The Influence Mechanism Of Organizational Structural Inertia On Organizational Attention Of Enterprises In Transition

In the era of deepening globalization and digital economy,manufacturing industry has entered a critical period of high-quality development,transformation and upgrading.However,traditional enterprise that has been in power for a long time usually sticks to a certain main business,and managers have limited rationality,so it is difficult for them to switch the main business in an instant.In the face of discontinuous change situation,inertia factors and unique response mechanisms of enterprises may be more obviously reflected.However,by tracking the practice of enterprises and teasing out the research literature,it is found that most enterprises regard inertia as a negative factor that hinders development,and focusing on the structural inertia’s role of environmental selection at the group level is accompanied by a neglect of strategic selection,especially for individuals who demonstrate entrepreneurial flair within the organization.In addition,studies on attention in strategic decision making that emphasize managers’ bounded rationality and propose a compatible approach to the longstanding controversy of inertia and adaptation have rarely been linked to the inertial perspective,and researches on exploratory,evolution and inheritance and empirical support are even less.In view of this,this study aims to answer the following core questions:how do structural inertia and its antecedents function and evolve in the process of enterprise transformation?How are strategic issues or focus driven?In the process of executive attention promoting the implementation of alternatives after the establishment of issue,what is the influence relationship and path of inertia on attention?How do organizational attention processes and organizational response types evolve based on the influence of organizational structural inertia in the face of breakthrough transition situations?How to reflect the differential response mechanism?According to the above questions,this research will introduce integration framework which reflects the duality of stability and change of the structural inertia into the organizational attention research for expanding the attention research and supplementing traditional structural inertia theory within ecology field.Case study,grounded theory and content analysis methods have been used to analyze the collected data.To answer these questions,the following steps were followed:First,in the background of the development and transformation of enterprises in the home appliance industry,the structural inertia and its antecedents were classified and extracted in a time series manner,and the issues or foci of attention dominated by the external environment were established,and the organizational attention structure and measurement were made.Thus,the influence and evolution process model of structural inertia and attention was obtained.Second,it investigates the initiative of individual from specific enterprise,and introduces the case that has experienced such situation for analysis,whose strategic issue and special pattern of attention allocation led by senior executives,namely,attention engagement from the perspective of deliberate structural inertia.To construct a model of structural inertia and organizational attention allocation process(especially attention engagement in top-down process and bottom-up remodeling)under individual active intervention in an organization;Finally,based on the above integration perspective,the private manufacturing enterprise is selected that has experienced issues switch.and issues driven by two kinds of situations including environmental pressure or power and organize individual factor are both covered.Multiple cases facing to breakthrough structural change are introduced for the analysis and induction of different and similar types of transformation strategies,to investigate the responses to different paths between strategic and build their differential mechanism model.Results show that:(1)in transformation and upgrading of enterprise strategy,inertial antecedents that reflect the source of inertia are multiply interacted rather than a single rendering,and inertia in the stability of reinforcement at the same time also have evolutionary aspect.During the focusing of issues driven by the external environment stimulation and the configuration process of attention,inertia that is represented by specific antecedent formulated and accumulated with that,and in the later stage,it will react on the determination of new issues,sense-making and the formation of initiatives,and even shape the long-term attention model of enterprise,while key events can reshape the attention mode by promoting the variation of executives’ cognition and corporate culture inertia;(2)In the focus and interpretation of issues driven by the active intervention of individuals in the organization,deliberate inertia of executives shapes the attentional engagement of organizational members,which restricts the top-down allocation of attention,the formation of participants’ collective sharing bias and the results of sense-making,and even filters the influence of external key issues.Managers actively create or change the environment and resource conditions,unless the key events that significantly affect enterprise performance are involved,it is difficult for the attention selection of bottom-up issue shifting and remodeling to occur;(3)Enterprises that with the different structure strategies can be various on the motivating source of issues,and enterprises with the similar structure change mode can be various on their attention structures,structural inertia antecedents and breakthrough ways,which further influences enterprise’s decision variations as initiative to change,purposeful change and change with external force,and different structural response types,and demonstrates different quality of attention(stability),performance outcomes,and long-term risk projections.This study tries to enrich and expand the integrated research framework and research perspective of the theory of organizational attention and inertia,and also provides reference for the government to formulate relevant guidance and support policies as well as the subsequent reform and transformation paths and methods of relevant manufacturing enterprises.