Adaptive Enterprises Interweaving the Deliberate and Emergent - Concepts and Models

Abstract

The global business world is becoming increasingly complex and is characterised by rapid and unpredictable change. This unpredictability means that enterprises are being challenged at all levels. Customers, employees, partners, investors and society are all sources of uncertainty resulting in the need for enterprises to be adaptive. Traditional deliberate strategies based on cycles of stability and predictability are no longer relevant for today’s business environments. Emergent strategies have been proposed by many as the answer. However, the thesis of this research is that enterprises need to interweave the deliberate with the emergent in terms of strategy, organisational structures, business processes, and information systems to be truly adaptive. A review of current research literature suggests that the adaptive theme in the context of enterprise success is well supported by a mature body of research that spans a number of disciplines, namely management, operations management and information systems, resulting in the advancement of a diverse array of perspectives. Specifically, management researchers pioneered the deliberate and emergent concepts in the context of strategy and organisational management whereas the focus of operations’ research is on the management of business processes to achieve enterprise success. Similarly, there is a plethora of information systems literature on adaptive systems and the like. However, despite this multi-disciplinary body of knowledge there is a significant lacuna in terms of concepts, models and hypothesis that intrinsically, fundamentally, and seamlessly weave the deliberate and emergent aspects to support an adaptive enterprise. Consequently, there is a need for both theoretical insights and practical applications that integrate the management, operations and information perspectives to enable the transform from enterprises with deliberate or emergent orientations to enterprises that are adaptive. This thesis explores and proposes how the interweaving of the deliberate with the emergent to be adaptive could be conceived and realised in terms of strategy, organisation, process, and information. A multi-methodological approach made up of observation, theory building, and validation through a Delphi study and survey was adopted to accomplish the research objectives. The research is inter-disciplinary in nature and spans management, operations management, and information systems. Because of this an exploratory approach was used, which consisted of a comprehensive literature review followed by a multi-round Delphi study of industry and academic experts. The Delphi resulted in a number of key research artefacts being: structural, behavioral and transformational concepts, models and hypotheses. This exploratory study was followed by an explanatory study that attempted to further validate and refine some of these key artefacts through a survey. The analysis showed that some of the models and hypothesis were strongly supported while others were partially supported. Furthermore, the concepts and models proposed in the research were evaluated, validated, and refined through expert feedback, empirical testing, and disseminated through presentations and publications in journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings. There are some limitations to the study. First, the scope of the PhD research prevented the implementation of the models in a real world context through a field study. Second, the transformation cycle, being a dynamic systems model, could be further validated through a system dynamics implementation.