Towards An Organic perspective on strateg. The Mechanistic perspective, страница 12

The second pillar of the organic perspective, and parallel to the mechanistic perspective’s main theoretical models, is the Organization–Environment– Strategy–Performance (OESP) model, a metatheoretical framework. The purpose of the model is to organize and synthesize existing middle-range theoretical models and to stimulate the development of new ones. In addition, the model, described in Figure 1, aims to inform and reinforce analytic models of strategic management and choice. We next describe the major constructs in the OESP model, their key relationships, and the main implications of the model.

Major constructs in the OESP model

In addition to the already-defined concept of strategy, the other major constructs in the OESP model

are firm organization, firm environment, and firm performance.^[9]

Firm organization. Firm organization includes the actual and potential internal means, mechanisms, institutions, developments, and forces that induce, enable, modify, and carry out the firm’s strategy. These elements are not simply viewed as tools but also as part of an open system that has organic qualities such as emergence, informal relationships, and indeterminacy. Firm organization particularly includes the states and paths (i.e., history) of (a) resources (and technology), and (b) administrative and social structure. These two categories are viewed as mutually supporting and as distinct from strategy, whose main role is to mediate and guide firm–environment interactions. Each of the categories is viewed as an open subsystem that interacts with related elements in the environment through resource exchange, communication, and other relationships and boundary activities.

Resources (and technology)—we include under this general heading internal means and developments that can be drawn upon to accomplish the firm’s goals, and especially those unique features called the firm’s distinctive competencies (Selznick, 1957). We break down the general heading into the following: resources—the financial, physical, informational, and organizational resources, and the human resources such as experience, skills, motivation, and behaviors associated with individuals in the organization (Penrose, 1959; Barney, 1991); relationships —the formal and informal relationships, such as contracts, trust, loyalty, legal rights, and social capital that bind the firm with various actors and stakeholders; and work flow technology —the various activities and operations in which resources are employed, and the way work is done (Porter, 1985).

Administrative and social structure represents the ways in which means are administered and relationships are regulated among the firm’s participants. These include the organization’s structure and processes —the formal (e.g., governance structure) and informal (e.g., culture, politics, control) mechanisms and organizing activities for allocating, coordinating, and mobilizing decision authority, resources, and rewards (Penrose, 1959; Chandler, 1962; Galbraith and Nathanson, 1978; Miles and Snow, 1978). In particular, we stress the processes, such as formulation, and emergence, by which strategies are created, realized, and managed, and the processes by which information is created, acquired, developed, maintained, organized, disseminated, transmitted, and communicated (e.g., Huber, 1991). Also included are the nature, attributes, connections, core values, beliefs, ideology, and behavior of strategic leaders and key decision-makers in the organization (Selznick, 1957; Porter, 1980; Collins and Porras, 1994).