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Strategic fit is known to be an important antecedent to a firm’s performance, but there is little research explaining its influence on firm’s environmental performance. This paper aims to propose that strategic fit is likely to affect two firm-level outcomes: dynamic equilibrium and dynamic disequilibrium.

Prior debate has underlined the role of adaptation vs selection in achieving strategic fit, but we assert that firms vary in their strategic fit. This paper models inter-firm differentials in environmental performance, using survey data from a sample of Chinese small and medium enterprises.

Transformative leadership, operational agility and knowledge-based identity facilitate compensatory fit, while productivity growth, strategic adaptability and low product-market maturity enable strategic fit.

The authors show how low strategic fit may provide selection advantages via compensatory fit. Some firms do seek to achieve greater fit to the embedded contextual contingencies (dynamic equilibrium) at the cost of their energy. However, others respond to the expectations for green performance that are presently orthogonal to the embedded context to realize compensatory fit using the energy of the context (dynamic disequilibrium). This manifests as differential capabilities for adaptation vs selection.

The findings highlight how the firms may use cultural fit pathway for transcending the phenomenological tradeoffs between economic performance-oriented strategic fit and ecological performance-oriented compensatory fit.

This paper shows how low strategic fit may provide selection advantages via compensatory fit. Some firms do seek to achieve greater fit to the embedded contextual contingencies (dynamic equilibrium) at the cost of their energy. However, others respond to the expectations for green performance that are presently orthogonal to the embedded context, to realize compensatory fit using the energy of the context (dynamic disequilibrium). This manifests as differential capabilities for adaptation vs selection.

Es conocido que el ajuste estratégico es un antecedente importante del resultado de la empresa, pero existe poca investigación sobre su impacto en el resultado medioambiental. Proponemos que el ajuste estratégico es probable que influya sobre dos resultados organizativos: equilibrio dinámico y desequilibrio dinámico.

El debate previo ha señalado el papel de la adaptación frente a la selección a la hora de lograr el ajuste estratégico, pero sin embargo nosotros aseguramos que las empresas varían en su ajuste estratégico. Modelizamos las diferencias entre empresas en cuanto a su rendimiento medioambiental utilizando datos de una encuesta de empresas pequeñas y medianas empresas chinas.

El liderazgo transformacional, agilidad operativa, e identidad basada en el conocimiento facilitan el ajuste compensatorio, mientras que el crecimiento de la productividad, la adaptabilidad estratégica y una baja madurez producto-mercado favorecen el ajuste estratégico.

Mostramos como un bajo ajuste estratégico genera ventajas en la selección vía ajuste compensatorio. Algunas empresas buscan un mayor ajuste a las contingencias del entorno (equilibrio dinámico) a costa de su energía. Sin embargo, otras responden a las expectativas sobre rendimiento medioambiental para alcanzar un ajuste compensatorio utilizando la energía del contexto (desequilibrio dinámico). Esto se manifiesta en forma de capacidades distintas para la adaptación frente a la selección.

Nuestros resultados subrayan como las empresas pueden usar el ajuste cultura para trascender los contrastes entre el ajuste estratégico orientado a los resultados económicos y el ajuste compensatorio orientado a los resultados medioambientales.

La investigación resalta el reto de integrar las presiones para adaptarse a la lógica ecológica predominante en la industria y los imperativos basados en el valor que apoyan la selección del ecosistema social apropiado para los grupos de interés. Enfatiza que el factor decisivo que influye de manera decisiva en la capacidad de la empresa para manejar las contraprestaciones económicas y ecológicas es la orientación cultural a favor del bienestar de las personas. Mediante un modelo integrador de desarrollo económico y ecológico a nivel nacional una empresa puede reducir los costes derivados del hecho de que algunos países puedan favorecer los intereses económicos a costa de los medioambientales y generar externalidades negativas.

Palavras-chave Resultados medioambientales, Crecimiento de la productividad, Liderazgo transformacional, Agilidad operativa, Adaptabilidad estratégica, Madurez producto-mercado

O ajuste estratégico é conhecido por ser um importante antecedente do desempenho da empresa, mas há poucas pesquisas explicando sua influência no desempenho ambiental da empresa. Propomos que o ajuste estratégico provavelmente influenciará dois resultados no nível da empresa: equilíbrio dinâmico e desequilíbrio dinâmico.

O debate prévio destacou o papel da adaptação versus seleção na obtenção de adequação estratégica, mas afirmamos que as empresas variam em sua adequação estratégica. Nós modelamos diferenciais entre firmas no desempenho ambiental, usando dados de pesquisa de uma amostra de pequenas e médias empresas chinesas.

A liderança transformadora, a agilidade operacional e a identidade baseada em conhecimento facilitam o ajuste compensatório, enquanto o crescimento da produtividade, a adaptabilidade estratégica e a baixa maturidade do mercado de produtos permitem um ajuste estratégico.

Mostramos como o ajuste estratégico baixo pode fornecer vantagens de seleção via ajuste compensatório. Algumas firmas buscam obter maior adequação às contingências contextuais embutidas (equilíbrio dinâmico) ao custo de sua energia. No entanto, outros respondem às expectativas de desempenho verde que atualmente são ortogonais ao contexto embutido, para realizar o ajuste compensatório utilizando a energia do contexto (desequilíbrio dinâmico). Isso se manifesta como capacidades diferenciais de adaptação versus seleção.

Nossas descobertas destacam como as empresas podem usar o caminho da adaptação cultural para transcender as compensações fenomenológicas entre o ajuste estratégico orientado para o desempenho econômico e o ajuste compensatório voltado para o desempenho ecológico.

A pesquisa destaca os desafios da cultura de trabalho de integrar as pressões para se adaptar à predominante ecologia industrial versus o imperativo dominante baseado em valores para selecionar o ecossistema social apropriado dos interessados. Isso enfatiza que o fator decisivo na capacidade formativa de uma empresa para promover compromissos econômicos e ecológicos é a orientação cultural para o bem-estar humano em uma plataforma nacional. Ao programar um modelo integrativo de desenvolvimento econômico e ecológico em nível nacional, uma empresa pode auto mitigar os custos da economia política internacional que surgem quando algumas nações trocam o bem-estar ecológico em prol de interesses econômicos e geram externalidades negativas.

Palavras-chave Palavras-chave Desempenho ambiental, Crescimento de produtividade, Liderança transformacional, Agilidade operacional, Adaptabilidade estratégica, Maturidade do Produto-Mercado

The purpose of this paper is to identify complementarities between the approaches of population ecology and evolutionary economics in order to contribute to a synthesis of organizational evolutionary dynamics and its implications for a strategic management research model. Using the metatriangulation technique to construct theories, we attempt to entwine these two perspectives. The proposed model is structured in two dimensions: the environmental selective system and the corporate adaptation process. The environmental selective system gathers together the complementary factors presented by evolutionary economics and ecology: technological innovation, demographic processes, environmental dynamism, population density and other institutional processes, and interpopulation dynamics. As ecology does not encompass the corporate adaptation process (generation, selection, and propagation of variations), the proposed model adopts the theoretical grounds underpinning evolutionary economics. The model offers three main contributions for future research into strategic management. First, it allows the development of descriptive and normative studies of the relationship among the environmental selection factors and the different types of enterprise strategies. Second, the proposed conceptual framework may be very beneficial for studies of interorganizational learning. Third, the model has the advantage of responding to the criticism of strategy theories in terms of their inability to generalize.

The purpose of this paper was to design ontology for describing semantic context‐aware quality services, and to present a new web management tool that provides a great flexibility and enables automatic semantic adaptation and customization of mobile client services.

The tool is developed using ontology‐based approach. This ontology captures a shared conceptual schema common in the tourism domain and maintains semantic quality information in heterogeneous service providers for service model. The results of the tool will be compared to prior works from other quality and distributed based service selection methods for mobile‐based application.

The tool support is based in the ontology Context‐aware Quality Semantic Web Service called (CxQWS). At the first step, services are defined as a set of semantic metadata, reflecting service requirements and QoS parameters. At the second step, services with a semantic contextual metadata are elaborated. Such a procedure ensures that the selection decisions should be based on the semantic quality representation of the created services. The SELETOR tool results suggest that the level of intelligent method use continue to be high flexibility in World Tourism organisations.

The tourism services in a mobile environment have a critical role in creating tourist satisfaction. They are neither a uniform group, nor able to give consistently high service quality. Indeed they have significantly different platforms and a variety of heterogeneous service providers which make the management of service qualities complex.

A significant proposition is to integrate new tourism quality attributes of mobile‐based application, to provide a dynamic adaptation of selection services based on context metadata parameters (user, environment, device, and service provider context) and the management of the heterogeneity of service needs, of mobile devices capacities and their various communication protocols (GPRS, WIFI, Bluetooth, etc.) as well as the media variety (sound, video, text and image), possibly reflecting the decreased time responses and the increased visibility of standard services management methods.

The paper proposes SELECTOR, a dynamic service selection tool based on CxQWS ontology, defined as set of semantic metadata, which context and QoS parameters. The tool is based on semantic services and offer architecture, with three layers (semantic query, management and web services). The most innovative characteristic of the tool is that it profits from the potential of semantic representation techniques to express high level explicit constraints, while they may be useful to guide the selection and adaptation process. This tool provides low adaptation effort, e.g. takes into account all the heterogeneous services as its various communication protocols (GSM, 3G, Bluetooth, etc.) as consequences of self‐selection for dynamic context evolution guided by the adaptation policies.

The adaptation perspective dominates the issue of organizational change and assumes that organizational inertia increases organizational mortality. This assumption is inadequate to analyze organizational change in risky activities. The purpose of this paper is to underline the relevance of organizational inertia when organizations face risky environments.

A conceptual framework was built that combines the adaptation and selection perspectives from the evolutionary approach and the high‐reliability organizations literature and apply it to space activities.

First, it was found that to prevent catastrophic failures, space organizations reproduce routines validated in previous successful programs, which leads to situations of organizational inertia; and second, the opposing perspectives of selection and adaptation become complementary when the author focus on the level of risk faced by organizations.

This paper focuses on space organizations and not more general types of organizations. However, the findings could be generalized to organizations manufacturing complex products and systems.

The originality of the paper is based on the new empirical and theoretical frameworks provided to analyze organizational inertia. Organizational inertia may be a satisfying response to environments favoring organizations with high levels of reliability. This new way of viewing inertia would be of value to scholars studying organizations in which errors can have catastrophic consequences.

One area in which strategy and organizational ecology converge is organizational change. This essay weaves together salient themes in my (and my co-authors’) various writings on organizational change, and is anchored in the research literature of the last twenty years. Among other ideas developed here, I point out that there is now a convergence of agendas in strategy and ecology, with an important role being played by intraorganizational ecology. I develop the distinction between strong and weak selection approaches to organizational ecology. While the strong selection view does not find empirical support, there is stronger support for the weak selection view. I lay out some key features of an emerging evolutionary synthesis for the study of strategy and organization, and develop an evolutionary approach to organizational change.

Maturana and Mpodozis (2000) developed a theory of evolution that is based on the concept of autopoiesis and differs paradigmatically from the conventional theory derived from Darwin (1859). The present study aims to show that the authors have not exhausted the explanatory potential that the concept of autopoiesis can offer for the theory of evolution. Based on the critique of Maturana and Mpodozis, a system theoretic-oriented concept for the origin of species will be developed.

To render the explanatory potential of the concept of autopoiesis more fruitful for the theory of evolution, the proposition is made that the application of this concept is not limited to the molecular, or organismal level, as propounded by Maturana and Mpodozis, but should be also related to populations and species. By exempting the design of Maturana and Mpodozis from the rudiments of methodological individualism, a new field of application for the concept of autopoiesis is explored.

The proposed system theoretic concept of evolution theory makes it possible to shed new, constructive light on fundamental problems in the conventional biology of evolution. For example, with regard to the significance of the emergence of sexuality, or how phases of accelerated change in the course of evolution (e.g. the Cambrian explosion) are possible, or regarding the problem of the units of selection.

Although there have been attempts in the social sciences to interpret populations as autopoietic systems (for example by Niklas Luhmann), the proposed approach to evolutionary biology is new. Also original is a system theoretic conception of the evolutionary theory, in a strict renunciation of methodological individualism. This renunciation permits systems theories of evolution in social science and biology to be compared across disciplines.

This paper aims to go beyond a bookkeeping approach to evolutionary analysis whereby surviving firms are better adapted and extinct firms were less adapted. From discussion of the preliminary findings of research into the Hobart pizza industry, evidence is presented of the need to adopt a more traditional approach to applying evolutionary theories with organizational research.

After a brief review of the relevant literature, the preliminary findings of research into the Hobart pizza industry are presented. Then, several evolutionary concepts that are commonplace in ecological research are introduced to help explain the emergent findings. The paper concludes with consideration given to advancing a more consistent approach to employing evolutionary theories within organizational research.

The paper finds that the process of selection cannot be assumed to occur evenly across time and/or space. Within geographically small markets different forms of selection operate in different ways and degrees requiring the use of more traditional evolutionary theories to highlight the causal process associated with population change.

The paper concludes by highlighting Geoffrey Hodgson's Principle of Consistency. It is demonstrated that a failure to truly understand how and why theory is used in one domain will likely result in its misuse in another domain. That, at present, too few evolutionary concepts are employed in organisational research to ensure an appreciation of any underlying causal processes through which social change occurs.

The concepts introduced throughout this paper, whilst not new, provide new entry points for organizational researchers intent on employing an evolutionary approach to understand the process of social change.

This article revisits Nicolas Carr's popular Harvard Review article IT Doesn't Matter on its ten-year anniversary. The purpose is to analyze Carr's argument by analyzing the development of the argument itself as opposed to finding exceptions to the argument, which has been done in the past.

The authors use co-evolutionary theory as a case against Carr's argument by showing that Carr has only looked at the growth of IT from a population ecology perspective and has failed to anticipate the adaptive nature of IT within the organization.

The authors show that Carr's new rules for IT management may not be applicable if viewed through the lens of the three principles of self-renewing organizations espoused by co-evolutionary theory.

The authors provide a new basis for evaluating the strategic nature of IT and offer a background for future research and case studies into evaluating IT strategic competitive advantage within the organization.

The research provides guidelines for organizations to better decide how to strategically implement IT to more fully utilize its capabilities.

The paper provides a new method for refuting a popular article by attacking the argument as opposed to finding exceptions to the argument. This is valuable to those who wish to evangelize the strategic capacity of IT within the organization.