Research On Measurement And Strategy Selection Of Interorganizational Process Flexibility

Along with quality and cost, flexibility has been considered to be another strategic element of business, which is regarded as a main source to bring competitive dominance to organizations. However, as the emergence of collaborative relationships based on interorganizational process (IOP) is still short, the studies on IOP flexibility are far from maturity. Upon that this paper aims to do some researches on the characteristics, measurements and strategic choices of IOP flexibility.Firstly, the paper analyzes the definition and characters of IOP, and discusses the main focus and implementation levels of IOP flexibility. After that, a few contents of IOP flexibility has been concluded which includes process state flexibility, dynamic change flexibility, coordination flexibility, human flexibility, information technology (IT) flexibility and abnormity handling flexibility.Next, to develop an integrative measurement framework to evaluate the degree of IOP dynamic flexibility synthetically, this paper distinguishes IOP flexibility as structural flexibility and management flexibility by referring to researches on measurements of IT infrastructures flexibility. This framework contains three variables of connectivity, modification and compatibility to measure IOP structural flexibility, and two variables of human flexibility and information sharing to measure IOP management flexibility. Follow that, this study analyzes indicators to judge the extents of those variables in depth and presents an operable evaluation system.Then the paper takes IOP supported by information system as research object and provides a model to analyze selection rules on different IOP flexibility strategies. The purpose of the model is to decide best flexibility strategy mixes under different IOP character conditions via calculate minimal investment cost. The simulating results conclude that if an IOP is characterized by low uncertainty and process tasks'diversity is high, use of flexibility-to-use strategy to enhance IOP static flexibility is propitious to reduce investment costs. Whereas an IOP is characterized by high uncertainty and almost all process tasks have to be executed, use of flexibility-to-change strategy to enhance IOP dynamic flexibility is propitious to reduce investment costs. The model also indicates that flexibility-from-outside strategy can be complementary to flexibility-to-change strategy when uncertainty is high, as it tends to make organization respond well to very urgent exceptional tasks and to cut down interorganizational coordination costs.Finally, this paper verifies the IOP flexibility evaluation system and flexibility strategy model based on empirical studies. To verify validity of IOP flexibility evaluation system, we perform a structural equation analysis of this measurement model by using of data of an investigation on the implementation of IOP management in China. The model fitting result indicates that connectivity, modification and compatibility are related to IOP structural flexibility positively, and also human flexibility and information sharing are related to IOP management flexibility positively. Therefore it is proved that these variables are all important dimensions to measure IOP flexibility. And to validate IOP flexibility strategy model, we describe two representative cases that have successfully implemented IOP for years to validate the rationality of the model. Case study results show that, in practice operation, the flexibility strategy mixes adopted by organizations are consistent with the outcomes of this model.