A Research On Organizational Transformation With The Constraint

The Internet information age increases the uncertainty of enterprise management,which makes the enterprise pay more attention to the environmental changes in order to achieve sustained competitiveness.Change becomes the norm in business development,and the continuous change also becomes an important approach to manage the uncertainty.The process of transformation has always been the focus of the transformation research.This paper takes a successful transformation of media enterprise as the research object.Through the qualitative study method and paradox perspective,the research explores how enterprise achieves transformation with the constraints.Firstly,this research explores the external and internal process of transformation.With the interaction of the external environment,it finds out that the enterprise constraint is the process of reducing the dimension to deal with the uncertainty.It includes two processes: constraining triggering and constraining convergence.The constraint deconstructs the enterprise behavior to the "exploitation and exploration" paradox.By constraining convergence,the enterprise's "exploration" behavior can be brought back to the " exploitation " behavior,and it is appropriate to control the uncertain risks in the exploration process of enterprise.Constraining triggering can inspire enterprise to focus the utilization of its resources and activate marginal resources and potential resources.The new added resources can push the " exploitation " behavior to "exploration" behavior which can benefit the new attempt to response to the environment.The dual function of constraints: constraining convergence and constraining triggering,can facilitate the dynamic circulation of "exploitation" and "exploration”.Each cycle activates and releases the potential resources,which makes the enterprise obtains the impetus for the transformation.Secondly,this paper puts forward the internal transformation mechanism within the constraint.After realizing the dual function of constraint,the internal enterprise has formed the three processes for transformation: the open trial,waiting selection and the natural retention.In the phase of open trial,the behavior is to encourage innovation and internal activity,and the business presents disordered features,which can internalize the uncertainty.In the phase of waiting selection,the behavior is organization orientation and resource integration.The business presents simple ordered and mutual coordinating feature.Constraint function provides a buffer for the business incubation space,which enables to integrate resources and gradually mature.In the phase of natural retention,the behavior is remain and energy release.The business presents complex ordered,for the exploratory business matures and the accumulation of new sources start to hatch the new business.The dual function of constraint,constraining convergence and constraining triggering,makes the enterprise form an “open-convergent-trigger-open” dynamic cycle.The mechanism of internal transformation can better support the interaction between enterprise and external environment,reduce the dimension of uncertainty management and grasp the opportunities.Then the enterprise can maintain activity and finally achieve the transformation.The innovation point of this paper is using the perspective of paradox,revealing the constraint has the dual function.The dual function of constraint,constraining convergence and constraining triggering,benefit the management of uncertainty,facilitate the dynamic equilibrium between exploitation and exploration,and finally realize the transformation.The internal transformation mechanism of the constraint has opened the process of continuous change.It can replenish the theory of continuous change in how the enterprise responses to the environment dynamically.It brings important theoretical enlightenment to the research of the transformation process,and brings a new perspective to solve the transformation dilemma for the enterprise management practice.