Building the Flexible Firm: How to Remain Competitive

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Oxford University Press, 1999 - Business & Economics - 349 pages
How do firms cope with changing environments? Is flexibility really the solution? Based on an Igor Ansoff Award winning study, Building the Flexible Firm shows how flexibility has become the new strategic challenge for contemporary firms. Offering a wealth of insights and based on extensive interviews with practitioners, Henk Volberda provides a strategic framework which explains what types of flexibility are effective under different organizational conditions and environmental characteristics. He also demonstrates an integrated method for diagnosing a firm's flexibility and for guiding the transition to greater flexibility and responsiveness.
 

Contents

Reducing Organizational
6
A Revision of Management and Organization
11
Flexibility The Hallmark of Postmodern Organization
30
A Multidimensional
81
Creating Flexible Capabilities
107
17
166
Flexibility under Various Levels
184
Towards The Flexible Form
209
Tools
224
Appendices
283
Diagnostic Results of the Multicase Longitudinal Study
311
References
317
26
320
53
328
81
335
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About the author (1999)

Henk W. Volberda is codirector of the Erasmus Strategic Renewal Program and secretary of the Dutch-Flemish Academy of Management. He is also a member of the Editorial Board of Organization Science (USA).

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