نقش انعطاف پذیری تولید در رسمی سازی مدیریت دوگانه و عدم قطعیت محیطی شرکت های نوظهور

Increased firm formalization helps emerging firms develop stable routines and processes to increase their chances of survival. However, uncertain and dynamic task environments of emerging firms require more flexible organizational structures. Such duality of structural prescriptions stems from competing demands of task and institutional environments. We propose that manufacturing flexibility could help decouple activities required in task environments from those required in institutional environments, thereby mitigating the conflict of adopting flexible and rigid structures at the same time. An emerging venture could meet demands of institutional environments through formalized structures, and use manufacturing flexibility to address needs of task environment in order to mitigate liabilities of newness. Using a sample of 167 high-technology manufacturing firms in the UK, we use a moderated polynomial regression approach to test the proposed framework. Results indicate that formalized structures in conjunction with manufacturing flexibility lead to enhanced performance. The findings extend literature on organizational structures in operations management and entrepreneurship.

Emerging firms must acquire resources, establish boundaries, and engage in exchanges within the environment (Katz and Gartner, 1988). In order to realize such exchanges, they must perform transactions with stakeholders in institutional and task environments. Institutional environments confer legitimacy to new firms, whereas task environments facilitate the exchange of inputs and outputs (Aldrich, 2007). Due to the different contexts of institutional and task environments, different organizational structures may be necessary to effectively operate in respective environments. Contingency theory follows this principle, “guided by the general orienting hypothesis that organizations whose internal features (i.e., structure) best match the demands of their environments will achieve the best adaptation” (Scott and Davis, 2007, pp. 89). Formal structures are important for enhancing legitimacy among institutional stakeholders through increased stakeholder accountability, routine and process development, and understanding of the initial environment (Weick, 2001). Legitimacy refers to norms a venture must follow to establish itself as a firm. For example, not developing formal accounting statements, or adopting radically different organization mode, could lead to doubts in minds of institutional stakeholders about the legitimacy of the venture. Ventures establish legitimacy by adopting the traditionally expected characteristics of a firm that are accepted regulatory, social and cultural norms (DiMaggio and Powell, 1991). For example, value of writing a business plan is questioned in dynamic contexts of ventures. Yet writing a business plan is an institutional requirement to increase legitimacy of a venture. Hannan and Freeman (1977) argue that emerging firms must develop stable routines and processes by adopting more rigid structures because the direct and indirect cost of adaptation to particular environments could be too high. Furthermore, with increased accountability, stakeholders in the task environment are more likely to engage in exchanges with more legitimate emerging firms (Chrisman et al., 1998). However, task environments demand organic structures to ensure organizational flexibility in the face of uncertain, complex, and dynamic environments. Firms must create, manufacture and distribute new products with changing environmental needs. With increased environmental uncertainty, a venture must be resilient to shocks in the task environment. An organic structure can help a firm to cope with demand, technological, and competitive uncertainty, which make it particularly challenging to engage in reliable exchanges with task environment stakeholders (Tushman and Anderson, 1986). Unpredictability in demand makes it difficult to predict sales and allocate resources efficiently in ventures suffering from liabilities of smallness. Technological uncertainty makes it difficult to sustain and develop reliable routines to convert inputs to outputs. Furthermore, competitive uncertainty makes it difficult for ventures to predict and assess competitive actions and commitments. A less formalized structure could enable a venture to mitigate threats from uncertainty and to engage in reliable exchanges in the task environment. Aldrich (2007) provides theoretical conceptualizations for the necessity of formalization to meet the needs of institutional environments. Sine et al. (2006) offer empirical support for the necessity of formalization to meet the demands of institutional environments in order to ensure a venture's survival. However, in uncertain environments, contingency theory would suggest using organic structures to meet the needs of the task environment. Prior research has not addressed how ventures deal with the competing demands of formal and organic structures. By addressing the dual necessities of increased formalization required from institutional environments and organic structures required by task environments, ventures greatly enhance their performance. This leads to two research questions: (a) Is it possible to decouple conflicting structural requirements? and (b) How can such dual structural requirements be, in fact, complementary? Ventures must accommodate conflicting demands from task and institutional environments to further enhance their performance. Meyer and Scott (1983, p. 140) define task environments as ‘those within which a product or service is exchanged in a market such that organizations are rewarded for effective and efficient control of the work process.’ Institutional environments are ‘elaboration(s) of rules and requirements to which individual organizations must conform if they are to receive support and legitimacy from the environment’.

Emerging firms face duality in adopting appropriate structures to enhance firm performance. Based on calls for contingency research in operations management, the study focuses on three-way contingency fit between firm formalization, manufacturing flexibility and environmental uncertainty. It further tested bivariate fit using polynomial regression, an approach rarely used in management literature to test contingencies despite its methodological relevance. The findings suggest that increased formalization in face of increased environmental uncertainty leads to enhanced firm performance. However, to meet the needs of task environment, manufacturing flexibility moderates the contingency. Manufacturing flexibility plays a key role in helping emerging firms adopt formal structures and yet enhance performance by meeting requirements of task environment. More importantly, as shown in recent research, formalization and flexibility are complementary rather than mutually exclusive.