摘要
开发和利用战略柔性有助于企业在动态环境中获取和保持竞争优势,而IT是战略柔性得以实现的手段和工具,但是却鲜有研究关注IT影响战略柔性的内在机理。本文以探索式学习和利用式学习为中介变量,构建了IT能力与战略柔性(先动柔性与响应柔性)关系的理论模型,并利用来自珠三角大中型制造企业的调查数据进行实证分析。研究结果表明,探索式学习在IT能力与先动柔性、响应柔性的关系中起显著的部分中介作用;IT能力对利用式学习有积极的促进作用,但利用式学习与先动柔性、响应柔性的负相关关系均不显著,故利用式学习的中介作用不明显。此外,探索式学习与利用式学习呈正相关关系。
Enterprises need dynamic capacity to obtain and sustain competitive advantage in the current envi- we all know, information technology （IT） capability and organizational learning are both the source of flexibility, and a series of existed studies have paid their attentions on the relationship between IT capability, organizational learning and strategic flexibility. However, there are still several limitations. First, few scholars investigate the effect of organizational learning on the relationship between IT capability and strategic flexibility, further study is needed to confirm whether organizational learning mediates the influence of IT capability on strategic flexibility. Second, the difference effects of exploratory and exploitative learning on strategic flexibility are neglected by most researchers. In this paper, two types of strategic flexibility, proactive and reactive flexibility, are considered, which is dif- ferent from the most previous studies in China. Taking exploratory and exploitative learning as the mediating varia- bles, we build a theoretical model of the effect of IT capability on strategic flexibility. The purpose of this paper is to reveal the mechanism that IT capability fosters strategic flexibility based on the perspective of organizational learning. In order to test that theoretical model empirically, we take a large scale survey in the manufacturing enterprises from the PRD, and get 300 samples from the senior managers of the large and medium-sized manufacturing enterpri- ses. Then we use SPSS16.0 and LISREL8.70 to carry out statistical analysis, the results show that exploratory learning has a significant partial mediating effect on the relationship of IT capability on proactive and reactive flexi- bility respectively. However, IT capability can foster exploitative learning, whose effects on proactive and reactive flexibility are both not significant. More over, the positive relationship of exploratory learning on exploitative learn- ing is significant. The findings have some theoretical significance. First, this paper expands the connotation of the relationship between IT capability and strategic flexibility by confirming the mediating effects of exploratory learning. Second, this paper reveals the relationship between IT and organizational learning （ exploratory and exploitative）, and shows that IT contributes not only the creation of new knowledge, but also the use of old knowledge. Finally, this paper finds that only exploratory learning has positive effect on proactive and reactive flexibility, the result brings the es- sence of organizational learning influencing strategic flexibility to light. We can also get some management implications from these theoretical results. First, in order to promote their strategic flexibility and learning capacity, enterprises should increase IT investment to improve IT capability. Sec- ond, managers should pay attention to the organizational learning, especially the balance of exploratory and exploit- ative learning. Finally, managers can use IT to establish platform to conduct organizational learning, such as data- base, Email, MSN and QQ, which can be used as the tool of learning in the firms. Of course, there are some limitations in this paper. The samples are all from the manufacturing enterprises of PRD, so the results may be limited by the region and industry. Moreover, this paper uses cross-sectional data to test the theoretical model, so only the correlative but not causal relationship between the variables can be revealed. Finally, some important variables, such as external environmental factors, are not considered in this paper.
出处
《经济管理》
CSSCI
北大核心
2012年第11期64-73,共10页
Business and Management Journal ( BMJ )
基金
国家自然科学基金重点项目"新形势下中国企业整合战略与动态竞争研究"(70832003)
国家自然科学基金项目"动态环境中珠三角制造企业组织结构柔性与绩效关系实证研究"(70772028)
广东省哲学社会科学"十二五"规划项目"IT能力与组织创新关系研究:组织学习的影响机制--基于珠三角制造企业的实证分析"(GD11XGL22)
关键词
IT能力
战略柔性
探索式学习
利用式学习
IT capability
strategic flexibility
exploratory learning
exploitative learning
