MICHAL JIRÁSEK
Brno 2024
FACULTY OF ECONOMICS AND ADMINISTRATION
Organizational
adaptation in the
changing environment
ORGANIZATIONAL ADAPTATION TO THE CHANGING ENVIRONMENT
2
Bibliographic record
Author: Michal Jirásek
Faculty of Economics and Administration
Masaryk University
Title: Organizational adaptation to the changing
environment
Year: 2024
Number of Pages: 52 + Annexes
Keywords: Organizational adaptation; industry dynamics;
environmental dynamics; incumbents; new
entrants; performance feedback; resistance to
change; organizational ecology; evolutionary
view
ORGANIZATIONAL ADAPTATION TO THE CHANGING ENVIRONMENT
3
Abstract
Organizational adaptation is one of the key themes in the field of
strategic management. The collection of papers and the accompanying
commentary provide an evolutionary perspective on how organizations
adapt to the changing environment and why they struggle with
adaptation. The commentary presents a general frame that explains the
underlying theoretical base of my research and my methodological
choices. Building on the findings and contributions of the papers in the
collection, the commentary also outlines future direction of my
research.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
5
Table of Contents
1 Introduction 7
1.1 Structure of the commentary.......................................................................................10
1.2 Notes on the terminology..............................................................................................10
1.3 Note on the authorship of tables and figures.........................................................11
2 Theoretical bases and state of research in the field 12
2.1 Behavioral strategy: Lenses on adaptive behavior..............................................13
2.2 Industry and environment: The context of adaptive behavior.......................21
2.3 Evolutionary perspective on organizations ...........................................................27
3 Research methodology 31
4 Summary of findings and overall scientific contributions 33
5 Limitations and desirable course of further research 37
6 Conclusion 41
7 References 43
Annexes: Published papers 52
Ownership Structure of Franchise Chains: Trade-Off Between
Adaptation and Control..................................................................................................53
Determinants of overall franchisee satisfaction: application of the
performance feedback theory .....................................................................................73
The Application of Behavioral Insights into B2B Market Research..........................92
Corporate boards' and firms' R&D responses to performance
feedback...............................................................................................................................96
Klima DAO: a crypto answer to carbon markets ........................................................... 109
Flying high on low cost: Success in the low-cost airline industry........................... 122
INTRODUCTION
7
1 Introduction
“The magnitude and pace of change we undertook this fiscal year is a
major factor in our results. In hindsight, it’s clear we changed too much
too fast.”
- Alan G. Lafley, after being appointed as a new CEO of Procter &
Gamble (June 8th, 2000)
“We developed the world’s first consumer digital camera, but we could
not get approval to launch or sell it because of fear of the effects on the
film market.”
- Don Strickland, former vice-president of Kodak (Usborne, 2012)
Why do organizations fail to adapt to the changing environment?
The importance of this question makes organizational adaptation a
central theme in the organizational view of strategic management
(Greve, 2021; Mithani, 2020; Sarta et al., 2021). This is the theme that
constitutes my research in general and the collection of published
scientific papers for which I am writing this commentary reflects this
interest. Specifically, the six papers in the submitted collection (Table 1)
provide elements of answers to three related research questions:
1. What does the adaptation of incumbents, i.e., the established
industry players, look like?
2. What factors constrain the adaptation of incumbents?
3. How do new entrants, i.e., new industry players, differ from
incumbents in the process of organizational adaptation?
The idea behind the collection of papers is to introduce a broad
spectrum (for details, see the text below) of my work in terms of
themes, methodology (see chapter 3, “Research methodology”), and
contexts (industrial firms, airlines, franchising, and the Voluntary
Carbon Market), but also in terms of authorship (solo papers vs
international collaborations) and paper format (from “classical”
management quantitative studies, through a case study, to a
practitioners’ reflection). I believe that this diversity reflects the fact
that I am agnostic as to any particular approach and choose the one
best suited to studying organizational adaptation.
INTRODUCTION
8
Table 1. List of papers in the collection and authorship contributions
Paper Journal My
share
My
contribution
Relevance
to RQ*
Paper 1 Uncertainty:
“Ownership structure of
franchise chains: Trade-off
between adaptation and
control” (Glaser et al., 2020)
International
Journal of the
Economics of
Business
33% Data analysis,
overall write-
up
1, 2
Paper 2 Satisfaction:
“Determinants of overall
franchisee satisfaction:
application of the
performance feedback
theory” (Jirásek, Gaffke, et
al., 2022)
Journal of
Strategic
Marketing
50%
(lead
author)
Research
design, data
analysis,
overall write-
up
1
Paper 3 Behavioral: “The
application of behavioral
insights into B2B market
research” (Jirásek,
Macháčová, et al., 2022)
Journal of
Applied
Behavioral
Science
80%
(lead
author)
Complete
paper
2
Paper 4 Boards: “Corporate
boards' and firms' R&D
responses to performance
feedback” (Jirásek, 2023a)
Journal of
Strategy and
Management
100%
(solo
author)
Complete
paper
1, 2
Paper 5 DAO: “Klima DAO: A
crypto answer to carbon
markets” (Jirásek, 2023b)
Journal of
Organization
Design
100%
(solo
author)
Complete
paper
3
Paper 6 Airlines: “Flying high
on low cost: Success in the
low-cost airline industry”
(Majerová & Jirásek, 2023)
PLOS One 50%
(lead
author)
Overall
write-up
3
* RQ = research question (see the three studied research questions above)
Although the three research questions presented above do not
encompass all the complexity of organizational adaptation, they
indicate the characteristics of my work (not only the topic, but also
methodology, etc., as will become evident later). In the text below, I will
INTRODUCTION
9
summarize how the individual papers in this collection relate to these
three research questions (RQs):
RQ 1) What does the adaptation of incumbents look like? The
adaptive behavior of incumbents is influenced by numerous factors, one
of the most important of which is performance feedback (Cyert &
March, 1963), whereby change is prompted by failure to attain
organizational aspirations (i.e., performance goals). Two papers in the
collection are studies based on the performance feedback theory: one in
the context of franchising (Paper 2 Satisfaction – for paper codes, see
Table 1) and the other in the context of German industrial firms (Paper
4 Boards). Alternatively, adaptive behavior may be driven by the effort
to directly reflect the environmental conditions. This notion is at the
core of another franchising-based paper on the choice of the ratio of
franchisor- and franchisee-owned outlets in response to perceived
environmental uncertainty (Paper 1 Uncertainty).
RQ 2) What factors constrain the adaptation of incumbents? One of
the fundamental questions of strategic management is why incumbents
fail to adapt to changing conditions (Sarta et al., 2021). As evident from
the broad interest in organizational adaptation (Greve, 2021; Sarta et
al., 2021), the intended organizational adaptation that I describe in the
papers above may not be sufficient – at least not in the long term – to
sustain the organization’s continued success. While “objective” factors
play a role (e.g., environmental uncertainty makes it more difficult to
find the optimal course of action), in the papers presented in the
collection, I focus on “subjective” factors, i.e., those driven by the
bounded rationality of decision-makers within organizations (i.e.,
limited cognitive capacity, limited information, etc., Simon, 1955).
Three papers relate to this subjectivity: Paper 1 Uncertainty notes that
when facing high perceived (i.e., subjective) environmental uncertainty,
franchisors tend to prefer control over franchise outlets in an effort to
“control” the situation. This behavioral tendency is one of the many
findings that emerged from the study that summarizes the project to
formulate a methodology for applying behavioral economics insights
into B2B market research (Paper 3 Behavioral). Indirectly, human
limitations and interactions are reflected in differences in responses to
performance feedback. For example, the boards of firms with high age
diversity tend to be much more responsive to both negative and
positive performance feedback (Paper 4 Boards).
INTRODUCTION
10
RQ 3) How do new entrants differ from incumbents in the process
of organizational adaptation? The pressure incumbents face when
adapting comes not only from the environment or the difficulty of
responding, it also comes from competitive changes within the
industry, with new entrants bringing different elements to it (in this
regard, note that the incumbents’ adaptation also brings change, see
section 2.1). In the two papers that relate to this research question, I
focus on novelty in forms of organizing (Paper 5 DAO) and novelty in
business models (Paper 6 Airlines).
1.1 Structure of the commentary
After the introduction, I describe a general theoretical frame for my
research (in chapter 2, “Theoretical bases and state of research in the
field”). This is the most elaborated section of the commentary, as it goes
beyond the theoretical parts of individual papers and provides a frame
that connects their insights. Subsequently, in chapter 3 (“Research
methodology”), I briefly summarize the diverse methodological
approaches that were employed in the collection of studies. After that
(in chapter 4, “Summary of findings and overall scientific
contributions”), I summarize the key findings and contributions of the
individual studies. Finally (in chapter 5, “Limitations and desirable
course of further research”), I outline some general limitations related
to the research presented in the collection and also indicate the steps I
would like to take to build on the research agenda presented in the
collection.
1.2 Notes on the terminology
The usage of several terms in the commentary warrants a brief
explanation. I use the term “industry” to refer to a group of
organizations that compete with each other in providing the specific
product or service (similar to Agarwal & Kim, 2021). This contrasts
with the term “market”, which comprises these organizations but also
their customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. These terms are
complemented by the word “environment”, which I employ when
referring to the broader surroundings of the industry or the market
(i.e., the general environment), which is a “… source of general social,
INTRODUCTION
11
political, economic, demographic, and technological trends”
(Bourgeois, 1980, p. 25).
I mostly use the term “organization” instead of the more focused
term “firm” where the insights in the commentary are relevant to
organizations in general. I understand the organization as “a group of
people who work together in an organized way for a shared purpose”
(Cambridge Dictionary, 2024). Thus, I often use the word organization
in the following text to refer to such a group of people (unless
otherwise stated). When I write “the organization chooses,” I mean that
“the choice is the outcome of complex decision-making within the
organization”. I believe that this simplification of a complex reality
makes the text more accessible.
I use the phrase “adaptive behavior” when referring to a set of
actions of organizations motivated by their adaptive efforts, while the
term “change” refers to a single action. For example, an increase in R&D
expenditure in relation to sales (which I observed in Paper 4 Boards) is
a change in the organization’s innovation strategy. Observed over time
(e.g., over several years) or in relation to other actions (e.g., making an
acquisition), it reflects the adaptive behavior of the organization.
1.3 Note on the authorship of tables and figures
It should be noted that the tables and figures included were either
created by me for the purposes of this commentary or come from my
own unpublished work (e.g., research proposals). For that reason, in
accordance with the formatting customs of management journals, I do
not include information on the authorship below the individual tables
and figures. In so doing, I declare I am the author of all the tables and
figures in the commentary.
THEORETICAL BASES AND STATE OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD
12
2 Theoretical bases and state of research in
the field
The individual papers in the submitted collection of work contain the
corresponding theoretical bases and states of research and I refer
readers to annexes where they may find all the details. Below, I provide
a summary of the papers from this perspective (Table 2) and in the
following sections I introduce the general theoretical frame on
organizational adaption that I have used.
Table 2. Overview of the theoretical bases of the papers in the collection
Paper Research domain Core theory
Paper 1 Uncertainty Strategic management:
Organization design;
Entrepreneurship
Transaction cost theory
Paper 2 Satisfaction Strategic management:
Behavioral strategy;
Entrepreneurship
Performance feedback theory
Paper 3 Behavioral Behavioral economics;
Marketing
Behavioral economics
theories (applied research)
Paper 4 Boards Strategic management:
Behavioral strategy
Performance feedback theory
Paper 5 DAO Strategic management:
Organization design
Organization design and
previous studies on the topic
(explorative research)
Paper 6 Airlines Strategic management:
Competitive strategy
Previous studies on the topic
(explorative research)
In chapter 2, I do not cover certain paper-specific theories and
concepts and states of research in the corresponding fields in cases
where these served the purpose of a single paper. For example, in Paper
5 DAO, I worked with a framework for the identification of novel forms
of organizing (Puranam et al., 2014). This framework served as an
analytical tool that enabled the paper to contribute to my core research
theme of organizational adaptation. However, the framework itself was
THEORETICAL BASES AND STATE OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD
13
a specific detail that I do not consider necessary for the theoretical
frame presented in the commentary. In this regard, I would like to
reiterate that the annexes include all the necessary details.
Such an organization-centric perspective means (in the spirit of
Greve, 2021) that I: 1) consider organizations as the central actors in
my research; 2) see their behavior to be the outcome of decisions by
boundedly rational individuals embedded within the organizational
context; and 3) see organizations as embedded within their
environment. This perspective is reflected in the structure of the
following text, as I first introduce the key relevant insights into the
behavior of organizations (2.1 “Behavioral strategy: Lenses on adaptive
behavior”) and then discuss the role of the environment in
organizational adaptation (2.2 “Industry and environment: The context
of adaptive behavior”). In the final section (2.3, “Evolutionary
perspective on organizations”), I present the underlying evolutionary
perspective on organizations and associate it with the papers in the
collection.
I do not attempt to provide a complete picture of organizational
adaptation with the presented frame, and I do not claim that the frame
represents a novel view of the phenomenon. Instead, it is a patchwork
of compatible theories that allows me to put my research into a
coherent body despite its current limitations (see Chapter 5,
“Limitations and desirable course of further research”).
2.1 Behavioral strategy: Lenses on adaptive behavior
Powell et al., 2011 (p. 1369) summarize that “Behavioral strategy
applies cognitive and social psychology to strategic management theory
and practice. It aims to strengthen the empirical integrity and practical
usefulness of strategy theory by grounding strategic management in
realistic assumptions about human cognition, emotion, and social
interaction.” The emergence of behavioral strategy reflects similar
movements in economics or finance, but, in contrast, strategic
management never truly deviated from its practical applicability (e.g.,
Ansoff, 1979; Cyert & March, 1963).
Apart from influences from broader behavioral sciences, much of
behavioral strategy is rooted in the works of the Carnegie School
(Gavetti et al., 2007), represented by Herbert Simon, James March, and
THEORETICAL BASES AND STATE OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD
14
Richard Cyert (Cyert & March, 1963; March & Simon, 1958; Simon,
1947). In the field of strategic management, their work culminated in A
Behavioral Theory of the Firm (Cyert & March, 1963, 1992), which
inspired developments in institutional theory, organizational politics,
organizational ecology, and organizational learning (Argote & Greve,
2007). Their work also laid the foundations for performance feedback
theory (Greve, 2003)
2.1.1 Performance feedback theory
Performance feedback theory (formed in Cyert & March, 1963) sets out
a relatively simple process for organizational adaptation (Figure 1): 1)
the organization forms its aspirations (i.e., a performance level it wants
to attain); 2) the organization attains a certain performance level; 3) the
organization receives performance feedback based on a comparison of
its actual performance and its prior aspirations; and 4) the organization
reacts-responds to performance feedback. Below, I elaborate on the
individual parts of the process and embed it in the broader
organizational and environmental context (see Figure 2 later).
Figure 1. A simple performance feedback process
Formation of aspirations. Performance feedback theory builds on
Herbert Simon’s concept of bounded rationality (Simon, 1955). It does
THEORETICAL BASES AND STATE OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD
15
not expect organizations to strive for maximum (optimal) performance.
Instead, the theory assumes that organizations strive for satisfactory
performance, the performance that reaches specific targets. Cyert and
March (1963) assumed that the initial aspiration is set by a dominant
coalition, specifically, a group of the organization’s stakeholders with
majority power. This is analogous to the political process in which a
government is formed from several parties with (not fully
corresponding) individual goals. Aspiration is a performance level
(related to a selected performance dimension, i.e., by which the
performance is measured) the dominant coalition agrees upon, which
would be sufficient for the coalition’s formation and continuation.
The dominant coalition – based on its majority power in the
organization – shapes the organization’s decision-making. For the sake
of simplicity, in this subsection I equate the organization and its
dominant coalition. This means I assume there is no friction between
these two groups. I loosen this assumption in the subsection on
resistance to change.
In general, there are three sources of general information used for
setting the aspiration (Cyert & March, 1963): 1) previous aspiration
levels (meaning that aspirations have a degree of momentum); 2) own
previous performance, known as historical aspiration (meaning that the
organization reflects on its performance; Lant, 1992), and 3) the
performance of relevant peers (meaning that the organization also
observes how others perform).
Performance achieved. Performance feedback theory is not per
se interested in what drives performance itself. This means it offers a
wealth of opportunities for combining it with theories interested in this
broad research question. At this point, I believe the general notion that
organizational performance results from a fit between organizational
actions (strategic behavior) and environmental conditions (e.g.,
Volberda et al., 2012) suffices. The strategic behavior and its underlying
influences is covered in this section on behavioral strategy, while I will
discuss the environment in more detail later in a respective section of
the text.
Performance feedback (satisfaction assessment). After
achieving a certain performance (or following some expectations of
future performance, Gavetti & Levinthal, 2000), the performance and
the aspirations are compared. This results in the organization receiving
either negative performance feedback (when performance is below the
THEORETICAL BASES AND STATE OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD
16
aspiration level) or positive performance feedback (when performance
is at or above the aspiration level).
In reality, the situation is further complicated by the fact that
organizations are likely to have multiple aspirations formulated on
different aspiration dimensions or even multiple aspiration levels on a
single dimension (e.g., Joseph & Gaba, 2015), which may result in the
organization receiving conflicting signals (attaining some aspirations
but not others). On these occasions, the interpretation of performance
feedback is far from simple, which – aside from other effects – opens
significant space for biased interpretation, for example, featuring selfenhancement
(Audia et al., 2015; Audia & Brion, 2007; Jordan & Audia,
2012).
Responses to performance feedback. The initial reaction to
performance feedback assumed by performance feedback theory (Cyert
& March, 1963) is a search for strategic alternatives. The search could
be embodied by R&D projects, market research, or labor negotiations.
There are two categories of search (Chen & Miller, 2007) –
institutionalized search, which is driven by organizational and industry
factors and has a considerable momentum (e.g., the activities of an R&D
department), and situational search, which varies with the situation.
Performance feedback primarily drives the latter. When experiencing
negative performance feedback, an organization engages in a process
known as problemistic search (Cyert & March, 1963), which aims to
close the negative gap between performance and aspirations. On the
other hand, when experiencing positive performance feedback an
organization may (depending on the size of the positive gap between
performance and aspirations) harness the resources beyond its
momentary needs (defined by, for example, budgets). These slack
resources then induce slack search, an experimentation activity that is
not possible without them.
While the search is theoretically separated from subsequent
strategic choices (strategic behavior) and their change, both real-world
behavior and empirical research often conflate both concepts. However,
this conflation relies heavily on the assumption that the more the
organization searches, the more likely it is to find better alternatives
and change its strategic behavior. This assumption may be realistic on a
large scale (note that Simon’s bounded rationality, e.g., Simon, 1955,
assumes that the organization or the individual stops searching for
alternatives once a solution likely to achieve the aspiration is found),
THEORETICAL BASES AND STATE OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD
17
but in individual cases, it may not hold (e.g., because of resistance to
change preventing the action, as I discuss in subsection 2.1.2). Thus, the
assumption creates a considerable level of noise in the empirical
findings.
Nevertheless, performance feedback literature has generated a
wealth of studies on various strategic alternatives organizations take
and their changes, such as: mergers and acquisitions or divestments
(e.g., Iyer & Miller, 2008; Kuusela et al., 2017), joining alliances (Tyler &
Caner, 2016), new market entries (Ref & Shapira, 2017), product or
innovation launches (e.g., Joseph & Gaba, 2015), promotion activity
(e.g., Vissa et al., 2010), and R&D activity (e.g., Lucas et al., 2018). In my
research, I have focused heavily on the final category – R&D – which
includes not only a paper in the collection (Paper 4. Boards) but also
numerous other papers exploring the topic from various angles (e.g.,
Jirásek, 2020a, 2020c).
THEORETICAL BASES AND STATE OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD
18
Figure 2. Performance feedback-based adaptation process
THEORETICAL BASES AND STATE OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD
19
2.1.2 Resistance to change
In the previous section, I assumed that the organization’s decisionmaking
equates to its dominant coalition decision-making. In this
section, I loosen this assumption and extend the behavioral
implications of the bounded rationality of the actors within the
organization.
While performance feedback is a stimulus for change, it may face
contradictory tendencies inside the organization. In general, people
exhibit a preference for maintaining the current situation, including
their own behavior (as we also noted in Paper 3 Behavioral). This is
evident in a wide range of individual and organizational-level
phenomena. This includes behavioral economics research into
heuristics and biases, such as a status quo bias (Kahneman et al., 1991).
Structural and process rigidity exhibited by people and, in turn,
organizations (König et al., 2021) means that organizations exhibit a
considerable degree of path dependence in their behavior. The path
dependence argument (Sydow et al., 2020, p. 718) “… stresses the
relevance of past events for current and future actions.” Performance
feedback theory (Cyert & March, 1963), which was presented in
subsection 2.1.1, complements path dependence theory by providing a
rationale for organizations for deviating from the path (negative
performance feedback, but also the search process in general) and also
for staying on it (satisficing instead of optimizing, Simon, 1955).
Complementing a general notion of path dependence with
organizational responses to performance feedback makes the
combination evolutionary (Martin & Sunley, 2006), which is vital for the
theoretical frame I will formulate later in the commentary.
As mentioned in the performance feedback theory subsection,
organizations exhibit different levels of path dependence (rigidity,
preference for status quo) in different situations. The performance
feedback literature indicates at least three such scenarios. The first is
when performance is so low that it threatens the existence of the
organization and causes a threat rigidity (Staw et al., 1981), a
phenomenon I empirically examined in Jirásek (2020a). Second, when
there is an ambiguity in interpreting the performance feedback signal,
for example, when there are multiple aspirations (Joseph & Gaba,
2015), there may be considerable room for the aforementioned self-
THEORETICAL BASES AND STATE OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD
20
enhancement (Audia et al., 2015; Audia & Brion, 2007; Jordan & Audia,
2012), which prevents organizations from changing. The third situation
is when the organization attains its aspiration so closely that it does not
create sufficient slack resources (i.e., the situation when there is no
problemistic search and slack search is negligible, Cyert & March,
1963), again a phenomenon I empirically demonstrated in Jirásek
(2020a).
The dominant coalition itself is hardly resistant to the various
behavioral shortcomings discussed above. The dominant coalition’s
dynamics are also a powerful driver of both inertia and change within
organizations (Levinthal & Pham, 2024): the dominant coalition’s
strategy reinforces its power, and others outside the coalition, to some
extent, conform to it. On the other hand, environmental dynamics may
alter the power structure within the organization, which may shift the
composition of the dominant coalition and its aspirations.
The final organizational-level phenomenon that I consider
important for my theoretical frame is the resources and capabilities of
the organization that are needed for change. This is a crucial (yet in
some domains neglected) predisposition of the organization to change.
In previous decades, the dominant paradigm in strategic management
in this area has been a resource-based view (e.g., Barney, 1991;
Wernerfelt, 1984). The most relevant part of this research stream for
my research agenda is dynamic capabilities (e.g., Eisenhardt & Martin,
2000; Teece, 2007; Teece et al., 1997), an organizational “ability to
integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external competences”
(Teece et al., 1997, p. 516). Of course, these capabilities need to be
rooted in sufficient resources for these integrating, building, and
reconfiguring processes – which is an issue very evident in the limited
degree of change exhibited by organizations close to bankruptcy
(D’Aveni, 1989; Jirásek, 2020a).
Limitations in resources and capabilities mean that given a
sufficiently high level of environmental dynamics, the adaptive effort
may become overwhelmed. This is a notion reflected by the
organization’s absorptive capacity (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990; Zahra &
George, 2002), one of the critical dynamic capabilities of the
organization.
Figure 3 summarizes the content of the section on behavioral
strategy. Above, I discussed (to a degree representing the relevance for
the papers submitted with this commentary) three areas that shape
THEORETICAL BASES AND STATE OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD
21
organizational change: 1) change stimuli, 2) decision-making, and 3)
capabilities and resources. Whether the ensuing change improves the
future fit with the environment is a matter I will discuss in the next
section.
Figure 3. Organizational change
2.2 Industry and environment: The context of adaptive
behavior
In the previous section, I noted on numerous occasions the importance
of acknowledging the context in which the organization operates, i.e., its
environment. Here, I distinguish two levels of interest: 1) the industry
(i.e., a population of organizations that compete with each other), and
2) a broader context that includes not only other actors in a
corresponding market but also macro-factors, i.e., the environment. The
former is a subset of the latter, and the distinction is largely artificial
and motivated by a particular focus I place on industry incumbents and
new entrants (as reflected in the papers in the collection).
THEORETICAL BASES AND STATE OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD
22
2.2.1 Industry dynamics
An industry has three dynamic components. The first is the change of
industry incumbents, which was covered in the previous section (2.1).
The second is new entrants and is covered in this subsection (2.2.1).
The third is the broader environmental dynamics, which will be
discussed in the following subsection (2.2.2). I summarize these three
components in Figure 4, thereby extending Figure 3, which focuses on
individual organization.
Figure 4. Three components of industry dynamics
I consider two types of organizations as new entrants:
Nascent entrepreneurs. The first group is what Aldrich et al.
(2020) describe as nascent entrepreneurs, i.e., those who initiate
activities that are intended to result in a viable organization. In this
regard, I do not limit myself to founding individuals or small groups, I
consider them to be any organizations that are undergoing an early life
cycle stage (see the review of different models in Jirásek & Bílek, 2018).
The majority of nascent entrepreneurs start as reproducers of
existing industry routines and competencies, not as innovators of them
(Aldrich & Martinez, 2015). This is not surprising given that several
institutional mechanisms enforce resemblance among organizations
within the industry (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Despite this, new
entrants – as defined by their life cycle stage (Jirásek & Bílek, 2018) –
challenge the industry status quo by carving out their market share. On
THEORETICAL BASES AND STATE OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD
23
the other and less common side of the spectrum, innovating
organizations may considerably disturb the state of the industry, for
example, when their entrance is coupled with disruptive technology
(Christensen, 1997). However, being innovative is a high-risk endeavor,
not limited to increased challenges in obtaining legitimacy (Suchman,
1995).
Entrants from other industries. New entrants are not limited to
newly founded ventures but may be a strategic choice by incumbents
operating in different industries. The motivations for these entries are
manifold, from competitive retaliation (Greve, 2008) to genuine growth
or profit-seeking (perhaps as part of an organizational renewal stage,
Jirásek & Bílek, 2018).
Although entering a new industry may require the adoption of
certain practices, entrants from other industries likely exhibit
considerable path dependence (Sydow et al., 2020) on their
characteristics from the original industry. Depending on the differences
between the original and newly entered industry, these organizations
may bring smaller or larger novelty. See, for example, my case study on
Klima DAO (Paper 5 DAO), which gives a general account of the novelty
that blockchain-based organizations brought to the Voluntary Carbon
Market.
The particular form of industry dynamics is outside the scope of
my commentary, although one might use the “adaptive view”
perspective formulated in the previous section to model them. In this
regard, I consider it important to offer an alternative and contrasting
perspective on industry dynamics – organizational ecology (Baum et al.,
2006; Hannan & Freeman, 1977, 1984). Organizational ecology is a
macro-level theory that assumes that superior organizational
performance is associated with inertia, not change.
The core assumption of organizational ecology is that “…individual
organizations are subject to strong inertial forces, that is, that they
seldom succeeded in making radical changes in strategy and structure
in the face of environmental threats” (Hannan & Freeman, 1984). The
inertial forces correspond to the factors behind organizational path
dependence (Sydow et al., 2020). Path dependence provides a
connection between the two perspectives, the adaptive view and the
organizational ecology perspective. However, in the former case, it is a
THEORETICAL BASES AND STATE OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD
24
barrier to adaptation (resistance to change), while in the latter it is a
buffer against excessive levels of intended change.
Figure 5. Comparison of adaptive view and organizational ecology
Organizational ecology (Hannan & Freeman, 1984) sees change as
risky given general environmental uncertainty. In the end, it is the
environmental selection process (see the section on the formulated
frame of research) that decides on an organization’s success or failure,
not its adaptive effort per se. While the benefits of change are uncertain,
the drawbacks of change are clearly manifested in undermining
organizational reliability (relative certainty in time and quality of
product delivery) and accountability (ability to document and
reconstruct sequences of decisions). I provide a comparison of both
perspectives in Table 3.
THEORETICAL BASES AND STATE OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD
25
Table 3. Comparison of adaptive view and organizational ecology
Adaptive view Organizational ecology
Level Micro (individual
organizations)
Macro (environment, industry)
Source of long-term
success
Adaptive behavior (series
of changes)
Inertia (avoidance of unnecessary
changes)
Path dependence
represents
Barrier to change Buffer to change
Relation of path
dependence to
inertia
Path dependence explains
the existence of inertia
Path dependence explains the
benefits of inertia
Change Risky, but often
insufficient
Risky and often excessive
Inertia Brings degradation of fit
with the environment
Brings certainty (reliability and
accountability)
From the perspective of organizational ecology, new entrants face
several disadvantages, notably the liability (disadvantage) of newness
(Hannan & Freeman, 1977), which reflects their limited reliability and
accountability and explains their high failure rate. On the other hand,
the later development of the theory (e.g., Dobrev et al., 2006) balanced
the original perspective by formulating liabilities for other stages of the
life cycle as well (e.g., liability of obsolescence, which reflects the
increased prospects of organizational core competencies becoming
outdated with the passage of time).
One additional relevant topic related to organizational ecology is
niche theory (Hannan & Freeman, 1977). Niche theory proposes that
there are two basic types of organizations: specialists occupying a
narrow niche for which they have a high degree of fit and generalists
who occupy a broad niche and have a lower degree of fit. Specialist
organizations invest their resources into exploiting their current
market opportunities at the expense of exploration (March, 1991) and
dynamic capabilities (Teece, 2007; Teece et al., 1997), and vice versa
for generalists.
As to which of the strategies pays off (specialist versus generalist)
or which perspective on organizational adaptation prevails (adaptive
THEORETICAL BASES AND STATE OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD
26
view advocating change or organizational ecology advocating inertia),
the outcome is greatly dependent on the broader environmental
dynamics.
2.2.2 Environmental dynamics
In the short term, many factors are fixed or exhibit a strong path
dependence. This applies to organizations (e.g., resources, strategies),
industries (e.g., competitive positions), and broader environments (e.g.,
institutional conditions). In the short term, extrapolating the current
situation is the prediction with the highest chances of occurring. For
organizations, deviating farther from their path is difficult and risky.
On the other hand, in the long term, organizations are much more
flexible and moldable. This is, however, coupled with decreased
stability in the environment. The instability generally comes from
continuous or discontinuous environmental changes (Gaba & Meyer,
2021). While continuous changes do not significantly transform the
environment in the short term, their cumulative effect may be
considerable over the long term (see Figure 6). While their effect is
often underestimated and overshadowed by sudden shocks caused by
discontinuous events, they may significantly transform the
environment over a sufficiently long horizon – to a similar extent to
discontinuous changes (König et al., 2021; Meyer et al., 1990). In
practice, these are represented by long-term trends.
In contrast to continuous changes, discontinuous changes suddenly
change the underlying properties of the environment (Gaba & Meyer,
2021). Organizations have a relatively long time to adapt to continuous
changes (for example, through performance feedback), so the sudden,
revolutionary and ambiguous nature of discontinuous changes
challenges and worries them (Beamish & Hasse, 2022).
The dynamics we see in the short and long term may have diverse
effects on the industry and the organizations competing within it
(Aldrich et al., 2020). They may lead to changes in “the rules of the
game,” redefining how value is created and captured within the market
(König et al., 2021). Besides this, they may also change the carrying
capacity of the market (Aldrich et al., 2020), which limits the number of
organizations that can compete for the same resources in the industry
at a given moment.
THEORETICAL BASES AND STATE OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD
27
Figure 6. Causes of long-term instability in the environment
2.3 Evolutionary perspective on organizations
By using behavioral lenses and embedding organizations in their
environment (Greve, 2021), the theoretical frame I apply in my
research corresponds to the evolutionary perspective on organizations
(e.g., Aldrich et al., 2020).
In the spirit of the evolutionary perspective, I would like to
finalize the chapter by looking at the industry in which organizations
operate as shaped by the four basic evolutionary processes (Aldrich et
al., 2020): 1) a variation process (changes within incumbents, new
entrants challenging the status quo) and 2) a selection process that
leads to the exits of unsuccessful organizations, which is caused by 3) a
competition for scarce resources (decided by the fit between the
organization and the environment), meaning that (due to its limited
carrying capacity) the market cannot sustain 4) the retention of all
organizational variants (see Figure 7).
THEORETICAL BASES AND STATE OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD
28
Figure 7. Basic evolutionary processes
Note: Shapes represent individual organizations, with shape and color reflecting
differences across organizations.
The papers in the collection mostly study factors behind variation.
Four papers (Paper 1 Uncertainty, Paper 2 Satisfaction, Paper 3
Behavioral, Paper 4 Boards) focus on whether organizations vary (the
three main areas for variation are goals, boundaries, and actions,
Aldrich et al., 2020). Two papers study organizational variants –
specifically, in the form of organizing (Paper 5 DAO) and in the business
model (Paper 6 Airlines). Competition, selection, and retention
processes, which would make my research truly longitudinal, are areas
I intend to explore in my future research (see chapter 5, “Limitations
and desirable course of further research”).
However, I can still consider specific contexts, adaptive settings, in
which the current studies are the most relevant. Based on the two areas
of dynamism in which I am interested – industry and environmental
dynamics (see subsections 2.2.1 and 2.2.2) – I have formulated three
general adaptive settings (Figure 8): one without considerable
dynamics, one with (intra-) industry dynamics and one with
environmental dynamics.
THEORETICAL BASES AND STATE OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD
29
Figure 8. Adaptative settings
In Setting 1 (“Business-as-usual”), there is no significant dynamism
in the environment or industry. In this setting, research on stimuli
supporting or contradicting change (i.e., on performance feedback,
Paper 2 Satisfaction, and resistance to change, Paper 3 Behavioral) are
particularly relevant. In this setting, new entrants (studied in Paper 5
DAO and Paper 6 Airlines) may appear, but their role in stimulating
competitive dynamics remains limited given the definition of the
setting.
In Setting 2 (Discontinuous change in the environment), significant
environmental dynamism radically alters the market’s fundamental
properties (Meyer et al., 1990). Paper 1 Uncertainty is logically highly
relevant in this setting. Under increasingly uncertain environmental
conditions, resistance to change (Paper 3 Behavioral) may be further
strengthened by decision paralysis (Arrieta & Shrestha, 2022).
Depending on the nature of the discontinuous change – whether it
creates a beneficial situation for new entrants – industry dynamics
THEORETICAL BASES AND STATE OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELD
30
(covered in Paper 5 DAO and Paper 6 Airlines) may be relevant as well.
Performance feedback research is not relevant within this setting as the
signal coming from performance feedback is late and potentially
misleading given the sudden considerable change in the market.
Finally, in Setting 3 (Competitive changes in the industry), all four
studied areas are relevant. Naturally, competitive dynamics offer a
wealth of insights into such settings (e.g., Porter, 1980). Moreover, the
setting also bolsters resistance to change, which may lead to an
underestimation of the threat of new entrants (as in the famous cases of
Nokia and Polaroid, König et al., 2021). I provide a summary of the
relevance of the studied concepts and individual papers to these three
settings in Table 4.
Table 4. Relevance of studied strategic concepts in various adaptative settings
Relevance of studied concepts
Performance
feedback
Resistance
to change
Competitive
dynamics
Environmental
uncertainty
Relevant papers
in the collection
Paper 2
Satisfaction,
Paper 4
Boards
Paper 3
Behavioral
Paper 5 DAO,
Paper 6
Airlines
Paper 1
Uncertainty
Adaptation
challenge
Threat for
incumbents
Situation 1:
“Business-as-
usual”
Failure to
change
without a
clear
stimulus
High High Medium
(standard
level of
competition)
Low
(low
uncertainty)
Situation 2:
Discontinuous
change in the
environment
Failure to
adapt in a
highly
uncertain
environment
Low
(late and
misleading)
Medium
(decision
paralysis)
Low-High
(conditional
on the
discontinuous
change)
High
Situation 3:
Competitive
changes in the
industry
Failure to
face high
competitive
pressure
Medium
(late)
High High Medium
(conditional
on
competitive
changes)
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
31
3 Research methodology
The submitted collection of papers contains a diverse set of
methodologies (Table 5). This corresponds to the diversity of research
objectives of the individual papers, which indicates my preference for
the precedence of the research objective over the method. It also
corresponds to the plurality of methodology common in behavioral
strategy literature (Augier & Dew, 2018).
Table 5. Overview of the methodologies of the papers in the collection
Paper Methodology Data collection Cases (observations) Data
analysis
Paper 1
Uncertainty
Quantitative Questionnaire 110 franchisors
(franchise systems)
Regression
Paper 2
Satisfaction
Quantitative Questionnaire 113 franchisees Regression
Paper 3
Behavioral
Mixed Questionnaire Not relevant Mixed
Paper 4
Boards
Quantitative Secondary data 41 firms (363 firm-year
observations)
Regression
Paper 5
DAO
Qualitative Secondary and
archival data
A single organization Qualitative
Paper 6
Airlines
Mixed Secondary data 21 low-cost airlines Qualitative
Comparative
Analysis
Similar to the section on theoretical bases and state of the field,
methodological details of the submitted studies are in the
corresponding sections of individual papers in annexes, where the
reader can find all the necessary information. I will present below a
brief overview of the collection from several methodological
perspectives.
The data behind the papers in the collection is rather crosssectional
with some minor exceptions (panel data in Paper 4 Boards,
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
32
and the one-year dynamics of the organization Klima DAO in Paper 5
DAO). This contrasts with my other research not included in the
collection, such as papers on performance feedback (e.g., Jirásek, 2020b,
2020c, 2020a) that use multiple time observations and thus represent
panels in nature.
The data collection methods in the submitted papers can be
categorized into two groups: questionnaires (Paper 1 Uncertainty,
Paper 2 Satisfaction, Paper 3 Behavioral) and archival (secondary)
sources (Paper 4 Boards, Paper 5 DAO, Paper 6 Airlines).
The papers in the annexes contain the specific rationale for the
individual methodological choices. In general, I usually prefer data that
directly reflects real-life decisions of organizations over time. This
corresponds to the study on the influence of board characteristics on
organizational responsiveness to performance feedback (Paper 4
Boards). However, such panel data is often not available or is frequently
limited in scope – which led me to the use of questionnaires (Paper 1
Uncertainty, Paper 2 Satisfaction, Paper 3 Behavioral) and crosssectional
secondary data (Paper 5 DAO and Paper 6 Airlines).
Various types of regressions (with panel data models my most
frequent choice) are the standard tools I have used in many of my
studies. This is also reflected in their prevalence in the collection (Paper
1 Uncertainty, Paper 2 Satisfaction, Paper 4 Boards). However, over
time, I have partially moved towards methods that allow for the capture
of the rich context in which organizational decisions take place – either
qualitatively in the form of case studies (Paper 5 DAO) or through
Qualitative Comparative Analysis (Paper 6 Airlines).
In terms of analytical methods, Paper 3 Behavioral is an outcome of
previous analytical work that is not directly described in the paper. This
work consisted of mixed-method research that used various but
generally simple statistical methods for analyzing quantitative data, but
also utilized qualitative methods for the analysis of text.
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND OVERALL SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS
33
4 Summary of findings and overall scientific
contributions
The papers in the collection contain a relatively diverse set of
perspectives on the theme of organizational adaptation. They do not
intend and are not intended to provide a complete picture of
organizational adaptation to the changing environment. I see them as
individual ventures into this theme, with the aim of contributing to
particular areas of research inquiry (see Table 6), while also building a
rich picture of organizational adaptation.
The implicit benefit of the loose association of these papers is that
this approach has allowed me to explore various topics and formulate
this commentary as a (limited but) coherent perspective on
organizational adaptation. In this regard, the theoretical frame
presented above calls for specific further steps in its empirical
validation – which I will cover in the following chapter.
Similar to other parts of the commentary, rather than focusing on
presenting the findings and contributions of individual papers
separately, I provide a higher-level view of the work presented in them
and how they contributed to several research domains that I consider
most relevant to my research.
Findings and contributions to the performance feedback
literature. The core of my research to date revolves around empirical
studies on performance feedback theory. As noted above, the submitted
collection includes two examples of a larger set of papers contributing
to this literature. In Paper 4 Boards, I studied the moderating effect of
board characteristics on organizational responses to performance
feedback with respect to R&D. The study uses standard empirical
performance feedback models, making it easily comparable to other
studies. On the other hand, the study is novel in that it contributes to
scarcely explored individual (or team) influences on organizational
responsiveness to performance feedback. The study shows a
moderating effect of the board’s age diversity (and to some extent of the
board’s turnover) on the organizational responsiveness to performance
feedback. In the other study (Paper 2 Satisfaction), we applied the
theory in a context novel to it (i.e., franchising) and found that
performance feedback theory is relevant to this level of decision-
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND OVERALL SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS
34
making (in this case entrepreneurial decision-making, as opposed to
the corporate decision-making common in the literature).
Findings and contributions to the study of new entrants to an
industry. In two of the papers presented in the collection (Paper 5 DAO
and Paper 6 Airlines), I focus on new entrants. In each case, I take a
different perspective on the topic. In the study on Klima DAO (Paper 5
DAO), I focus on a novel form of organizing in a part of the Voluntary
Carbon Market that leverages blockchain technologies. I point to
considerable automation in the task domain of organizing (Puranam et
al., 2014), which includes task division and task allocation, and in
reward distribution. This is coupled with a high level of transparency.
In the study on low-cost airlines (Paper 6 Airlines), we looked at feasible
business models of low-cost airlines in Europe and found that they can
adopt either a pure low-cost model or a hybrid one. The latter
resembles the model of full-service airlines but compromises on the ontime
performance of flights. Applying Qualitative Comparative Analysis
(a method novel to the aviation literature) allowed us to observe the
topic without sacrificing what makes business models a challenge for
any organization: the underlying relationships between individual
aspects of an organization’s business.
Findings and contributions to the franchising literature. In
most of my research to-date (in the submitted collection and outside it),
the choice of context in which I have conducted my studies has mainly
been driven by factors such as hypotheses or data availability. The
exception in this regard are studies contributing to the franchising
literature, a small but relatively coherent domain of inquiry. In this
specific case, the context preceded the choice of specific research
questions. In the collection, I present two studies conducted with one of
the leading scholars in the area, Josef Windsperger, from the University
of Vienna. In Paper 2 Satisfaction, we were the first to apply
performance feedback theory to franchising, which enabled us to study
goal-related drivers of franchisees’ satisfaction. Apart from relationship
performance, we found that performance feedback based on a
comparison of financial performance with that of franchisee peers
strongly influences the overall satisfaction of franchisees. In the second
study (Paper 1 Uncertainty), we took the franchisor’s perspective and
supported the hypothesis that franchisors change the proportion of
company-owned outlets on the basis of perceived environmental
uncertainty – a factor previously neglected by the franchising literature.
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND OVERALL SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS
35
Findings and contributions to practice. Research in the
submitted collection also contains a number of practical implications. In
this regard, it is worth highlighting Paper 3 Behavioral, which is an
outcome of applied research that was aimed directly at generating
contributions to practice. Specifically, we outlined general parameters
of the methodology for applying behavioral insights into marketing and
market research practice, which we detail in the book entitled
Behaviorální alchymie [Behavioral Alchemy] (Macháčová et al., 2023).
We also share experiences from the design process that illustrate the
fact that the current methodologies are often too complex and abstract
for practitioners who lack a background in research and behavioral
sciences (which most managers and marketing specialists do). The
paper points to a considerable disconnect between the theory and
practice in this field, which is, paradoxically, aimed at realistically
describing human behavior.
Table 6. Theoretical and practical contributions of the papers in the collection
Paper Theoretical
contributions
Practical
contributions
Paper 1
Uncertainty
Reveals a U-shaped
relationship between
perceived environmental
uncertainty and the
proportion of companyowned
outlets
Provides an insight into
franchising practice (how it is
done) as well as explanations
(why it is done); both may be
leveraged when analyzing
competition, or designing a
franchise’s form of organizing
Paper 2
Satisfaction
Identifies goal-related drivers
of franchisees’ satisfaction;
also contributes to the
performance feedback
literature by exploring lowerlevel
phenomenon
Provides insights helpful for
relationship management in
franchise networks
Paper 3
Behavioral
Highlights deficiencies of
current behavioral sciences’
research from the perspective
of business practitioners
Summarizes key elements of a
methodology for applying insight
from behavioral sciences into
marketing and market research
practice
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND OVERALL SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS
36
Paper Theoretical
contributions
Practical
contributions
Paper 4
Boards
Provides insights into the
moderating effects of board
characteristics on the
organization’s responsiveness
to performance feedback
Offers insight into how board
composition affects dynamics in
an organization’s responses to
performance feedback, which
may be informative for forming a
board that fits the organization’s
needs
Paper 5 DAO Facilitates understanding of
Decentralized Autonomous
Organizations (DAOs) as a
distinct organizational form
Offers an illustration of
organizing using blockchain
technologies; reflects the state of
organizing for the blockchain
community
Paper 6
Airlines
Applies a novel method in the
literature on airlines;
identifies two feasible
business models a low-cost
airline may adopt
Specifies some trade-offs in the
business models of low-cost
airlines that may be hard to avoid
LIMITATIONS AND DESIRABLE COURSE OF FURTHER RESEARCH
37
5 Limitations and desirable course of further
research
There are two sets of limitations related to my research: 1) connected
to individual papers in the collection and 2) connected to my research
in general. In this section, I focus on the latter and direct the reader to
the annexes, in which the methodological and theoretical limitations of
the individual papers are discussed.
While any paper must be necessarily limited in various aspects of
its execution, it is even more the case of any collection of papers that
strives to contribute to a common research theme. Organizational
adaptation is a broad theme with numerous perspectives (Sarta et al.,
2021). Focusing on the organizational level necessarily abstracts from
individual- and team-level phenomena. While I provide some insights
into them in Paper 3 Behavioral, I cannot fully capture their richness
(Sarta et al., 2021). However, I consider the use of behavioral strategy
lenses as valuable in this regard, as they attempt to offer realistic
explanations of human behavior (Powell et al., 2011).
The presented collection of papers contributes to the three
questions formulated in the introduction of the commentary from
different angles. In a topic as wide as organizational adaptation,
however, I find it is necessary to build on the previous literature and
contribute to various but complementary topics to obtain a better
understanding of “the bigger picture.”
This is motivated by the fact that the relevant literature is
fragmented. For example, when studying environmental
discontinuities, one may draw upon literature on organizational crises,
disruptive technologies, exogenous shocks, natural disasters, and many
others (Gaba & Meyer, 2021). Many of these academic silos offer
complementary (or even overlapping) insights into organizational
adaptation – but do not relate to each other. My overarching goal is to
bridge these divides and contribute to a more holistic understanding of
organizational adaptation.
The theoretical frame I present in the respective section of the
commentary provides some guidance for the future steps I intend to
take. The research presented in the collection has a rather short-term
focus on the variation process (whether and how organizations
change). In the language of statistics, it provides “cross-sectional”
LIMITATIONS AND DESIRABLE COURSE OF FURTHER RESEARCH
38
insights, i.e., one contained in a single period of time (or a setting I
formulated in section 2.3). However, adaptation is necessarily a
“longitudinal” process. That requires reflecting on other evolutionary
processes apart from variation (Figure 7), namely: selection,
competition for scarce resources, and retention.
At the time of submitting this commentary, I have begun two
broader research projects that will extend my research in this direction:
First, over the last few years, I have collected extensive data on the
U.S. airline industry, which includes not only general financial and
operational statistics but also details of choices individual airlines made
in terms of the network of routes they flew (destinations, frequency of
flights, passenger and cargo capacity, types of aircraft serving
individual routes), aircraft fleets, and the labor force. The data spans
the years 1970-2022, covering a considerable portion of the industry’s
dynamics. At the current stage of the project, I am leveraging my
international contacts and beginning several studies with various coauthors
(from Cranfield University, Tilburg University, University of
Antwerp, and University of Nottingham). These studies focus on
organizational adaptation in response to discontinuous environmental
changes, a phenomenon the airline industry deals with regularly (from
its deregulation through oil shocks to terrorist attacks). This endeavor
would benefit significantly from a more systematic understanding of
discontinuous changes, which is currently lacking (Gaba & Meyer,
2021). Therefore, with another co-author, I am also working on a
general taxonomy of discontinuous changes.
Second, I want to look closer at nascent industries and markets
(Eisenhardt, 2021) and nascent organizations. Starting with the case
study of Klima DAO (Paper 5 DAO), I began to study Decentralized
Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), a novel form of organizing enabled
by blockchain technologies, and the blockchain-related transformation
of the Voluntary Carbon Market (a global, unregulated market for
voluntary purchases of greenhouse gas emissions offsets). I authored
several additional papers on DAOs (Jirásek, 2022, 2023d, 2023c) and I
have another with a colleague from Tilburg University on the Voluntary
Carbon Market in the review process. From this point, I plan to continue
with the direct analysis of the dynamics of the blockchain-related
portion of the Voluntary Carbon Market, with a particular focus on the
organizations that take part in it (looking at their forms of organizing,
business models, and success).
LIMITATIONS AND DESIRABLE COURSE OF FURTHER RESEARCH
39
Both these research projects allow me to study all four basic
evolutionary processes (Aldrich et al., 2020) from different angles. To
illustrate this point, here is an example from the airline industry
focusing on business models: After the deregulation of U.S. aviation in
1978, there was a considerable variation in the business models that
have now led to the classical distinction between low-cost and fullservice
airlines (i.e., the one studied in the European context in Paper 6
Airlines), which encompasses choices between hub-and-spoke and
point-to-point airline route networks, between various levels of
customer service, and a focus on major or smaller airports. While the
demand for air travel grew following the deregulation, the deregulated
market stimulated the expansion of existing airlines and a high
frequency of new entries (Goetz & Vowles, 2009), leading to strong
competition over scarce resources, i.e., competition over customer
demand. Selection forces were strong in the industry, meaning that
there were many bankruptcies and mergers and acquisitions (Airlines
For America, 2023, 2024). Thus, not all variations in the business
models were retained – for example, an airline called People Express,
whose business model had the attributes of a low-cost airline combined
with a highly democratic environment, job rotation, and considerable
employee ownership (Petzinger, 1996) went bankrupt.
Aside from theoretical limitations, there are also limitations in the
methods of the individual studies. Nevertheless, I consider my use of
mixed methods across the studies as a meaningful solution to this
limitation. However, I accept that in the submitted collection of papers,
the added value of mixed research remains limited. On the one hand, it
allows for a good fit of a method to research the topic. On the other
hand, it does not offer a systematic triangulation of findings. In this
regard, the two emerging research projects presented above will
leverage mixed methods to a higher degree, since they will observe
organizational adaption and its various aspects within a single context
(in each project), allowing for systematic triangulation.
Finally, the research presented in the collection predominantly
provides a description (of why organizations change or do not change
their actions, goals, or boundaries), the only exception being Paper 3
Behavioral, which is primarily prescription (how to influence change in
organizations, in this particular case). In Table 6, I presented some of
the practical contributions of papers I have (co-)authored. However, the
behavioral strategy perspective also means that I acknowledge that one
LIMITATIONS AND DESIRABLE COURSE OF FURTHER RESEARCH
40
should not prescribe specific actions to organizations as easily as we
commonly observe in papers in strategic management and other fields.
Behavioral strategy lenses call for a more systematic and realistic
approach (Bromiley & Rau, 2014b, 2014a, 2018) that would, for
example, acknowledge that decision makers in organizations do not
always behave as advised (Paper 3 Behavioral). On a different note, a
literature that would benefit from my research insights and is
predominantly prescriptive is foresight (e.g., Schwarz et al., 2020).
Foresight provides tools for managing uncertain futures and
emphasizes the role of complexity in and realistic assumptions about
both organizations and their environment. This makes it a good fit with
my research, which I have already explored in my teaching (see Annex
No. 4 of the habilitation procedure).
In sum, my current work, represented by the papers in the
collection, forms foundations for a more nuanced and comprehensive
understanding of organizational adaptation. I believe that my future
work building on these foundations will contribute to bridging the
disparate academic silos that already contain rich insights on the theme
of organizational adaptation. The overall aim will be supported by the
longitudinal perspective in the two research projects on the U.S. airline
industry and the Voluntary Carbon Market, as well as the mixed
methods that will be used across those studies. With this approach, I
believe that my future research agenda has the potential to bring
further contributions to both the theory and practice of organizational
adaptation.
CONCLUSION
41
6 Conclusion
In the commentary, I have provided a summary perspective on my
research work in the six papers in the submitted collection. The theme
that connects all of them is organizational adaptation, and the papers
contribute to three related research questions:
1. What does the adaptation of incumbents look like?
2. What factors constrain the adaptation of incumbents?
3. How do new entrants differ from incumbents in the process of
organizational adaptation?
I have also provided a general theoretical frame that connects the
papers and the three research questions. In this regard, the first
question is mainly reflected in section 2.1 (“Behavioral strategy: Lenses
on adaptive behavior”), in which I provide an overview of performance
feedback theory (which is used in two of my papers: Paper 2
Satisfaction and Paper 4 Boards) and discuss some of the causes of the
resistance to change (which is also covered in Paper 3 Behavioral).
The second research question is addressed in the whole of chapter
2 (“Theoretical bases and state of research in the field”) as the difficulty
may lie on both organizational and environmental levels. I relate three
papers from the collection to this research question: two on the
organizational level (Paper 4 Boards on the influence of board
characteristics, and Paper 3 Behavioral, on the role of individual
heuristics and biases in the organizational context) and one on the
environmental level (Paper 1 Uncertainty, on the role of environmental
uncertainty).
The third research question is currently the least investigated in
my research – although it should become more prominent as outlined
in chapter 5 (“Limitations and desirable course of further research”). In
the theoretical frame, it is covered in subsection 2.2.1 (“Industry
dynamics”). In the submitted collection, two papers relate to this
research question (Paper 5 DAO and Paper 6 Airlines).
Section 2.3 (“Evolutionary perspective on organizations”) provides
a synthesis of all three questions. It shows that an evolutionary process
of variation (through changes of incumbents or through new entrants)
creates diversity in organizations, which is subsequently narrowed
down in the process of selection. The selection forces are a necessary
CONCLUSION
42
outcome of the limited carrying capacity of the environment and
ensuing competition for scarce resources – meaning that only part of
the diversity can be retained for the future.
In the spirit of behavioral strategy (Augier & Dew, 2018), my
research uses mixed methods (chapter 3, “Research methodology”) and
contributes to the rich tapestry of real-life organizational decisionmaking
and behavior (chapter 4, “Summary of findings and overall
scientific contributions”). My research’s current limitations also provide
a specific agenda for future research (chapter 5, “Limitations and
desirable course of further research”). In further research, I plan to fully
embrace the longitudinal evolutionary perspective on organizational
adaptation that was outlined in section 2.3 (“Evolutionary perspective
on organizations”). I intend to study the phenomena in two different
contexts: Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) in the
Voluntary Carbon Market and the U.S. airline industry. The difference
between the two contexts may yield a richer understanding of
organizational adaptation, while the similarity of the research theme
(theory, some methodology) will enable some synergies.
In line with many other scholars (Greve, 2021; Mithani, 2020; Sarta
et al., 2021), I consider organizational adaptation as one of the central
themes of strategic management. And it is my intention to build on my
past contribution to its understanding with further insights from my
future research agenda.
REFERENCES
43
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ANNEXES: PUBLISHED PAPERS
52
Annexes: Published papers
Ownership Structure of Franchise Chains: Trade-Off
Between Adaptation and Control
Determinants of overall franchisee satisfaction: application
of the performance feedback theory
The Application of Behavioral Insights into B2B Market
Research
Corporate boards' and firms' R&D responses to
performance feedback
Klima DAO: a crypto answer to carbon markets
Flying high on low cost: Success in the low-cost airline
industry