The Challenge of Organizing Change in Hypercompetitive Industries: A Literature Review

Hypercompetitive, that is, dynamic and unpredictable environments require flexible, innovative and creative organizations, which can easily adapt quickly to the changing rules of the competitive arena. Organizations, therefore, continuously need to change. The management of organizational change in such a merciless environment is together key and restraint. This paper reviews literature covering organizational change in hypercompetitive environments with a focus on projects as the vehicle to create the necessary flexibility. The challenge is thus to combine the need for long-term sustainability with continuous flexibility in terms of how organizational and technological change efforts are designed and carried out. Organizations are well advised to develop a high degree of dynamic capabilities, which are the core of meeting the tensions of the capability and structural challenge. The authors suggest that organizational aspects and capabilities have to go hand in hand as enabler and at the same time facilitator for a successful emergent change process in hypercompetitive industries.