Understanding Organizational Agility Development for a Government: A Process Model of Resource Configuration

Abstract

Organizational agility, the ability to sense and respond to changes quickly, has been regarded as an important index of organizational performance in rapidly changing environments. However, research on agility has largely overlooked the dynamics of the resource configuration process, which includes resource selection, acquisition, development, and management. Prior studies have mostly taken for granted a set of organizational resources deemed sufficient for developing agility, and overlooked the efforts required to render the resources ready for agility development. Adopting the resource-based view, this study aims to close such a theoretical gap by conceptualizing a dynamic resource configuration process. Based on a case study of the Shanghai Social Security Card System (SSSCS) project, we inductively develop a process model for resource configuration in agility development. This model demonstrates the configuration process of IT resources and institutional resources to create agility. Simultaneously, it stresses that IT resources may serve in initiating corresponding institutional resources, assist in the molding and shaping of new institutional resources, and also serve in sustaining institutional resources. Our research contributes to the organizational agility literature by elaborating on the dynamic resource configuration process embedded in the agility development process. Our findings offer suggestions to governments and guide them in configuring IT and institutional resources to develop organizational agility.