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Over the past few years, mathematical and computational models of organizations have attracted a great deal of interest in various fields of scientific research (see Lin & Carley, 1993 for review). The mathematical models have focused on the problem of quantifying the structural (mis)match between organizations and their tasks. The notion of structural congruence has been generalized from the problem of optimizing distributed decision-making in structured decision networks (Pete, Pattipati, Levchuk, & Kleinman, 1998) to the multi-objective optimization problem of designing optimal organizational structures to complete a mission, while minimizing a set of criteria (Levchuk, Pattipati, Curry, & Shakeri, 1996, 1997, 1998). As computational models of decision-making in organizations began to emerge (see Carley & Svoboda, 1996; Carley, 1998; Vincke, 1992), the study of social networks (SSN) continued to focus on examining a network structure and its impact on individual, group, and organizational behavior (Wellman & Berkowitz, 1988). Most models, developed under the SSN, combined formal and informal structures when representing organizations as architectures (e.g., see Levitt et al., 1994; Carley & Svoboda, 1996). In addition, a large number of measures of structure and of the individual positions within the structure have been developed (Roberts, 1979; Scott, 1981; Wasserman & Faust, 1994; Wellman, 1991).

Traditionally, organizational evolution has been forgotten and only recently has it been analyzed by evolutionary theories: evolutionary economics and organizational ecology. According to the evolutionary economics the evolution of the firm is drawn as a process of individual adaptation running parallel to the evolution of environment. However, population ecology suggested that organizations have not the ability to adapt themselves and the process of organizational evolution is out of the organizational field. So, the adjustment to changed environmental conditions is achieved largely by the death of old organizations and the birth of new ones. We propose a model of organizational evolution combining the adaptation perspective ‐‐ evolutionary economics ‐‐ and the selection one ‐‐ population ecology of organizations. The adaptative ability lies in the endowment resource and capabilities that managers build using organizational capabilities.

This study aims to elucidate reference points and organizational identity in letters to shareholders (LTSs) of publishing companies and develops propositions on their relation to strategic adaptation. This study examines how characteristics of reference points (number, temporality and specificity) and organizational identity (focus, discontinuity and distinctiveness) relate to strategic adaptation. This research advances performance feedback theory and behavioral strategy by presenting rich data on how managers use reference points. This study also theorizes on the role of organizational identity as an observation frame. Finally, this study informs managers on how they can adapt reference points and organizational identity to drive strategic adaptation in their organizations.

This paper uses text analysis of LTSs of eight companies in the global publishing industry over six years. The research design is an exploratory, comparative case study.

The authors present the findings of rich empirical data analysis of reference points and organizational ideology, develop a typology and propose three proposed relationships. This paper develops three propositions on how characteristics of reference points (number, temporality and specificity) and organizational identity (focus, discontinuity and distinctiveness) relate to strategic adaptation.

This study elucidates reference points that managers use when they make sense of performance feedback. This study further develops a typology of reference points and suggests propositions on how reference points and organizational identity relate to strategic adaptation. The novel linguistic approach to revealing reference points-in-use and the study of decision-making in its empirical context contribute to a better understanding of the micromechanims of decision-making that are central to behavioral strategy.

The educational environment in Taiwan's primary and secondary schools is becoming increasingly diverse and complex. This study examined the relationship between primary and secondary school principals' working values, organisational climate and organisational adaptation.

Data were collected from the third Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), which targeted 401 principals in Taiwan's primary and secondary schools, conducted in 2018 by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCED). In this study, a structural equation model was constructed.

The results indicated that primary and secondary school principals generally had positive work values, and their schools' organisational climate and adaptation were positive. In addition, the work values, organisational climate and organisational adaptation models showed good fit for a variety of potential variables. Furthermore, the organisational climate had a mediating effect that strengthened the principals' work values and was a major factor in enhancing organisational adaptation. The results suggest that in addition to principals' positive work values, fostering a cooperative organisational climate—such as the perceived level of support from supervisors and the environment—is essential to enhance schools' organisational adaptation.

The principal's work value has a profound impact on the creation of a school's organisational atmosphere, the cohesion of members' consensus and the organisation's contingency decision-making in response to the external environment. This study adduces more diverse recommendations for the development of school affairs.

Technological process innovation (TPI) is a distinctive organizational phenomenon characterized by a firm-internal locus and underlying components such as mutual adaptation of new technology and existing organization, technological change, organizational change, and systemic impact. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the management of these components at different stages of the innovation lifecycle (ILC) in large manufacturing companies.

The authors adopt an exploratory case-based research design and conduct a multiple case study of five large successful manufacturing companies operating in different industries in Germany. The authors build the study on 55 semi-structured interviews, which yielded 91.5 hours of recorded interview data. The authors apply cross-case synthesis and replication logic to identify patterns of how companies address process innovation components at different ILC stages.

The study uncovers the content of four central TPI components across the ILC and identifies differences between the development of core and non-core processes. Based on the findings the authors describe asymmetric adaptation as a theoretical construct and propose that companies seek different levels of process standardization depending on the type of process they develop, which in turn affects whether there is a greater extent of technological or organizational change.

Awareness of existing structures, processes, and technologies, as well as their value in relation to the company’s core and non-core operations is imperative to determining the adequate structure of mutual adaptation.

The authors provide detailed insight on the management of mutual adaptation, technological, and organizational change, as well as systemic impact at the different stages of the ILC. The authors extend prior research by adopting an ILC perspective for the investigation of these four TPI components and by proposing a construct of asymmetric adaptation to capture key mechanisms of process development and implementation.

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between knowledge management processes and a firm's ability to adapt to the external environment.

The field survey research method was used and data were collected from 170 high technology companies in China. Multiple regression analysis as well as mediation tests were conducted to analyze the data.

The study found that knowledge acquisition, knowledge refining and knowledge applying are important when a firm is trying to enhance its competence. On the other hand, knowledge creation, knowledge refining, knowledge sharing and knowledge applying are influential when a firm is trying to introduce the next round of innovation.

Using self‐reported data could be a potential limitation of the study. It would be preferable to have other forms of data for a study.

The findings provide business executives as well as policy makers with a new way of thinking with respect to how to develop holistic knowledge management practices in order to appropriately adapt to the fast‐changing environment.

The major contribution of the study is an initial attempt to provide a holistic approach in analyzing a firm's knowledge management processes. Further, the study attempts to empirically examine knowledge management processes in relation to organizational adaptation.

There is little doubt that organizational identity – that which is central, distinctive, and enduring about an organization – mediates in adaptive processes. Exactly how this mediation takes place, and whether it is favorable or unfavorable to adaptation, must still be fully established. The purpose of this paper is to add to the literature on identity and adaptation by exploring the relationship between these two constructs in family firms operating in an emerging economy. Based on measures of strength of identity, the authors examine how identity affects the adaptive processes of issue identification, strategic impulse definition, and implementation, where the authors look at pace of adjustment.

Longitudinal and comparative case studies were conducted of polar types presenting two pairs of organizations in two separate industries. These organizations faced the challenge of founder succession and a radical shift in macroeconomic conditions over a period of three decades. Through these four cases the authors hope to provide clear pattern recognition of strength of identity and adaptation – and of the relationship between these two constructs – in the face of severe internal and external shocks. The approach seems adequate in the larger context of inductive theory development and particularly suitable to the exploration of theoretical constructs, as it allows the researcher to unravel the underlying dynamics of path dependencies and/or evolutionary processes.

It is found that strong‐identity organizations are able to foresee relevant changes in their industries, define adequate strategic responses, and implement them in an evolutionary (i.e. smooth) manner. Conversely, loose‐identity organizations misread industry trends, incur strategic paralysis, and must eventually enforce revolutionary (i.e. violent) changes in order to ensure survival.

The paper addresses a critical issue for the advancement of organizational theory: the relationship between organizational identity and adaptation in emerging economies. In addition, it has important practical implications for managers doing business in turbulent environments. It makes a sound theoretical contribution and has important managerial implications.

This paper aims to investigate how organizational learning (OL) affects the development of anticipatory adaptation to climate change in companies. Because the need to learn increases in circumstances of greater uncertainty such as the case of climate change, one of the processes that can explain different levels of anticipatory adaptation to climate change (AACC) by companies is OL.

The research uses a case study design. Following the procedures of qualitative sampling, an exemplary case of organizational adaptation to climate change in a sector that is extremely affected by the impacts of weather events was chosen. Empirical data collection includes semi-structured interviews and the collection of private and public documents. Such data were analyzed through thematic analysis.

The process of OL for anticipatory adaptation to climate change presents substantial differences from the traditional OL process presented by the specialized literature. In particular, the concepts of single- and double-loop learning were challenging to fit into the learning processes required for AACC.

Organizations have historically been working towards the adaption to external unforeseen events, but anticipatory adaptation to climate change presents new challenges and requires new forms of learning. Previous research has examined the interplay between learning and climate change adaptation, especially at the inter-organizational level. By developing research at the organizational level, this paper addresses a gap in the literature and shows that the required learning to adapt to climate change differs from the traditional learning, described in the management literature.

The research of industrial cluster and organizational adaptation can be traced back to early strategic management and organization theory. This paper initiates an attempt to empirically examine the relationship between a firm's involvement in an industrial cluster and its adaptive outcomes.

Field survey research method was used and data were collected from four international industrial clusters which consist of 188 company responses. Regression analysis and path analysis were used to analyze the data.

The paper found that the degree of a firm's involvement in an industrial cluster affects its adaptation outcomes. But the nature of the adaptation benefits depends, to a large degree, on the type of cluster involvement.

Using self‐reported data could be a potential limitation of this paper. It would be preferable to have other forms of data for a study.

Industrial clusters are widely considered a network‐based industrial system with the aim of adapting to fast‐changing markets and technologies as an organized whole. Firms within a cluster can work together to co‐evolve for the purpose of enhancing competitiveness and adapting to the environmental change. As the sum of the benefit of a cluster is of greater value than each individual company or institution, whether to involve in an industrial cluster to have effective adaptation is worthy of managers' consideration.

The major contribution of this work is the first attempt to operationalize the construct “industrial cluster” and to create a coherent model that logically links industrial clusters and organizational adaptation to tests that have not been covered sufficiently in the literature.

Previous research has demonstrated that the experience of fair treatment (organizational justice) motivates workers to accept their leaders’ decisions, even when these decisions are viewed as unfavorable. We aim at extending these findings by testing for mediating effects of the perceived impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the organization as a particular example of a hindering external condition. We expected that employees’ perception of management response to the pandemic would partly mediate the effect of organizational fairness on employee compliance.

In Study 1 we surveyed a nationally representative (N = 1,001) sample of employees. In Study 2 we used a representative sample (N = 250) of those workers who were laid off during the pandemic.

We show that an organization’s perceived ability to adapt to the pandemic partly mediated the relationship between organizational justice and acceptance of management decisions. Employees who were treated fairly were more ready to accept management decisions and viewed their organization as better prepared for hindering external conditions such as COVID-19. Their perceptions of organization’s ability to adapt partly mediated the effect of organizational justice on decision acceptance.

Our study is among the first to identify a link between organizational fairness and organizational adaptation. We show that employees perceive fair organizations as better prepared for external shocks.