How Enterprises Adopt Agile Forms of Organizational Design

Implementation of Management 3.0: its consistency and conditional factors

Purpose

Rapid changes in the business environment and the accelerating dynamics and increasing complexity shaping the functioning of organizations have given rise to modern concepts of people management. The Management 3.0 (M3.0) concept was developed based on agile project management concept; however, it can be implemented not only in projects, but also in the entire organization. It consists of six pillars such as: energizing people, empowering teams, aligning constraints, developing competencies, growing structure, and improving everything. The paper aims to present the relationships between the level of implementation of the above-presented pillars and such variables as the scope of use of agile project management methodologies, and project managers' (PMs) as well as HR practitioners' knowledge in this area.

Design/methodology/approach

Members of PMI and IPMA representing 34 companies located in Poland took part in the research which was based on a CAWI method.

Findings

Research shows that the level of M3.0 implementation – in terms of its six pillars – is internally consistent but mostly on a “defined” level. No correlation was observed between the implementation of M3.0 and the frequency with which agile project management methodology is applied. On the other hand, there is a strong correlation between the level of PMs' knowledge and the implementation of some of the M3.0 pillars. HR specialists' knowledge in the field of M3.0 is not associated with organizational advances in the implementation of M3.0.

Originality/value

As the first research project in the area of M3.0, this study proposes practical implications as well as topics which require further empirical exploration.

Enterprise agility – its meaning, managerial expectations and barriers to implementation – a survey of three countries

Purpose

The aim of the article is to define the way of understanding of agile in enterprises, to verify the factors limiting agility implementation, as well as to understand what the expectations of enterprise management towards agile implementation are.

Design/methodology/approach

The article uses both literature studies and empirical research. The research was conducted in 2019 in 152 companies located in Luxemburg, Croatia and Poland, which have implemented an agile approach to management.

Findings

In most of the surveyed organisations, agile is understood as a methodology for creating projects or applications. The most common barriers to implementing agile in the surveyed enterprises are culture too deeply rooted in traditional methodologies and the lack of funds to introduce transformations. Growth in productivity and competitiveness and reducing delivery time stand out among the most common expectations of the management of the surveyed enterprises.

Originality/value

The article is in line with the idea of analysing the key factors of a successful agile implementation, which can be a guideline for an enterprise to manage the adoption of agility. The article utilises original research tools, provides comparisons between countries and presents implications for practitioners and researchers.

Hybrid organizational forms in public sector’s digital transformation: a technology enactment approach

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine how public sector organizations become nimbler while retaining their resilience during digital transformation.

Design/methodology/approach

The study adopts a hermeneutic approach in conducting deep expert interviews with 22 senior executives and managers of multiple organizations. The method blends theory and expert views to study digital transformation in the context of enterprise information management.

Findings

Drawing on technology enactment framework (TEF), this research poses that organizational form is critical in the enactment of technologies in digital transformation. By extending the TEF, the authors claim that organizations are not in pure bureaucratic or network organizational form during digital transformation; instead, they need a hybrid combination in order to support competing strategic needs for nimbleness and resilience simultaneously. The four hybrid organizational forms presented in this model (4R) allow for networks and bureaucracy to coexist, though at different levels depending on the level of resiliency and nimbleness required at each point in the continuous digital transformation journey.

Research limitations/implications

The main theoretical contribution of this research is to extend the TEF to illustrate that the need for coexistence of nimbleness with stability in a digital transformation results in a hybrid of networks and bureaucratic organization forms. This research aims to guide public sector organizations' digital transformation with extended the TEF as a tool for building the required organizational forms to influence the technology enactment to best meet their strategic needs in the digital era.

Practical implications

The results from expert interviews point to the fact that the hybrid organizational forms create a multi-modal organization, extending the understanding of enterprise information management. Depending on the department or business needs, a hybrid organizational form mode would be dominant. This dominance creates a paradox in organizations to handle both resilience and nimbleness. Therefore, the 4R model is provided as a guide to public sector managers and consultants to guide strutting their organization for digital transformation.

Originality/value

The model (4R), the extended TEF, shows that organizations still work towards networks and bureaucracy; however, they are not two distinct concepts anymore; they coexist at different levels in hybrid forms depending on the needs of the organization.