Purpose : Investigate organizational agility as an dynamic capability for sustaining a competitive advantage and identify simple yet practical activities that can be used by practicing managers to create a sustainable advantage

1. Sustaining a Competitive Advantage in these
Interesting Times: An Evidence-Based Approach
Dr. Alston J. Mason

2. Agenda
 Introduction
 Research Background
 Purpose of Study
 Research Questions
 Key Variables Investigated
 Key Research Results
 Limitations
 Implications for Theory
 Practical Recommendations
 Discussion

3. Introduction
 Capella University Graduate
 Practicing Enterprise Performance Management Consultant
 15+ consulting years Fortune 1000 (60+ organizations)
 3+ years online instruction
 Organizational Leadership
 Project Management
 Core Philosophies
 Knowledge is actively constructed based on time, geography, and
context
 An objective world exists that might not be readily represented
and that the relationships among variables may be more
probabilistic than deterministic (Gephart, 1999)
 A different paradigm can be utilized to enable discovery
 “Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion”
(Kuhn, 1996, p. 18).

4. Research background
 The global economy has created a competitive landscape in which
events change constantly and unpredictably (Ireland & Hitt, 1999)
 Strategic Management is the process of identifying, choosing, and
implementing activities to sustain a competitive advantage given the
changing external environment (Viljoen & Dann, 2000)
 A “Black Box” exists in explaining “how” firms sustain a competitive
advantage (Helfat & Peteraf, 2003)
 Organizational responses are usually based on “experience, judgment,
risk-taking—and occasionally just muddling through the inevitable
rough patches” (Ricketts, 2008, p. 23).
 Managers may follow bad advice from business books or consultants
based on weak empirical evidence (Rousseau, 2006).

5. Research background (2)
 The Resource Based View and its dynamic capability extensions offers
a framework for explanation but at too abstract of a level (Eisenhardt
& Martin, 2000) and it’s usefulness to practitioners is questioned
(Priem & Butler, 2001)
 Researchers suggest exploring frameworks in other disciplines focused
on organizing and dynamic activities and routines (Armstrong &
Shimizu, 2007; Tuan & Yoshi,2010)

6. Research Background (3)
 Within the manufacturing research, agility has been defined as the
capacity to survive and prosper in an competitive environment of
continuous and unpredictable change (Goldman, Nagel, & Preiss, 1994;
Gunasekaran, 1999)
 Linking Agility principles with RBV and its dynamic capability
extensions may expand research in the area of Strategic Management
 Answering the question of “how” requires exposure and engagement
with practice (Pettigrew, Woodman, & Cameron, 2001)
 Innovations in strategy are dominated by management consultants
(Greiner & Poulfelt, 2005)

7. Purpose of Study
 Adopt a certain view as a starting point of research versus a conclusion
(Crotty, 2003)
 Investigate organizational agility as an dynamic capability for
sustaining a competitive advantage
 Identify simple yet practical activities that can be used by practicing
managers to create a sustainable advantage

8. Research Questions
1. What relationships exist among the independent variables (operational
agility and customer agility) and the dependent variables (market-
related overall performance and internal overall performance) within
the consulting industry?
2. How do certain conditions (environmental dynamism, environmental
complexity, and coordination uncertainty) modify the relationships
among the dependent and independent variables within the consulting
industry?

9. Key Variables Investigated
 Firm Performance
 Market-Related Organizational Performance
 Market Share, Sales Growth
 Internal Organizational Performance
 Productivity and expertise
 Organizational Agility
 Operational Agility
 Exploit market opportunities
 Customer Agility
 Customer concerns, detect market opportunities
 Environmental Complexity
 # of environmental elements & interdependence
 Coordination Uncertainty
 Internal uncertainty due to demands across sub-units
 Environmental Dynamism
 Rate of change within market
 Firm size

10. Key Research Results
1. A strong positive correlation exists between operational agility
activities and both market overall performance and internal overall
performance.
2. Customer agility was related to market overall performance and
internal overall performance only through the relationship with
operational agility
3. Environmental dynamism, environmental complexity, and coordination
uncertainty had no significant effect on the relationship between agility
and performance, but environmental dynamism and coordination
uncertainty were significantly related to agility

11. Limitations
 Generalizability of the results due to
 Sampling methods
 Number of responses received
 Instrument is relatively new
 Utilized largely self-reporting measures which could impact reliability
 Cross-sectional survey performed at the tail end of a global recession

12. Implications for Theory
 Developed scientific knowledge while also contributing to practice and
delivering how to knowledge (Pettigrew, Woodman, & Cameron, 2001)
 Linked RBV to a body of research that has often been neglected
(Esienhardt & Martin, 2000)
 Identified measures that can contribute to the further development
of the RBV and its extensions (Armstrong & Shimizu,
2007;Newbert, 2007)
 Utilized RBV and its dynamic extensions to develop a meaningful
management tool for practitioners (Priem & Butler, 2001)

13. Practical Recommendations
 Recognize people as a firm’s key asset and keep the various specialists
or personnel well trained, motivated, and happy,
 Confidently fulfill demands for rapid response and special requests
from customers whenever such demands arise,
 Treat market-related changes and apparent chaos as opportunities to
capitalize quickly,
 Develop an ability to scale up or scale down production or service
levels quickly to support fluctuations in the market place,
 Develop an ability to make necessary alternative arrangements and
internal adjustments quickly whenever there is a disruption in supply
from suppliers, and
 Focus on both efficiency and effectiveness when meeting the needs of
the various stakeholders.

14. Discussion

15. References
Armstrong, C. E., & Shimizu, K. (2007). A review of approaches to
empirical research on the resource-based view of the firm. Journal of
Management, 33, 959-986. doi:10.1177/ 0149206307307645
Eisenhardt, K. M., & Martin, J. A. (2000). Dynamic capabilities: What are
they? Strategic Management Journal, 21, 1105-1121.
doi:10.1002/1097-0266(200010/11)21:10/11<1105::AID-
SMJ133>3.0.CO;2-E
Goldman, S. L., Nagel, R., & Preiss, K. (1994). Agile competitors and virtual
organizations: Strategies for enriching the customer. New York, NY:
Wiley.
Greiner, L., & Poulfelt, F. (2005). Handbook of management consulting:
The contemporary consultant. Mason, OH: South-Western.
Gunasekaran, A. (1999). Agile manufacturing: A framework for research
and development. International Journal of Production Economics, 62(1-
2), 87-105. doi:10.1016/S0925-5273(98)00222-9

16. References
Helfat, C., & Peteraf, M. (2003). The dynamic resource-based view:
Capability lifecycles. Retrieved from
http://ezproxy.library.capella.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost
.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=epref&AN=SMJ.BD.IIG.HELFAT.DRVI
CL&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Ireland, R. D., & Hitt, M. A. (1999). Achieving and maintaining strategic
competitiveness in the 21st century: The role of strategic leadership.
The Academy of Management Executive, 13(1), 43-57.
Lu, Y. (2006). IT capability, uncertainty and organizational performance:
Development of measures and empirical examination (Doctoral
dissertation). Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses
database. (UMI No. 3222385)
Newbert, S. L. (2007). Empirical research on the resource-based view of
the firm: an assessment and suggestions for future research. Strategic
Management Journal, 28, 121-146. doi:10.1002/smj.573

17. References
Pettigrew, A. M., Woodman, R. W., & Cameron, K. S. (2001). Studying
organizational change and development: Challenges for future
research. Academy of Management Journal, 44, 697-713. Retrieved
from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3069411
Priem, R. L., & Butler, J. E. (2001). Is the resource-based “view” a useful
perspective for strategic management research? Academy of
Management Review, 26, 22-40. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/259392
Tuan, N. P., & Yoshi, T. (2010). Organisational capabilities, competitive
advantage and performance in supporting industries in Vietnam. Asian
Academy of Management Journal, 15(1), 1-21. Retrieved from
http://www.usm.my/aamj/15.1.2010/ AAMJ_15.1.1.pdf
Viljoen, J., & Dann, S. (2000). Strategic management: Planning and
implementing successful corporate strategies (3rd ed.). Frenchs Forest,
Australia: Pearson Education Australia.