Angeles Adrianela, Perez-Encinas Adriana, Villanueva Cristian E
Facultad de Economía Y Negocios, Universidad Anáhuac, Huixquilucan, Edo. de México México.
Business and Economics School, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
Glob J Flex Syst Manag. 2022;23(2):271-290. doi: 10.1007/s40171-022-00301-4. Epub 2022 Mar 21.
Today's lifespan of companies tends to be low in the so-called micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). Organizational life cycle (OLC) theory indicates that organizational aging is related, but not determined, by the firm chronological age or its size. Therefore, a firm's aging should be analyzed by other factors such as flexibility. The literature considers flexibility as an essential capability, a source of competitive advantage, and an enabler of long-term growth for MSMEs. However, little attention in emerging economies has been paid to examine the nuances of this concept in relation to the OLC in this type of companies. Additionally, studies tend to analyze flexibility as a general term, ignoring that it is a polymorphic concept. That is why there is a need to research the different categories of flexibility. Drawing on a quantitative approach conducting a factor analysis, a two-step cluster, and decision tree analysis to interrogate data from 257 MSMEs in Mexico, this study provides evidence of different dimensions of strategic and structural flexibility that help to characterize and predict the growth, maturity, and declining stages of MSMEs. Our results show that mature firms present more strategic and structural flexible characteristics than those involved in growth or decline stages. The flexible factors that help classify and predict an MSME in the maturity stage include open communication, decentralized decision making, and formalization. We provide a model with these results to illuminate unaddressed issues regarding the broad term of flexibility and its relationship to OLC.
在所谓的微型、小型和中型企业（MSMEs）中，如今企业的寿命往往较短。组织生命周期（OLC）理论表明，组织老化与企业的实际年龄或规模有关，但并非由其决定。因此，企业的老化应通过其他因素如灵活性来分析。文献将灵活性视为一项基本能力、竞争优势的来源以及MSMEs长期增长的推动因素。然而，新兴经济体中很少有人关注在这类企业中研究这一概念与OLC相关的细微差别。此外，研究倾向于将灵活性作为一个通用术语进行分析，而忽略了它是一个多态概念。这就是为什么有必要研究灵活性的不同类别。本研究采用定量方法，进行因子分析、两步聚类和决策树分析，以审视来自墨西哥257家MSMEs的数据，提供了战略和结构灵活性不同维度的证据，有助于刻画和预测MSMEs的增长、成熟和衰退阶段。我们的结果表明，成熟企业比处于增长或衰退阶段的企业具有更多的战略和结构灵活性特征。有助于将MSMEs分类并预测其处于成熟阶段的灵活因素包括开放沟通、分散决策和形式化。我们用这些结果提供了一个模型，以阐明关于灵活性这一宽泛术语及其与OLC关系的未解决问题。
