Chapter 7 Conclusion and Implications for Future Research

Abstract

The resource-based view of an organization suggests that differences in resources among organizations affect the propensities for organizations to undertake strategic planning initiatives in response to environmental changes. Organizational resources may be used less effectively when organizations engage in “exploitation” of knowledge that they already have acquired or when they try to use their resources to improve the products and/or services they already produce or provide rather than to undertake new or radically altered activities. Kraatz and Zajac (2001) suggest that organizations relatively well endowed with resources are less likely to engage in major strategic changes to adapt to environmental changes. This, may be because the abundance of (slack) organizational resources may permit them to survive environmental changes without undertaking any strategic changes. These organizations need to respond/innovate only when the environmental change is perceived to create a significant threat to the organization's survival and/or growth. Kraatz and Zajac (2001) noted that organizations having the most success in the past are the least likely to change their goals because of their commitment to the current strategies that maximize the utilization of existing resources, even in situations that involve environmental uncertainty (p. 636). Most of the time, resources-rich large organizations are more likely to survive external threats from environmental change. Nevertheless, this does not rule out the fact that successful strategic changes are initiated/undertaken by resources-endowed firms. When resource-endowed firms do undertake a strategic innovation, their superior resources can facilitate the innovation and increase the likelihood of its success. Thus when the resource endowed organizations do undertake the changes, they are likely to be adaptive to change and to benefit from strategic changes.

Citation

Sisaye, S. and Birnberg, J.G. (2012), "Chapter 7 Conclusion and Implications for Future Research", Sisaye, S. and Birnberg, J.G. (Ed.) An Organizational Learning Approach to Process Innovations: The Extent and Scope of Diffusion and Adoption in Management Accounting Systems (Studies in Managerial and Financial Accounting, Vol. 24), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 111-119. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3512(2012)0000024011