Research On The Relationship Among Organizational Flexibility,Dynamic Capabilities And Corporate Performance

With the globalization of economy and the rapid development of science and technology,the explosive growth of knowledge,rapid mobility of personnel,expeditious products updates,increased competition among enterprises,and the increasing dynamic nature of industrial environment have put forward higher requirements for the innovation ability and adaptability of corporation.In the dynamic competitive environment,the flexible organization with elasticity as an effective organizational form to deal with the dynamic environment has been widely concerned by the business community and theorists.However,organizational flexibility as a new concept,its theoretical system is not mature.There are still differences in the understanding of organizational flexibility,and the relationship between organizational flexibility and competitive advantage of enterprises is also an unopened "black box".The in-depth study on the connotation and dimension of organizational flexibility,and further explore the relationship between organizational flexibility and enterprise performance and its mechanism can not only greatly enrich the enterprise’s organizational management theory,but also can provide an effective method for enterprises to take advantage of organizational flexibility to deal with the dynamic industrial environment and improve performance of enterprise.On the basis of reviewing the relevant theoretical literature and based on the theoretical paradigm of resource school "resource-capability—performance",this paper constructs a research model of "organizational flexibility—dynamic capability—enterprise performance" with two moderating variables which including employee’s knowledge structure and environmental dynamics.On the basis of in-depth systematic theoretical analysis,this paper probes into the direct influence of organizational flexibility on enterprise performance,the mideating effect of dynamic capability between organizational flexibility and enterprise performance,the moderating effect of employee’s knowledge structure between organizational flexibility and dynamic capability,and the modeating effect of environmental dynamics between organizational flexibility and enterprise performance by empirical research methodology with Chinese industrial enterprises first hand questionaaire data.The research of this paper includes the following contents:(1)Literature review.On the basis of reviewing the literature of organizational flexibility,dynamic capability,enterprise performance,employee’s knowledge structure and environmental dynamics,the concepts and dimensions of key variables such as organizational flexibility,dynamic capability,employee’s knowledge structure and environmental dynamics are defined.(2)This paper constructs a theoretical model of the relationship between organizational flexibility and enterprise performance,which takes dynamic capability as mediator variable,takes the employee’s knowledge structure and the environment dynamics as the moderator variables,and makes a deep and systematic theoretical analysis of the relationship among the variables,and then puts forward the corresponding theoretical hypothesis.(3)On the basis of summing up the previous research,combined with the data analysis of the investigation and research,the measurement scale of organizational flexibility,dynamic capability,and employee’s knowledge structure and environmental dynamics are developed.(4)Using SPSS21.0 and AMOS21.0 statistical analysis tools,through exploratory factor analysis,confirmatory factor analysis,structural equation model and hierarchical regression analysis,the first-hand data obtained by means of questionnaire research are analyzed and empirically studied,and the relationship among organizational flexibility,dynamic capability and enterprise performance and the mechanism of it are further demonstrated.Through theoretical and empirical research,following main conclusions are drawn:(1)The dimensions of organizational flexibility have significant positive effects on each dimension of dynamic capability.However,the effect between the dimensions of organizational flexibility on environmental perception capability,resource integration capaability and organizational reform capability have a slightly difference.(2)Each dimension of dynamic capability significantly affects corporate performance.However,in terms of specific dimensional relationships,the effect of dynamic capability on enterprise performance varies slightly from one dimension to another.(3)Technical flexibility in organizational flexibility significantly affects corporate performance.Structural flexibility and cultural flexibility have no positive and significant effect on enterprise performance,the influence of structural flexibility and cultural flexibility on enterprise performance needs to be mediated by dynamic capability.(4)The mediating effect of dynamic capability on organizational flexibility and enterprise performance is significant.On the corresponding dimension relation,the mediating effect of dynamic capability dimensions on the dimension of organizational flexibility and enterprise performance is different.The relationship between technological flexibility and firm performance is partly mediated by the dimensions of dynamic capability,and the relationship between structural flexibility,cultural flexibility and firm performance is fully mediated by the dimensions of dynamic capability.(5)The moderating effect of employee’s knowledge structure on the relationship between organizational flexibility and dynamic capability is partially significant.The employee’s knowledge structure has a significant positive moderating effect on the technical flexibility and each dimension of dynamic capability.The employee’s knowledge structure has a positive moderating effect on structural flexibility and resource integration capability as well as organizational reform capability,but has no positive moderating effect on the relationship between structural flexibility and environmental perception capability.The knowledge structure of employees has a significant positive moderating effect on the dimensions of cultural flexibility and dynamic capability.(6)Environmental dynamics plays a significant role in moderating the relationship between dynamic capability and enterprise performance.The technical dynamics has a significant positive moderating effect on the relationship between the dimensions of dynamic capability and enterprise performance.Market dynamics has a significant positive adjustment effect on the relationship between environmental perception capability,resource integration capability and enterprise performance in dynamic capability.The main innovation points of this paper are diaplayed as the following:(1)The connotation and dimension of related variables such as organizational flexibility and dynamic capability are defined.On the basis of a large number of literature review,this paper defines the connotation of organizational flexibility in a systematic and multidimensional way,and clarifies that organizational flexibility is the basic attribute to describe the flexibility and agility of resources within an organization.It is defined as: Organizational flexibility refers to the elasticity and flexibility of organizational resources,which is an organizational readiness state of flexible composition of multiple elements within an organization,enabling the organization to occupy a position of successful response to fierce competition and unforeseen environment,and to enhance the active or passive responsiveness and adaptability of the enterprise to the environment in the event of fierce competition and unforeseen circumstances.And from the perspective of internal organization,combined with the previous relevant scholars’ reserach on the division of organizational flexibility,we further put forward the constituent dimensions of organizational flexibility which includes technical flexibility,structural flexibility and cultural flexibility.Meanwhile,based on the theory of resource base view,this paper further defines the specific connotation and composing dimension of dynamic capability.The dynamic capability is defined as the ability of the corporation to absorb and integrate the internal and external resources of the enterprise continuously,improve the resource base of the enterprise,reconstruct the process and practice of the enterprise,and promote the continuous improvement of the core competitiveness of the enterprise in order to cope with the changes that have occurred or may occur in the future.It is made clear that dynamic capability is composed of three dimensions: environmental perception capability,resource integration capability and organizational reform capability.(2)The research scale of organizational flexibility,dynamic capability,employee’s knowledge structure and environmental dynamics are developed by deductive and inductive method.The scale of organizational flexibility,dynamic capability,employee’s knowledge structure and environmental dynamics and the initial questionnaire are developed with the deductive and induvtive methodology according to the scale development steps proposed by experts.The initial questionnaire is used for pre-investigation.The data colletcted from the pre-investigation passed the reliability and validity analysis and the final measurement scale of organizational flexibility,dynamic capability,employee’s knowledge structure and environmental dynamics is formed.On this basis,we propose the formal survey questionnaire.(3)This paper puts forward the theoretical model of the relationship between organizational flexibility,dynamic capability and enterprise performance,and discusses the mediating effect of dynamic capability between organizational flexibility and enterprise performance on the basis of studying the direct influence of organizational flexibility and dynamic capability on performance of enterprise.In view of the fact that there is still a lack of systematic theoretical research on the relationship between organizational flexibility and dynamic capability,the theoretical and empirical research on the relationship among organizational flexibility,dynamic capability and performance of enterprise has obvious significance.(4)This paper studies the moderating effect of employee’s knowledge structure between organizational flexibility and dynamic capability,as well as the moderating effect of environmental dynamics between dynamic capability and enterprise performance.According to the viewpoint that knowledge is the main factor affecting dynamic capability proposed in the theory of dynamic capability,combining with the concept of employee’s knowledge heterogeneity,the employee’s knowledge structure is taken as a moderating variable into the exploration of the mechanism between organizational flexibility and dynamic capability.This paper explores how the various dimensions of organizational flexibility will have different effects on dynamic capability when the knowledge structure of employees presents different levels.Meanwhile,on the basis of the research conclusion that environmental dynamics affects the relationship between dynamic capability and performance of enterprise,the relationship between specific types of external environment and enterprise performance is further analyzed.We also discusse how the various dimensions of dynamic capability will affect the performance of enterprises when different aspects of the environmental dynamics present different extent of dynamics.To a certain extent,the research results explain the mechanism of organizational flexibility,dynamic capability and enterprise performance,and determine the conditions to utlise organizational flexibility and dynamic capability.Based on the conclusion of theoretical and empirical research in this paper,the paper puts forward that in the dynamic competitive environment,enterprises should attach importance to the role of organizational flexibility and actively cultivate organizational flexibility in order to improve corporate performance.Since the dynamic capability has the mediating effect between organizational flexibility and enterprise performance,the enterprise should also actively enhance the dynamic capability of the enterprise in order to improve the enterprise performance.Based on the moderating effect of employee’s knowledge structure,in the work of constructing organizational flexibility to improve corporate dynamic capability,enterprises should strengthen the development and management of human resources and heterogeneous knowledge capital by improving and perfecting the talent selection and appointment system to fully stimulate the value and potential of heterogeneous knowledge capital and further enhance the influence of organizational flexibility on dynamic capability.Based on the moderating effect of environmental dynamics between dynamic capability and enterprise performance,enterprises should actively construct enterprise information system,especially in dynamic environment,in order to enhance the ability of enterprises in the field of scanning and discerning environment which can further promote the positive impact of dynamic capability on enterprise performance.