应对环境变化的战略路径转换过程：内外部正反馈和管理者刻意行为的影响

Strategic Path Transformation in Response to Environmental Changes:The Influence of External and Internal Positive Feedbacks and Deliberate Managerial Actions

没有永恒的路径。面对剧烈的环境变化,组织需要打破原有战略路径,形成与环境相适应的新路径。然而以往研究发现,原有战略路径不仅不易打破、更是难以转换。为了理解究竟如何才能进行战略路径转换,本研究借鉴路径构造理论,以两家离岸IT外包供应商为研究对象,详细剖析了应对环境变化的战略路径转换过程。研究结果显示,战略路径转换是外部正反馈和战略模式重新匹配的过程:外部环境发生变化后,组织原有的战略模式与外部正反馈不再匹配导致业绩下滑;随后组织探索新业务,直到产生新的外部正反馈;通过构建新能力,最后形成与新的外部正反馈匹配的新战略模式。

No path is forever.When exogenous shocks take place,organizations need to break their strategic path and form a new one to fit the new environment.However,prior studies find that strategic paths are stuck with organizational past and history,and thus are difficult to transform.To understand how to break a strategic path,this research draws on path constitution theory to investigate the transformation process of two offshoring IT outsourcing vendors in response to environmental changes.We find that strategic path transformation is a process of re-alignment of external positive feedback and strategic patterns.At first,environmental changes break existing external positive feedback,which downgrades organizational performance.Then organizations start to explore new business till new external positive feedback emerges.At last,organizations form new strategic patterns that fit the new external positive feedback by developing new capabilities.