The dynamic and stormy character in the companies’ environments, the technological change and the constant increase of customers’ demands require the continuous updating of the companies’ organisation. All companies must constantly renew their management techniques, the processes or technologies that they use and the products and services that they offer. Ignacio Tamayo Torres, researcher of the Department of Strategic Management and Organization of the University of Granada, has analysed in his doctoral thesis the use of real options for companies in the strategic change processes.
“One of the most interesting aspects for researchers in the strategic management is the adaptation of companies to environmental variations”, states Tamayo. His research shows the change process of a company organization through the concept of strategic adjustment. The research also analyses when the perceived change by managers is needed for their organizations, when that change fits in with the planned one as well as when that change meshes with the implemented one.
Ignacio Tamayo has analysed a sample of 204 European companies from high-technology sectors. Tamayo has performed a cause analysis in which organizational learning, the existence of real options, and strategic flexibility are related to its repercussion in the adjustment process in the strategy and the later influence in the company organization.
“It is fundamental that each company, which wishes to carry out a change in its strategy, identifies the resources and capabilities to be developed in order to adapt themselves to environmental variations, intended to gain competitive advantages”, explained the researcher.
To impel strategic change
Therefore, his study has two aims: the first one is to identify the resources and capabilities that may help managers in the strategic change process of their companies. The second one is to verify whether, thanks to these resources and capabilities, managers are able to perceive environmental variations in order to plan and impel the needed change.
The study of real options is one of the new aspects of this research, because it permits organizations to attract, sometimes economically and intuitively, the implicit value of the management’s flexibility. This fact improves the companies’ analysis ability before making strategic decisions. “Although these methods have not been completely accepted by the managers, these organizational resources begin to be relevant inside companies, because they may set behavioural patterns before making decisions such as the timing or the amount of investments, or increasing/decreasing production. In the same way, they may show when the project must be concluded in case of uncertainty or, on the contrary, when the project must be increased or modified.”
Part of this research will be published in the prestigious Swiss scientific journal International Journal of Technology Management. The rest of the research is under evaluation in other international journals.
Reference
Prof. Ignacio Tamayo Torres. Departamento de Organización de Empresas
Phone: +34 958 240 937 / +34 958 244 268. Email: igtamayo@ugr.es