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To coordinate humanitarian organisations with different mandates that flock the scenes of disasters to save lives and respond to varied needs arising from the increased number of victims is not easy. Therefore, the level at which organisations self-organise, network and adapt to the dynamic operational environment may be related to inter-organisational coordination. The authors studied self-organisation, organisational networks and adaptability as important and often overlooked organisational factors hypothesised to be related to inter-organisational coordination in the context of humanitarian organisations.

The study’s sample consisted of 101 humanitarian organisations with 315 respondents. To decrease the problem of common method variance, the authors split the samples within each humanitarian organisation into two subsamples: one subsample was used for the measurement of self-organisation, organisational network and adaptability, while the other was for the measurement of inter-organisational coordination.

The partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) analysis using SmartPLS 3.2.8 indicated that self-organisation is related to inter-organisational coordination. Organisational network and adaptability were found to be mediators for the relationship between self-organisation and inter-organisational coordination and all combined accounted for 57.8% variance in inter-organisational coordination.

The study was cross sectional, hence imposing a limitation on changes in perceptions over time. Perhaps, a longitudinal study in future is desirable. Data were collected only from humanitarian organisations that had delivered relief to refugees in the stated camps by 2018. Above all, this study considered self-organisation, adaptability and organisational networks in the explanation of inter-organisational coordination, although there are other factors that could still be explored.

A potential implication is that humanitarian organisations which need to coordinate with others in emergency situations may need to examine their ability to self-organise, network and adapt.

Social transformation is a function of active social entities that cannot work in isolation. Hence, for each to be able to make a contribution to meaningful social change, there is need to develop organisational networks with sister organisations so as to secure rare resources that facilitate change efforts coupled with the ability to reorganise themselves and adapt to changing environmental circumstances.

The paper examines (1) the extent to which self-organisation, adaptability and organisational networks influence inter-organisational coordination; (2) the mediating role of both adaptability and organisational networks between self-organisation and inter-organisational coordination in the context of humanitarian organisations against the backdrop of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.

Organisations involved in relief delivery tend to have cross-boundary mandates, which cause ambiguity of roles during delivery of relief services to the targeted victims. Having no clear role, specialisation affects service timeliness and increases resource duplication among the relief organisations. The objective of this study is to understand how organisational networks and organisational learning as complex adaptive system metaphors improve both organisational adaptability and role clarity in humanitarian logistics.

Using ordinary partial least squares regression through SmartPLS version 3.3.3, the authors tested the study hypotheses basing on survey data collected from 315 respondents who were selected randomly to complete a self-administered questionnaire from 101 humanitarian organisations. Common method bias (CMB) associated with surveys was minimised by implementing both procedural and post statistics methods.

The results indicate that organisational networks and organisational learning have a significant influence on organisational adaptability and role clarity. The results also show that organisational adaptability partially mediates in the relationship between organisational networks, organisational learning and role clarity.

The major limitation of the study is that the authors have used cross-sectional data to test this research hypotheses. However, this was minimised following Guide and Ketokivi's (2015) recommendation on how to address the limitations of cross-sectional data or the use of longitudinal data that can address CMB and endogeneity problems.

Managers in humanitarian organisations can use the authors’ framework to understand, first, how complex adaptive system competence can be used to create organisational adaptability and, second, how organisational adaptability can help organisational networks and organisational learning in improving role clarity among humanitarian organisations by collaboratively working together.

This research contributes to the existing body of knowledge in humanitarian logistics and supply chain management by empirically testing the anecdotal and conceptual evidence. The findings may be useful to managers who are contemplating the use of organisational networks, organisational learning and organisational adaptability to improve role clarity in disaster relief-related activities.

The purpose of this paper is to explore what organizational adaptability means in the digitized context and to discuss how manufacturing companies achieve organizational adaptability during the digital transformation process.

By conducting semi-structured interviews and acquiring archive data from a typical Chinese manufacturing company, this paper gathers extensive data. Based on this, a single-case study methodology is used to investigate organizational adaptability in digital transformation.

This study identifies the process by which companies achieve organizational adaptability during digital transformation and deconstructs organizational adaptability into three dimensions: structural adaptability, operational adaptability and governance adaptability. This study also explores how organizational adaptability is affected by digital capabilities.

This study proposes a process model to demonstrate how organizational adaptability may be attained during digital transformation and redefines organizational adaptability in the context of digitization.

The literature of organizational change hints that adaptability and inertia not only counterbalance but also reinforce each other, and the inertia-adaptability balance over time is nonlinear. The author aims to address this view more clearly by presenting a multi-stage conceptual model that delineates how adaptability and inertia take turns to override each other. In addition, data collected from over 400 nonprofit organizations within the USA were used to test this model.

This study uses polynomial regression to examine the multi-stage conceptual model. More precisely, it tests how organizational age influences an organization's innovativeness, managerial risk aversion, and red tape.

The findings support the multi-stage conceptual model. The results imply that organizational ecology and rational adaptation are mutually compatible perspectives in explaining organizational age dynamics.

This study introduces a multi-stage model that more clearly examines how adaptability and inertia counterbalance and reinforce over time. More importantly, the author empirically examines the nonlinear organizational age dynamics using quantitative data.

Human resource (HR) flexibility is a firm-level capability that consists of employee skill flexibility, employee behavior flexibility, and HR practice flexibility. HR flexibility allows organizations to adapt and be responsive to changes in their environments. Findings from this paper indicate that if the organization is highly innovative and has flexible HR policies, then that influences organizational culture, risk-taking and experimentation within a firm. This paper has also revealed that process innovation mediates between adaptability culture and product innovation. It also revealed that managers should emphasize processes to improve efficiency for resource exploitation. The lessons learned from process innovation activities indicated that having a strong knowledge base assists a firm in developing innovative technology such as automation for manufacturing, handling and testing or simply smart manufacturing.

Questionnaires were sent to employees at 23 Taiwanese companies in high-tech industries, where innovation is the key to their survival, and 293 valid surveys were collected. Structural equation modeling, (SEM) using IBM SPSS Amos, was used to test the hypotheses.

The results fully support the hypotheses that HR flexibility positively influences adaptability culture and contributes to organizational innovation. Furthermore, it was found that adaptability culture has a direct impact on process innovation and an indirect impact on product innovation through process innovation.

The critical role of HR flexibility and adaptability culture on organizational innovation in the high-tech sector were highlighted. The importance of HR flexibility is emphasized to provide managerial hints to top managers.

The study aims to determine how the acceptance of mistakes is related to adaptability to change in a broad organizational context. Therefore, it explores how knowledge, collaboration and learning cultures (including “acceptance of mistakes”) might help organizations overcome their resistance to change.

The study used two sample groups: students aged 18–24 years (330 cases) and employees aged >24 years (326 cases), who worked in knowledge-driven organizations. Structural equation models were developed, assessed and compared.

The effect of the “learning climate” on “adaptability to change” mediated by “acceptance of mistakes” has been detected for young students aged 18–24 years; however, this relationship is not significant for business employees aged >24 years. This result indicates that organizations, unlike universities, do not use mistakes as a tool to support learning that is to lead to change.

Both samples used in the study were obtained from Poland. The business sample was in the majority represented by small and medium-sized enterprises. Therefore, the presented findings may only be applicable to Poland.

Acceptance of mistakes is vital for developing a learning culture. Mistakes help employees adapt to change. Hence, a learning culture that excludes the acceptance of mistakes is somehow artificial and may be unproductive. Paradoxically, the findings reveal that the fact that employees’ intelligence (adaptability to change) improves via mistakes does not mean that organizational intelligence will also increase. Thus, organizations that do not develop mechanisms of learning from mistakes lose the learning potential of their employees.

This study proposes a constant learning culture scale that includes the “acceptance of mistakes” and “learning climate” dimensions. Further, it empirically proves the value of mistakes for adaptability to change. Moreover, it also contributes to the existing literature by demonstrating the mechanism of the relationship between knowledge, collaboration and learning cultures in the context of adaptability to change. This study breaks with the convention of “exaggerated excellence” and promotes the acceptance of mistakes in organizations to develop organizational intelligence.

This paper aims to examine 611 values statements to determine if values statements contain characteristics of organizational culture as provided by Denison and Mishra (1995). The general hypothesis given is there is a relationship between values statements and culture characteristics. Four testable hypotheses, one for each of Denison and Mishra’s (1995) characteristics, are created and tested.

The process in testing the hypotheses had two components. First, a taxonomy of the values statements had to be determined. This involved using natural language characteristics rather than predetermined classes to create a taxonomy based on the language itself. Second, a custom dictionary for each characteristic had to be created based on Neuendorf (2017) to perform content analysis. Once the values statements were coded with a taxonomic classification and with culture characteristics, a Chi-Square test was performed to determine a relationship between the statement type and the cultural characteristic, and then a multinomial regression test was performed to determine strength and direction of the relationships.

The tests for all four hypotheses produced significant results in the Chi-Square test. The multinomial regression tests showed primarily that Business statements types often lack adaptability and stakeholder involvement cultural elements. Additionally, Religion statement types are positively related to adaptability and mission.

This paper creates a taxonomy and supplies the rules for classification. Values statements can now be classified using those rules and the classification used in analysis. Additionally, as values statements span over organizational culture, strategic management and strategic communication, these statements become a focal point for studying multiple topics across these fields. More particularly, finding the negative relationship between the Adaptability characteristic with the Business statement type and the involvement characteristic with the Business statement type may provide a cultural explanation for many mixed result studies on organizational success.

Organizational culture can be displayed by way of values statements and can potentially affect organizational strategy and organizational communication. Wording is extremely important in creating a values statement, and that statement must clearly reflect the cultural values of the organization.

First, this paper creates a taxonomy of values statements that is far more complete than anything created before. Second, by examining language, this paper discovers a link between organizational culture, strategic management and strategic communication.

Work organizations and the employees within these organizations face considerable environmental pressures requiring adaptive change. Several forces have contributed to this need for great adaptation. These are described in many excellent sources (e.g., Cascio, 2003; Ilgen & Pulakos, 1999); here we briefly review their implications for individual adaptability.

This paper aims to analyze the relationship between organizational culture (measured by mission, involvement, consistency, adaptability and well-being), employee organizational commitment and employee innovation in the Vietnamese IT industry.

This is a quantitative research using perceptual scale questionnaire survey developed based on the literature review and in-depth expert interviews. A total of 319 IT professionals working in Vietnam participated in the survey. The data were analyzed using multiple regression analysis.

The results suggest that overall organizational culture and organizational commitment are positively and significantly related to employee innovation. A closer look reveals that out of the organizational culture’s five dimensions, mission, adaptability and well-being are found specifically and significantly related to employee innovation.

The study used a cross-sectional survey where case studies of longitudinal study may add more insight. Further, the Denison organizational culture survey instrument might be subjective. Finally, there may be also some moderating or mediating effects that are not taken into account in this study.

The enhancement of adaptability, well-being, mission and commitment can increase employee innovation in the IT industry.

This paper contributes to the literature and practice by demonstrating the relationship between corporate culture and organizational commitment on employee innovation in a developing country (i.e. Vietnam).