability to foster a culture of agility and adaptability (Crnogaj et al, 2022). This necessitates an attitude that welcomes change and unpredictability, supports employees' autonomy and decision-making, and rewards creative problem-solving (Rosário & Dias, 2022).…”

Antecedents to Firm Performance and the Moderating Role of Environment Turbulence

“…Muneeb et al (2023) stress that organizations have started spending resources on innovation in the prevailing turbulent and rapidly changing technological environment. Many studies cite that firms face challenges, including international hyper-competition, swift technological changes, and short product life cycles (Crnogaj, Tominc, & Rožman, 2022). Therefore, organizations must focus on innovation to improve performance and sustain their competitive advantage (Farida & Setiawan, 2022).…”