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VUCA and Its Impact on Business Organizations

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Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Challenging Global Times

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Management and Industrial Engineering ((LNMIE))

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Abstract

The paper describes, first, the massive changes in the environments themselves in which companies operate and, second, the ways in which these environments are continuously changing. It also highlights the impact on companies and business organizations and sets out requirements for organizations to survive successfully in the rapidly changing environment. After a brief look at the economic impact to illustrate the importance of this topic, ideas for creating a high-performing organization are developed. To this end, ideas from (agile) organizational development, organizational learning, and network organization are used to look at the internal organization and take the cross-border perspective to identify key capabilities. These concepts are compared and complemented with certain ideas from cybernetics and computer science.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    “… Taylorism follows three connected objectives: … the centralization and rationalization of instruction powers within the company, the increase in production and the efficiency of workers and machinery through reorganisation and complete transparency of costs, processes, working hours and methods; the use of science not only as a guiding force for action, but also as a basis of legitimacy for the new proposal”.

  2. 2.

    “… The energy turnaround does not only mean the phasing out of nuclear energy and the decarbonization of energy production. It means nothing less than the transformation of a hitherto centralized energy system into a decentralized structure of energy generation and use, and at the same time the efficient use of energy in general.”

  3. 3.

    “Turbulence refers to rapid and unpredictable changes in the environment that influence a firm’s ability to create.”

  4. 4.

    While VUCA rather describes the dynamics of environmental changes, hypercompetition focuses on the increasing dynamics of competition. Although the four arenas of competition (Cost-Quality, Timing and Know-How, Entry Barriers, Deep Pockets) have stayed the same, these advantages have become more temporary every day.

  5. 5.

    This quote cannot be clarily connected to a single person. Some refer it to Eberhard von Kuenheim (former top manager of BMW), some to Rupert Murdoch, some to other famous people.

  6. 6.

    For example, German utilities, e.g., heavily invested in electric mobility and presented already 1.500 existing electric loading stations in 2013, but the markets started scaling 10 years later. This early start has required long financial staying power and just in 2020 Innogy’s CEO explained the huge financial losses in this sector by huge initial investments.

  7. 7.

    The term “economies of scale” is closely related to “economies of seize”. Both terms are often not distinguished whereas actually economies of seize is the economic term that refers to the cost function. Since in this context economies of scale has become an established term that refers to cost reduction by growth, this work bases on this terminology.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the University Politehnica Timisoara, Romania, and the Westphalian University of Applied Sciences, Germany, for the support of the present doctoral study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University Politehnica Timisoara, Timisoara, Romania

    Markus Niehaus & Marian Mocan

  2. Westphalian University of Applied Sciences, Gelsenkirchen, Germany

    Markus Niehaus & Katrin Hansen

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  1. Markus Niehaus
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  2. Marian Mocan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Markus Niehaus .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, Polytechnic University of Timisoara, Timisoara, Romania

    Gabriela I. Prostean

  2. Department of Industrial Engineering, Universidad de Burgos, Burgos, Spain

    Juan J. Lavios

  3. Department of Management, West University of Timisoara, Timisoara, Romania

    Laura Brancu

  4. Department of International Trade and Logistics, Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University, Fethiye, Türkiye

    Faruk Şahin

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Niehaus, M., Mocan, M., Hansen, K. (2024). VUCA and Its Impact on Business Organizations. In: Prostean, G.I., Lavios, J.J., Brancu, L., Şahin, F. (eds) Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Challenging Global Times. Lecture Notes in Management and Industrial Engineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47164-3_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47164-3_1

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