Assessing Firm Readiness to Adopt Cluster-Based Innovative Projects: A Segmentation Analysis

Relation between Organizational Capacity for Change and Readiness for Change

Readiness for change is seen as an important prerequisite increasing chances for change success. While assessing the readiness level allows for tailoring of the interventions and the change process, it requires time and planning. When organizations face increasing levels of unpredictability and need to adapt to fast environmental shifts, linear causal models to plan and implement changes become harder to follow. Emergent changes also barely accommodate planning and assessing readiness levels. Multiple and overlapping change initiatives become the norm rather than an exception, thus exert additional pressure on organizations hoping to start with assessing and developing readiness. Applying dynamic capabilities lens allows addressing such challenges through the concept of organizational capacity for change. This article reviews theoretical and empirical research advances to answer two questions. First, how do readiness and organizational capacity for change differ? A review of theoretical assumptions, dimensions and antecedents is employed to delineate the two constructs. Second, what is the relationship between the two constructs? The analysis is guided by an organizational change typology to highlight their applicability to selected types of change. The research concludes that capacity for change differs and can complement readiness in helping organizations navigate unpredictable environments.

Redesigning the Production Process Using Simulation for Sustainable Development of the Enterprise

In this case study, the medium-sized enterprise is looking for ways to achieve sustainable development. Following the Industry 4.0 trend could get the enterprise closer. The rate of information technology usage is very low in the enterprise. The enterprise’s problem is the long production of orders. The orders had to be rejected many times because the customer’s time limit could not be met. The major cause seems to be two environmentally insufficient and obsolete machines in the blast cleaning operation. These machines are replaced in the production by one new wheel blast machine. However, the production process must be redesigned and the layout changed to use this machine effectively. This redesign is difficult to verify and evaluate in the pilot plant experiment. Simulation is the most suitable tool to do it quickly and relatively easily. The ExtendSim simulation program creates a real production process model and then applies the redesign of this process in the model. The model must be thoroughly verified concerning the real production process to not distort the results. The result of the redesign of the production process is the reduction of the production duration by almost 50% and elimination of two environmentally insufficient and obsolete machines. Improved machine blast cleaning has also significantly reduced the utilization of blast cleaning. Spared capacities can be used for pre-production or otherwise for the profit-making of the enterprise. However, a new bottleneck appeared elsewhere in the production process by removing the previous one. The innovation passed through barriers, and Slovak small and medium enterprises started building sustainable development. The enterprise still must focus on further innovation, and more investment will be needed to achieve the final sustainable development goal.