An Empirical Research on the Relationship between Organizational Flexibility and Sustainable Competitive Advantage on the Perspective of Environmental Uncertainty

Abstract

Static competitive environment has been replaced by an increasingly dynamic uncertain environment, organizational flexibility is getting more and more attention, flexibility has already become the most important factors to acquire the future competitive advantage. This paper build up the theoretical model of environmental uncertainty, organizational flexibility and sustainable competitive advantage on the basis of previous studies firstly and then empirically test the theoretical model based on the survey of 204 samples in manufacturing firms in Pearl River Delta region. The results indicate strong, positive, and direct relationships between environmental uncertainty and organizational flexibility and between organizational flexibility and sustainable competitive advantage. However, there is no significant direct relationship between environmental uncertainty and sustainable competitive advantage. Environmental uncertainty will indirectly promote sustainable competitive advantage by the intermediary variables of organizational flexibility. Finally, this paper also gives a number of policy recommendations and management proposals.