Organizational agility of IT companies

Topic
This Master Thesis discusses cultural aspects of organizational agility (OA) that IT companies perceive as the most important in practice and highlights the pressing challenges in this context, as well as measures taken and/or planned by companies to achieve and maintain agility at the organizational level.

Relevance
Organizational agility is considered a key success factor in the era of digital transformation (DT). DT however is affecting business of all sizes and industries, and as inertia is generally seen as a clear obstacle with regard to DT, it is important for organizations to comprehend what drives OA in order to take over control and initiate impacting action. Understanding what cultural aspects influence OA represents one piece of the puzzle.

Results
Cultivating a culture that is ready for change and enables innovation are considered essential cultural aspects for an agile organization. However, the same aspects, along with organizational growth, also represent the greatest challenges. In order to address these, companies take targeted measures. Great care is taken in maintaining organizational structures as flat as possible and strategic guidelines are put in place to help employees to act and decide independently, while well-developed hiring processes intend to uphold corporate culture, values and agility in the long term.

Implications for practitioners
- Organizations with a stronger innovation culture tend to be more content with their own level of OA
-  Organizations should define an innovation process outlined and structured on a level that suits the company's needs
- Along their own organizational growth, companies should closely monitor their organizational structures and quickly initiate changes if needed to maintain agility on organizational level
- Introducing corresponding elements in the recruiting process, helps to find more suitable employees and thus to maintain the desired organizational culture in the long term

Methods
This research was designed as exploratory research involving a qualitative approach following inductive reasoning. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews. Based on a conceptual model from current literature, a first scoping interview was conducted, which revealed, that cultural aspects were among the biggest challenges regarding OA. Consequently, the research was intentionally continued in this direction conducting further expert interviews that were later analyzed using a mixed coding-approach.