Understanding organizational change: insights into Korean small and medium-sized enterprises and large U.S companies from the perspective of environmental determinism and strategic choice theory

Abstract

This dissertation aims to study the empirical analysis of organizational change by applying two opposing perspectives: environmental determinism and strategic choice theory. The first study aims to understand the customer strategy of Korean small and medium-sized manufacturing suppliers operating in a customer-dominated market. Specifically, it identifies the organizational capabilities that affect their strategies for new customer acquisition and main customer retention, and determines the contribution of both strategies to the firm growth. The second study investigates how founder-CEO status and environmental conditions influence the emergence of new role titles in the top management team of US-listed companies. This dissertation contributes to the understanding of organizational changes by synthesizing the findings of these two studies. This provides insights into the internal and external factors, as well as their consequences, that drive companies to make changes in response to rapidly evolving business environments.