Antecedents of Organizational Agility During Business Uncertainty in Noninformation Technology Sectors

Introduction

Uncertainty evoked by extreme events can result in a marked increase in agility needed to address environmental threats (Teece, 2007; Teece et al., 2016). A pandemic, economic stress, financial market volatility, geopolitical tensions, and other emergencies necessitate intelligence-assisted solutions (He et al., 2021; Shiau et al., 2021). COVID-19 is an example of an extreme event. There is anecdotal and research evidence that nontechnology companies adapted by embracing digital practices (Ågerfalk et al., 2020; Kamal, 2020). The investigation did not directly link with COVID-19; however, its severe effects provided a backdrop for studying organizational agility. The study focused on using intelligence and decision-making skills rather than developed information systems. Information technology (IT) companies, which typically have experience with agility, were excluded from this research. In the systems development area, researchers and practitioners have focused on agile software development (Knaster & Leffingwell, 2020; Siau, Woo, et al., 2022). Nontechnology sectors routinely use intelligence, including artificial intelligence (AI, George et al., 2020; Hyder et al., 2019; Wang & Siau, 2019).

Chen and Siau (2020) demonstrated that business intelligence and analytics (BI&A) and IT infrastructure positively impact organizational agility. Further research is encouraged on the interaction between the antecedents and the factors that influence BIA. The response to environmental uncertainty evokes the following research questions:

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  What are the antecedents of organizational agility in nontechnology sectors?

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  What are the relative strengths of factors that determine organizational agility?

The research purported to establish quantitative measurements of the elements, whereas past literature has primarily taken a qualitative approach.

This article’s research examines the interplay among intelligence, decision making, employee capability, and IT flexibility as antecedents of organizational agility. The severe impacts of COVID-19 surfaced in March 2020. The author speculated that companies initiated or effectuated changes in their business practices within four months. Therefore, survey data was collected from 136 respondents in June 2020.

Background

COVID-19 caused substantial disruptions in how companies transacted business, governments managed health, monetary, and fiscal policies, and people worked, studied, and lived (Ivanov, 2020; Moon, 2020; Xie et al., 2020). Although most technology companies fared well, some nontechnology sectors had difficulty managing the pandemic’s impact (Grover & Sabherwal, 2020; Kim, 2020). Negatively impacted nontechnology areas included the retail, restaurant, transportation, and hospitality sectors (Bartik et al., 2020; Gössling et al., 2020; Kim, 2020). Still, many companies did improve their home-delivery processes (Kim, 2020), governments changed their service modes (Gabryelczyk, 2020), healthcare providers altered their systems (Ohannessian et al., 2020), and universities delivered flexible course modes (Zou et al., 2020). Companies gathered information on risks and opportunities, assessed the cost-benefits of proposed changes, made rapid decisions, and took steps to effectuate change (Kamal, 2020).