Strategic Agility in MNEs: Managing Tensions to Capture Opportunities across Emerging and Established Markets

Abstract

Traditional sources of sustainable competitive advantages are very rare in today's heterogeneous and hyper-competitive global business environment. This article identifies and illustrates three dynamic capabilities—sensing local opportunities, enacting global complementarities, and appropriating local value—by which MNEs are able to operate successfully across emerging and established markets. For MNEs in these markets, strategic agility is a meta-capability that enables them to create and deploy these three capabilities in a dynamic balance over time. Doing so demands embracing the tensions between these capabilities effectively.

Rethinking ‘Top‐Down’ and ‘Bottom‐Up’ Roles of Top and Middle Managers in Organizational Change: Implications for Employee Support

“…Considering our findings, it may be worthwhile for TMs to encourage MMs to initiate change that eventually could permeate the whole organization (De Clercq et al, ). TMs can help MMs make sense of the initiative at hand from an organizational perspective, and can reframe and selectively stimulate activities during the change process, for instance, through validation or provision of resources (Fourné et al, ) and by promoting the development of change platforms to allow MMs to initiate change (Hamel and Zanini, ). Organizations can also nurture the requisite skills through targeted management development programs that focus on MMs’ idea selection, framing, and upward communication as well as TMs’ execution abilities.…”

“…However, there is evidence indicating that MMs can, and do, initiate change (e.g., Glaser et al, 2016;Huy, 2001;Mantere, 2008). In particular, MMs more directly confront technological and market developments (Fourn e et al, 2014;Taylor and Helfat, 2009). This intimate exposure motivates them to advance ideas (Dutton and Ashford, 1993) that can lead to rethinking the strategic priorities of their own units (Galunic and Eisenhardt, 2001) and eventually of the whole organization (Burgelman, 1983).…”

The impact of organizational culture on a firm's capability to innovate the business model

“…Hence, flexibility and inter‐functional cooperation and communication are low due to specialization among the workforce (Ajmal and Koskinen, ). A controlled organizational environment with little flexibility and inter‐functional exchange is not easily committed to change (Fourné et al., ). According to Matzler et al.…”

60 Years of March and Simon’s Organizations: An Empirical Examination of its Impact and Influence on Subsequent Research

“…Notable exceptions are studies by Glaser et al () and Heyden et al () who show that lower‐level managers initiate and implement change. This is due to these managers more directly being closer to technological and market developments (Fourné et al, ). Thus, we suggest that future research should investigate these managers’ decision‐making processes, their motivations, and how organizations can best design incentives that align with these motivations, as well as how they design their decisions to exit the organization and pursue future opportunities.…”