| In the context of transition economy, firms are faced with the competitiveenvironment characterized by high dynamic and complexity. How to enhance the level ofstrategic flexibility to deal with the uncertainty of the external environment by changingstrategy and transforming strategic model has become a hot issue of management practiceand theoretical innovation.Although the extant researches believed that high quality network resources whichwas the key strategic resources to firm’s survival and development have an important rolein the fostering of strategic flexibility, but there has been no deep research on themechanism of how a firm’s relational embeddedness impacts on the strategic flexibility,and the relative empirical researches are even insufficient.To fill this gap, this paper focused on "How does the relational embeddedness affectstrategic flexibility "as the basic question, trying to open the black box of the mechanismherein. Specifically, on the basis of relative theories reviewing, the paper proposed thefollowing three research questions: Firstly, will relational embeddedness impact onstrategic flexibility fostering? Secondly, whether the different degree of relationalembeddedness will produce diverse influence on strategic flexibility? And thirdly, whetherthe mechanisms of relational embeddedness on strategic flexibility are affected by themeditative effect of an explorative learning?To answer these research questions, the paper had brought forward severalhypothesises about the impact of relational embeddedness on strategic flexibility, andconstructed a theoretical concept model. Then135firm samples from the questionnairewere used to test the hypothesis and the model empirically. Ultimately, some mainconclusions have been reached:(1) Relational embeddedness is a key factor in fostering strategic flexibility. Firms cancontact to the outside diverse information and knowledge, access to quality heterogeneousresources, identify external strategic opportunities effectively, and improve strategicflexibility through external networks.(2) The different degree of relational embeddedness produces diverse influence on strategic flexibility. There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between relationalembeddedness and strategic flexibility. It has a boundary between income and hidden risksaroused from organizational relational embeddedness. Beyond a certain threshold point,marginal returns will fail to offset the increment of risk, bring about "relational lock-in",limit the vision of actors, and form strategic inertia.(3) Explorative learning plays a meditative role in the relationship between relationalembeddedness and strategic flexibility. A reasonable and moderate level of relationalembeddedness can bring quality resources to firms, and enhance the level of strategicflexibility, which was realized by the venture attitude and the spirit of explorative learningthat the firm itself has. In other words, appropriate level of relational embeddednessimproves explorative learning ability, and then promotes the cultivation of firm’s strategicflexibility.Overall, this paper makes innovation in the following three aspects:(1) We placed strategic flexibility in the context of external, analysed the positive andnegative impacts of relational embeddedness on strategic flexibility in-depth, and deepenedthe researches of "relationships embedded paradox".(2) We investigated the explorative learning in the context of external network,explained the different influences of external relational embeddedness on explorativelearning, and enriched the researches of the antecedent of organizational learning.(3) We introduced explorative learning as a meditative variable, revealed themechanism of the impact of relational embeddedness on the organizational environmentadaptability, explored the restrictive effect of over embeddedness on organizationallearning and the strategic transition barriers triggered by it. This provided a newperspective to research the generated mechanism of the strategic flexibility. |
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