Organisational life cycle, business orientation and performances of architectural firms in Nigeria

Abstract

This study sets out to investigate the relationships between the organisational life cycles, business orientation and performances of architectural firms, which often start with just the principal and little capital. In the study, the organisational life cycles stages of the firms were identified, and the way that business orientation emphasis changes with the firms’ life cycles were investigated. In addition, the business orientation dimensions that predict the architectural firms’ performance at each life cycle stage were identified. The study was carried out using data collected through self-administered questionnaires from architectural firms in Nigeria. The organisational life cycle stages of the firms were identified using cluster analysis, and the predictors of performances were identified using regression analysis. The results of the study show that only focus on prominence varied significantly with the organisational life cycles of the firms. Another important finding of the study is that market orientation led to better performance at some organisational life-cycle stages, while profit orientation led to better performance at some other stages. It was recommended that firms should choose business strategies that take into consideration their organisational life cycle stages to enhance their performances.

Firm Life Cycle and Financial Performance: Evidence from Nigeria

“…These results when compared and contrasted against previous empirical results can be classified into three. The first group that agrees with the findings of this study are Wahba and Elsayed (2014), Hossain (2014), Gunu and Adamade (2015), Oluwatayo et al (2016), Zhou et al (2016), Gulec and Karacaer (2017) and Costa et al (2017). However, the second group completely disagrees with the findings of this study and they include Chang et al (2017), Habib and Hassan (2017), Bayat and Noshahr (2018) and Shahzad et al (2019).…”

“…An inverse relationship was found existing between firm introductory stage and financial performance. Also, Oluwatayo et al (2016) examine the influence of organisation's life cycle on performance of architectural firms in Nigeria. The findings indicate that at maturity, organisation's performance varies.…”

Influences of client focus and company type on innovation and financial performance in the construction industry

“…However, several studies have reported negative innovation effects on company financial performances. For example, innovation negatively affected the financial performances of architectural companies in Nigeria due to the speculative nature of the industry (Oluwatayo et al , 2016) and contrary to other studies, Zhu et al (2017) found that only marketing innovations improved small and medium enterprises (SME) economic performances in Zhejiang Province, China. These contradictions suggested that other variables were mediating and/or moderating the positive relationship between innovation and financial performance.…”

“…While construction companies differ in size, knowledge and risk attitude (Lew et al , 2018; Teräväinen et al , 2018), two of the most important actors in the industry are architects and contractors (Hemstrom et al , 2017; Sariola, 2018). Architecture companies are professional service companies that are generally knowledge intensive, relatively small in size and often led by the principal architects (Hong et al , 2019; Oluwatayo et al , 2016; Salvatierra et al , 2019). Conversely, large companies usually dominate the contractor market, with others being mainly small and medium sized, labour intensive and typically family-owned (Teräväinen and Junnonen, 2019; Hong et al , 2019).…”

A Conceptual Framework: Organizational Learning, Competencies, and Innovation in Indonesian Digital Startup

“…The success of each organization in its life cycle is determined by its ability to choose and make effective use of the resources [30]. In the context of digital economy, the company's physical resources cannot be maintained as an evolutionary asset because it is relatively easy to buy and imitate [31] in contrast to intangible resources such as competency.…”