The key is ownership of agility

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to highlight a limitation of the understanding of agility within organizations, while providing the reasoning and anecdotal example of an effective setting where agility exists, and how this affects firms’ productivity through focusing on the principle of ownership motivation.

Design/methodology/approach

The contemporary thoughts and historical research with anecdotal evidence are gathered from small business owners in the insurance industry.

Findings

Agility implementation in firms today is mainly top-down team focused. While bottom-up input approaches are prescribed for firm organizational agility implementation, the mantle of ownership and drive are not imparted to employees. The example of a service industry highlights the possibilities of having agility within the organization implemented by direct ownership of most if not all the operations and functions.

Practical implications

This paper shares a working example of implemented agility and proposes the application within the broader scope of firm operations, particularly for smaller firms looking for sustainable advantages.

Originality/value

It re-looks at actual implementable agile practices by re-imaging the role of employees into functional business units from the bottom-up, rather than from the top-down, as a different perspective of agility.

Citation

Ong, E.C., Tan, C.L. and Amran, A. (2019), "The key is ownership of agility", Strategic Direction, Vol. 35 No. 1, pp. 9-12. https://doi.org/10.1108/SD-03-2018-0055