Multilevel Organizational Adaptation: Scale Invariance in the Scottish Healthcare System

Abstract

Organizational adaptation results from coupled processes nested across multiple levels (Klein and Kozlowski 2000;Klein et al. 1999). There has been a strong call for a quasi-natural organization science that accounts for the effects of coupled processes across different levels (Lewin and Volberda 1999;McKelvey 1997). Yet, most work on organizational adaption has been conducted implicitly at a single or dual level of analysis. To remedy this, detailed empirical cases with more than two levels of analysis are required to address the interactions between organizational context and the intraorganizational dynamics (Greenwood and Hinings 1996;Tracey et al. 2011) .We explore how the classical problem of limited cognitive representation influences the way agents coordinate their search efforts across organizational boundaries and across multiple levels. We . Specifically, we explain how complex cooperation in hierarchical systems can emerge and subsequently unravel. We show how cognitive limitations can hide opportunities for collaboration and mutual improvement. We demonstrate the multilevel dynamics induced when agents at various levels broaden their cognitive representations to include higher-order epistatic interactions -i.e. interdependencies between components which affect system performanceand synchronize their adaptive search across organizational boundaries. Our demonstration is based on a longitudinal case of a large change programme in a national healthcare system, where there was a powerful rhetoric on the need for "whole system change". This aimed to make agents in all its constituent parts aware that they are interdependent and to emphasize the need for collaboration to uncover opportunities for mutual performance improvements:"This new approach is about getting the NHS [National Health Service] in Scotland to work as a single, whole system. We need all of the partners in the system to realize that they are interdependent. Action in one part of the system has an impact elsewhere. And we need the partners to understand that we all need to change." NHS Scotland, Policy document, 2005

Completing the Adaptive Turn: An Integrative View of Strategy Implementation

“…We view adaptive strategy implementation as a process of continuous organizational evolution (Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 2005), in which different organizational units at multiple levels of the organization are simultaneously conceptualizing, enacting, and adapting their own strategies. Accordingly, the organization can be seen as a complex adaptive system (Dattee & Barlow, 2017;Girod & Whittington, 2015) that continuously addresses different unexpected internal and external environmental events in a dynamic manner. Building on our integrative view, further research would be needed to examine how different organizational structures, incentives, and controls could contribute to the continuous interplay of conceptualizing and enacting of strategy.…”

Effective Search in Rugged Performance Landscapes: A Review and Outlook

“…In fact, the patterns of switching between experiential and cognitive search identified by Berends et al (2016) resemble Csaszar and Levinthal’s (2016) model of two-level search. One exception in this regard is the study by Dattée and Barlow (2017), which uses insights from a case study to critically examine and qualify the results from earlier simulation studies.…”

Greater adaptivity or greater control? Adaptation of IOR portfolios in response to technological change

“…In the growing literature on this topic, the main emphasis has been on adjustments to a firm's internal organizational attributes, such as changes to: managerial roles (Stan and Puranam, 2017), individual learning (Aggarwal et al, 2017), service offerings (Ruef, 1997), strategy and structure (Jennings and Seaman, 1994), internal routines (Yi et al, 2016), multi-level organizational dynamics (Dattee and Barlow, 2017), or identity (Dutton and Dukerich, 1991). Given the prevalence of IORs for modern firms these days, the question arises as to what extent firms are also adapting core external organizational attributes to changing environmental conditions.…”