Abstract
Literature has shown that university institutions cannot survive global pandemic shock-like COVID-19 as well as achieve sound outcomes without putting in place an agile or flexible organizational structure. However, most university institutions in Nigeria especially public university institutions recorded poor outcomes in terms of marketing, customer/student satisfaction and operations management. The purpose of this paper was to establish how agile or flexible organizational structure enhances the link between strategic agility and university institutional outcomes. Considering past empirical studies reviewed, the study proposed that strategic agility has a positive influence on organizational outcomes in institutions of higher education; and that flexible or agile organizational structure has a positive mediating influence on the relationship between strategic agility and organizational outcomes. A conceptual model to guide the further investigation in future studies was developed depicting the interaction between strategic agility and organizational outcomes with flexible organizational structure as a mediator. The paper concluded that agile or flexible organizational structure enhances strategic agility and sound outcomes of university institutions. The study recommended that these institutions must be able to think strategically with an agile mindset, understand mistakes, learn lessons quickly, and continuously adjust and readjust their strategic direction in order to develop innovative ways to create value. They must also empower their academic and non-academic staff teams on dynamic and modern marketing approaches to manage unexpected events to enhance marketing performance, student satisfaction and sound operations management.
Highlights
The prevailing turbulent business environment characterized by globalization, digitization, global trade liberalization, interconnectivity and global pandemic, has thrown many organizations into situations with pervasive volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity
Small and medium organizations tend to survive in the economy because they contribute to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the countries especially in the area of the creation of employment opportunities (Gerald, Obianuju, & Chukwunonso, 2020)
On the strength of positive empirical findings between strategic agility (SA) and organizational outcomes, this study proposes that: Proposition 1: Strategic agility has a positive influence on organizational outcomes in institutions of higher education
Summary
The prevailing turbulent business environment characterized by globalization, digitization, global trade liberalization, interconnectivity and global pandemic, has thrown many organizations into situations with pervasive volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Gerald et al (2020) clarified that most organizations experienced difficulties surviving the periods of global shock, which resulted in the closure of markets for consumers and suppliers of products and/or services, and businesses have had to operate at a lower (or even zero) capacity This might spell death for organizations that are not agile, as they will not be able to successfully recover from this unfortunate circumstance. Universities (organizations) cannot survive without strategic agility measures like strategic sensitivity, strategic response and collective capabilities as well as an agile organizational structure to manage and overcome the effects of the global pandemic and the attendant economic uncertainty In this regard, Patton (2020) asserted that universities without agile structures failed to maintain performance sustainability in terms of market performance, student satisfaction, and sound operational management. It is against this backdrop that this study was necessitated to look at how organizations, higher educational institutions, could come out victorious from this situation through the application of SA initiatives
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