Purpose

This study aims to assess how innovative organizational culture and innovative leadership generate market flexibility for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the service sector to enhance their competitiveness. Both organizational culture and leadership are seen as firm-level resources capable of influencing the flexibility of the firm in periods of market turbulence. The study argues that SME service firms must use their internal resources to develop their flexibility capability which is more valuable, rare, inimitable and not substitutable.

Design/methodology/approach

SME service firms from Ghana are used to test the study’s hypotheses through robust standard regression analysis. A sampling frame was developed from an online database of small and medium enterprises operating in the service sector.

Findings

The findings suggest that although organizational culture and leadership may influence a service firm’s competitiveness, it is more viable to use these firm-level resources to create market flexibility capability to amplify the effect. This means, when culture and leadership propel the flexibility drive, the service firm is able to connect, coordinate and synchronize functional units to take advantage of new product and market opportunities. Additionally, market flexibility emanating from organizational culture and leadership wields enough power and resource support to tackle the turbulent market conditions better than firms with less support.

Practical implications

The managerial implication from this study is that firms should use their organizational culture and leadership to create flexible organizations that afford them the opportunity to adapt to the environmental dynamics. If both leadership and culture work together, they are able to create strong market capabilities such as flexibility which determines how well the firm will respond to the competition, customer demand and all other external pressures. It is, therefore, the view of this paper that SMEs should use their organizational culture and leadership to build a market-flexible organization to create a competitive advantage.

Originality/value

This paper shows how internal resources/assets such as culture and leadership generate the needed flexibility to create a competitive advantage for SMEs. This paper explains the two dimensions of Volberda’s flexibility from a firm-level resource perspective and highlights flexibility as a second-order capability whose cultivation and effectiveness are dependent on a firm’s culture and leadership. Evidence of how a firm’s market flexibility is fuelled by organizational leadership and culture is demonstrated. Finally, this paper shows how resource-poor SMEs in emerging African economies can enhance their market competitiveness through internal systems and processes.

中文翻译：

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组织文化和领导力作为组织灵活性的前身：对中小企业竞争力的影响

目的

本研究旨在评估创新组织文化和创新领导力如何为服务业中的中小企业 (SME) 带来市场灵活性，以提高其竞争力。组织文化和领导力都被视为公司层面的资源，能够在市场动荡时期影响公司的灵活性。研究认为，中小企业服务企业必须利用其内部资源来发展其灵活性能力，这种能力更有价值、更稀有、不可模仿、不可替代。

设计/方法/方法

来自加纳的中小企业服务公司被用来通过稳健的标准回归分析来测试研究的假设。抽样框架是根据服务业中小型企业的在线数据库开发的。

发现

研究结果表明，尽管组织文化和领导力可能会影响服务公司的竞争力，但利用这些公司层面的资源来创造市场灵活性能力来放大效果更为可行。这意味着，当文化和领导力推动灵活性驱动时，服务公司能够连接、协调和同步职能部门，以利用新产品和市场机会。此外，与支持较少的公司相比，源自组织文化和领导力的市场灵活性拥有足够的权力和资源支持，可以更好地应对动荡的市场状况。

实际影响

这项研究的管理意义是，公司应该利用他们的组织文化和领导力来创建灵活的组织，让他们有机会适应环境动态。如果领导力和文化共同发挥作用，他们就能够创造强大的市场能力，例如灵活性，这决定了公司对竞争、客户需求和所有其他外部压力的反应程度。因此，本文认为中小企业应利用其组织文化和领导力来建立具有市场灵活性的组织，以创造竞争优势。

原创性/价值

本文展示了文化和领导力等内部资源/资产如何产生所需的灵活性，从而为中小企业创造竞争优势。本文从企业层面资源的角度解释了沃尔伯达灵活性的两个维度，并强调灵活性是一种二阶能力，其培养和有效性取决于企业的文化和领导力。展示了组织领导力和文化如何推动公司市场灵活性的证据。最后，本文展示了新兴非洲经济体中资源匮乏的中小企业如何通过内部系统和流程提高其市场竞争力。