"The Need for Speed – Emergent Problems, Capabilities Failure, and Organizational Ad-Hoc Processes"

Abstract

Emergent, ill-structured problems in organizations often require immediate attention. Organizations’ dynamic capabilities are sometimes inadequate to fully deal with such urgent issues, since they are fundamentally based on path-dependent routines. We suggest that ad-hoc problem finding and solving – as a non-routine organizational process – shows potential to resolve this gap. This paper offers insights into the limits to dynamic capabilities and identifies boundary conditions under which ad-hoc problem finding and solving in organisations is a relatively more efficacious approach. By examining organizing choices under emergent, non-routine situations we shed light on a gap in the dynamic capabilities literature. In particular, we propose a Problem Finding/Problem Solving (PF/PS) logic for understanding emergent problems in organizations. Building on prior work utilizing the PF/PS approach, and drawing on the dynamic capabilities literature, we argue that as managers pursue to identify and solve emergent problems in their organizations, they make discrete organizing choices resulting in the use of both routine and ad-hoc, non-routine processes. We unpack the logic of economizing, discriminating alignment and assert several novel, testable propositions to clarify our arguments.