Organizational Adaptation: Strategic Choice and Environmental Determinism

Abstract

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Assembling Frameworks for Strategic Innovation Enactment: Enhancing Transformational Agility through Situational Scanning

“…Scanning accuracy is dependent on the domains selected and the approach taken (Hrebiniak and Joyce 1985). For example, the accounting/finance domain might include clear-cut scanning behaviors, while a process engineering function without clear role definitions or explicit bounds might have a more tenuous linkage to scanning techniques (Hambrick 1981).…”

“…A sales focus strategy would include market penetration tasks in an industry segment. A differentiation strategy would suggest variables centered on product superiority and attributes (Hill 1988;Hrebiniak and Joyce 1985;Jennings and Lumpkin 1992;Miller 1988Miller , 1989White 1986). Furthermore, a strategy may be proactive, looking for measureable opportunities, or reactive, looking for multidimensional problems or threats (Ansoff 1975;Mintzberg 1973).…”

Institutional Adaptation: Demands for Management Reform and University Administration

“…Under the headings of organizational change (Goodman and Kurke, 1982;Huber and Glick, 1993), organizational development (Cameron and Quinn, 1983), organizational design (Galbraith, 1977), or organizational learning (Argyris and Schön, 1974;Argyris, 1982;Levitt and March, 1988) lies the concept that organizations need to adapt to their environment in order to succeed (Burns and Stalker, 1961;Hannan and Freeman, 1977;Lawrence and Lorsch, 1986;Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978). In general, most conceptual and empirical contributions to the theory of adaptation derive from research published in the business, economics, and sociology literature (Aldrich, 1979;Argyris, 1982;Child, 1972;Hannan and Freeman, 1977;Hrebiniak and Joyce, 1985;Lawler and Mohrman, 1996;Lawrence and Lorsch, 1986;March, 1991;March, 1994;March, 1996;Meyer and Rowan, 1992a;Meyer and Scott, 1992;Miles and Snow, 1978;Miller and Friesen, 1980;Perkins, 1973;Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978;Powell, 1990;Powell and Friedkin, 1987;Scott, 1992a;Thompson, 1967).…”

“…Approaches range from an emphasis on total external to total internal control of adaptation; and they concentrate on either environmental (i.e., population ecology), organizational (i.e., resource dependence, contingency theory, institutional isomorphism), or internal forces (i.e., strategic choice) (Cameron, 1984;Hrebiniak and Joyce, 1985). These approaches share a commonality: they are based on an open system perspective (Scott, 1992b).…”

“…The resulting approaches differ in their emphasis on internal as opposed to external forces shaping adaptation. Accordingly, we review a range of approaches (Cameron, 1984;Hrebiniak and Joyce, 1985) of externally controlled adaptation (Hannan and Freeman, 1977), of a combination of environmental and management imperatives for adaptation (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1986;Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978;DiMaggio and Powell, 1983), and of internal forces initiating adaptation (Child, 1972). As our review indicates, each of these approaches can be applied to adaptation by universities.…”