تاثیر تجارت الکترونیکی بر انعطاف پذیری سازمانی

Organizations are finding that their ability to respond to unpredicted changes in the market is becoming a key factor in survival. The ability to adjust e-business processes to customer preferences (flexibility) has become a necessity for online systems. Despite the interest in e-business flexibility the academic literature has not kept pace with industrial developments. This research study builds upon previous work through two investigations. First, the results of five case studies are used to develop a seven (alliance/joint decision management and intelligence, enterprise-wide change management, organizational learning, process oriented agility, network centric information management, leadership of transformation and knowledge exchange meetings) factor model that depicts the influences of flexibility on organizational effectiveness in e-business environments. Second, this paper illustrates how the model can be used as a benchmarking tool and has the potential to become a key learning mechanism. The authors discuss the conclusions and managerial implications of the findings.

Modern organizations are under increasing pressure from stakeholders to find new ways to compete effectively in dynamic markets and changing customer preferences. Consequently, organizations have sought structures and technologies that improve flexibility through the implementation of e-business models. Consistent with Nadkarni and Narayanan (2007), we argue that flexibility is more important in fast-changing business environments. During the earlier commercial phases of the Internet, a plethora of e-business models were advocated, prompting management to search for the best model (Phillips, 2003). The differences between an e-business model and an e-business strategy are significant issues for any organization (Margretta, 2002). E-business models ignore competition and organizational dynamics. Yet competitiveness is more of an issue, particularly as information-age technologies become more available and accessible to competitors. Increasing competition force commercial organizations to diversify into new markets and operate in multiple sectors. These threats make the creation of alliances with suppliers/competitors a useful response. However implementation can become problematic due to issues surrounding system interoperability, process interoperability, and conflicting organizational and sometimes national cultures. Global commercial organizations face threats from smaller, more nimble organizations that possess network-centric operations. Beidleman and Ray (1998), contend that financial services firms are increasingly caught up in the flexibility revolution. Supporting this assertion Adolf and Hooda (1997) refer to the new business model of banking as achieving a level of organizational agility and responsiveness that permits continuous pursuit of new opportunities as they emerge in this fast-changing market. There has been significant managerial interest in the opportunities available to use e-business solutions to create competitive advantage. As stated by Swaminathan and Tayur (2003) e-business can be defined as a business process that uses the Internet or other electronic medium as a conduit to fulfil business transactions. However, a critical assumption is that e-business encompasses e-commerce, and goes far beyond e-commerce to include the application of information technologies for internal business processes as well for the activities in which a company engages in commercial activity with suppliers and customers (Phillips, 2003). These internal activities can include functional activities, such as marketing, accounting, human resource, and operations. As organizations embrace the Internet, one of the burning issues management face is that of getting people to work differently in organizations that are changing shape. E-business organizations need to have a combination of inside–out and a range of competencies. Wang (2000) asserts that e-business should be viewed less as a phenomenon of purely online business and more as a challenge of organization redesign. Phillips (2003) points out that organizations looking to implement an e-business strategy must align themselves internally with the demands that the dynamic environment imposes on strategic behavior. A good example of this is, despite making a significant investment in their e-business strategies and IT, some managers remain unclear about how to adapt their organization. Advancements in technology create the opportunities for new forms of arranging work, such as collapsing boundaries between suppliers, customers and competition. Management need to identify the key attributes and processes that are perquisite for competitive advantage. According to Neilson et al. (2000) the evolution to e-organization takes place along seven key dimensions — organizational structure, leadership, people and culture, coherence, knowledge, alliances and governance. Organizations are increasingly facing the challenge of e-business, that is, the use of Internet tools to support their business processes (Cagliano et al., 2003). Strategic business units are finding that their ability to respond to unpredicted changes in the market is becoming a key factor in survival. Consistent with Dreyer and Gronhaug (2004), flexibility relates to an organization's capacity to change or exploit external opportunities, and is an important competence. This paucity of systematic studies on e-business that explore the impact on organizational structure and processes creates a significant gap. The primary purpose of this paper is to highlight some of the strategies required to enhance flexibility in an e-business environment. A secondary purpose is to explore how flexibility affects organizational effectiveness, and to identify factors effecting success in an e-business environment. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. First, e-business strategy is discussed. Then, organizational flexibility in an e-business environment is considered. Next, the research methodology is outlined, followed by empirical findings. Finally, major themes are discussed; conclusion and managerial implications are drawn.

The findings provide interesting insight into the ongoing theoretical interest in e-business and its impact on organizational flexibility. The study identifies a number of issues associating with human factors, people and culture as being the most important to address. To achieve effective organizational change requires genuine buy in from the people involved in, and affected by, the change process; both the end-users of the new technology, and key organizational figures who lead on the necessary changes. They must understand what the changes mean and why they are necessary. Expectation management is important; people's attitude to technology, their use of IT and involvement with implementation pays dividends in terms of willingness to use technology effectively. Matching investment in technology with investment in people should be a priority. Successful technology implementations rely on more than getting the human–system interaction at the interface design level right. They include wider issues such as design of the task and overall work environment; ensuring that the appropriate training is given (and the correct staff are selected); and ensuring that appropriate organizational changes are put in place to optimize on the potential benefits offered by technological change. Training is important, because only when people really understand the technology, will they be able to get the maximum return on investment. Organizations should not attempt to generate a set of rules for using the technology in a certain way, as this might limit the potential novel uses of the technology, or development of new competencies that could potentially emerge from experimental use of the new technologies. More attention is necessary to the people side of the process than the technological side of the process. The benchmarking methodology could assist managers to identify where the organization is now and to develop targets for each critical factor. Developing (or improve existing) capabilities in each of the factors should be sought. In particular, with emphasis on developing the ability to share and exploit knowledge, establishing a culture of organizational learning — including strong leadership of this change. This will involve the identification of the salient processes by the organization captures, shares, stores, disseminates and re-use knowledge throughout the organization in day-to-day task context, improving them and where appropriate facilitating them with technological support. Achieving genuine staff involvement and commitment to this course of action is paramount. Developing the capability to implement and manage change successfully is necessary to keep up with the fast pace of change (change in the environment, developments in technology and changes in the capabilities of competitors). Building from the findings, the leadership of organizational change is important — leaders need to take responsibility in six areas: Strategy: • Develop a screening process to decide which processes should receive expenditure on e-business technologies. • Define the strategic role that e-business technologies play in the organization and then determine the levels of funding needed to achieve these objectives. • Determine which e-business capabilities should be managed centrally and which should be managed at team/individual level. Strategy execution: • Decide which features are crucial — how much reliability and flexibility is required? • Decision making must incorporate the trade off between speed and risk, and it is necessary to decide what speed and what risks are acceptable. • Assign someone (a champion) with responsibility for the organization-wide initiative. More sophisticated organizations use metrics to monitor success of e-business strategy implementation. In the information age environment, the effective exploitation of knowledge can provide competitive advantage and sustain success. The findings of this research have important implications for the development of an appropriate infrastructure capability to support organizational flexibility. Organization-wide learning should focus on people to allow knowledge to be disseminated and shared. This facilitates the development of new processes and capabilities throughout the organization to help address the increasingly diverse challenges from e-business. The introduction of e-business technologies, in synchronization with the appropriate organizational changes will enable wider process changes whereby knowledge can enhance organizational effectiveness. Organizational change is an important capability for organizations in the e-business environment to allow them to adapt to new challenges, but organizational change of any type should be driven by strategic aims. E-business technologies are an enabler of capability — supporting the organizational forms desire to meet specific strategic aims. E-business technologies allow major changes to commercial organizations. The transformation experiences of a sample of leading commercial organizations can apply to specific commercial environments. This study recommends that the focus of transformation to network-enabled operations should not be on technology per se, but on how management can optimally support the execution of organizational strategy, activities and processes. The most important areas for e-business enablement are those that connect with people, culture and processes, many of which are also currently the most poorly addressed by commercial organizations. Investment in people must match investment in technology for change to work. The way in which new technologies will actually influence the existing command culture, both explicit and implicit is a salient consideration. Aligning organization culture and process change is a prerequisite, if organizations wish to capitalize on using e-business technologies to decentralise organizational structure. Those organizations that are attempting to enhance flexibility in e-business environments should focus on: • Process before dealing with structures • People-centered organizational learning and exploitation of knowledge being key to effectiveness • Technologies having little impact on how decisions are actually made • Humans and processes being the limiting factor to decision tempo • Organizational change being a key capability and requires transformational leaders to be effective The ability to adapt work processes and practices continually as a result of experiences and changes in the operational environment is a key capability for success. Change should be whole system change (co-evolution of culture, processes and technology) to cause change in processes and practices that will result in overall capability improvements in e-business operations. Overall, the framework and observations serve as a basis for discussion and for future research, and attempt to develop an empirical model to tackle a multifaceted business impasse. Future studies and investigations could attempt to validate findings through a more longitudinal analysis that could follow the development path of organizations operating in specific industries. Relevant in-depth case study could enrich industry specific patterns of behavior.