Mindset reflects a set of beliefs, assumptions, perceptions, norms, attitudes, and notions held by one or more people or groups of people. The dominant logic suggests that firms develop over time a mindset that conceptualizes their business strategy and guides decision-making on what resources to use and the allocation of critical resources. This mindset guides strategy formulation and implementation.
There is consensus that mindsets influence people’s motivations and actions.
Mindset plays an important role from a managerial perspective, as managerial ideologies determine how firms act. The mindset significantly influences the international marketing adaptation strategy of a firm. Mindset also affects conduct and creates an organizational culture, and in the organization theory literature, mindset is associated with and a critical driver of organizational change, a constant in business.
There are different types of mindsets
-a growth versus fixed mindset,
-fresh start mindset,
-strategic mindset,
-inertia mindset,
-digital entrepreneurial mindset,
-creativity mindset,
-renovate mindset,
transcend mindset,
-and evolve mindset.
Agility and management’s mindset
The ability to be agile is related to management’s mindset. Agility is similarly associated with aspects of culture, as it entails routines of motivating people to operate in a good organizational climate; experimenting through trial and error; and implementing incremental and/or radical changes.
However, before firms can respond and adapt to changes, they need to have a mindset in which changes are viewed as opportunities rather than threats.
Over time, managers adopt a particular mindset along with a set of certain decision rules and heuristics based on experience, which can lead to inertia if managers remain hostage to current thinking and plans.
Notably, agility provides the means to fight inertia and to respond to various contexts. The constant and active use of new managerial methods and strategies is an internal ability of a firm that reflects its proactive flexibility and willingness to move toward change. Such a mindset resists adherence to the familiar.
Agility and flexibility
An agile mindset challenges the status quo and requires flexibility; in fact, the literature indicates a high degree of overlap between agility and flexibility, which are used. In this context, flexibility implies encouraging new and unconventional management approaches and prescriptions and continually updating them with the aim of iteratively refining the company’s systems and techniques. Iteration is an integral part of marketing agility that involves repeatedly refining decisions and enabling marketers to better match changes in markets. Iteration also requires engaging in strategic twists that depart from the usual sequence of tasks and pursue new insights, possibilities, and goals.
we define an agile mindset as a resource that drives a firm to seek out and introduce new management methods and approaches by encouraging the organization’s members to be alert to new and innovative ways of doing things. An agile mindset keeps employees watchful and leads management to reward those who suggest new approaches. It is a sense that while change is not necessarily good, it is better to err on the side of encouraging change rather than stifling it. The creation of agile organizational systems requires that firms make sense quickly and remain flexible to adapt to new ideas and to host countries’ and host stakeholders’ concerns.
References
This article is based on the work of:
Yoel Asseraf, Itzhak Gnizy,Translating strategy into action: The importance of an agile mindset and agile slack in international business,International Business Review,Volume 31, Issue 6,2022,
