HRM in turbulent times: how to achieve organizational agility?

Abstract

In this paper we develop a heuristic framework to identify how organizations survive in the dynamic environment caused by the economic crisis, by identifying organizational practices which are important determinants of organizational agility and determining in what way institutional mechanisms facilitate or hinder organizations in achieving organizational agility. Our paper starts with setting out the characteristics of a dynamic environment and the challenges organizations face in such an environment. Next, we discuss the concept of dynamic capabilities and develop this concept toward a heuristic framework for organizational agility. In this framework we focus our attention to three specific topics: the way in which an organization can scale its' workforce, maintain and extend its' knowledge base and is able to balance both control and autonomy through its' organizational infrastructure. We then turn our attention to the institutional context, which impacts the decisions of the adoption and implementation of relevant organizational practices and the attitude of management and available options toward this institutional context. The development of our heuristic framework is accompanied by a set of propositions derived from the theory and concepts discussed. Finally, we give a provisional evaluation of the potential contribution of our framework in being able to cope with unforeseen consequences and sometimes huge impact of a financial–economic crisis such as the present one.

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