اثر دوجنبه ای پیچیدگی در عملکرد شرکت: صنعت ارائه دهنده خدمات جهانی The ambivalent effect of complexity on firm performance: A study of the global service provider industry

Introduction Understanding the performance implications of organizational complexity remains a key concern in management research. In response to increasingly multifaceted and dynamic global business contexts, firms often build up internal organizational complexity to better match environmental demands (Dougherty, 2004; Garud et al., 2011; Niosi, 2011). Yet, the implications of such actions remain ambivalent. On the one hand, complexity may jeopardize the organizational ability to process information (Ethiraj and Levinthal, 2004; Tushman and Nadler, 1978), which in turn can increase the likelihood of decision errors and eventually lower firm performance (Levinthal, 1997). On the other hand, complexity may support capabilities that are difficult to monitor and imitate (Husted, 2007; Reed and DeFillippi, 1990; Rivkin, 2001), which in turn may promote rent appropriation and help firms develop a competitive advantage (Lippman and Rumelt, 1982; Powell et al., 2006). In this article, we explore the ambivalent performance consequences of organizational complexity. While existing research has produced important insights on how complexity may either deteriorate or enhance firm performance, less is known about when the opposing effects emerge. Hence, the aim of this article is to differentiate specific performance contingencies of organizational complexity. In doing so, we follow a long tradition in organizational theory in defining complexity as a property of a system characterized by a large number of interdependent organizational tasks and operations (Simon, 1962; Porter and Siggelkow, 2008; Zhou, 2013). Moreover, rather than treating complexity as a single organizational construct, we emphasize that different types of organizational complexity may yield different performance effects. Following existing research (e.g., Larsen et al., 2013; Løwendahl and Revang, 1998; Siggelkow, 2001), we explore the different performance effects of configuration complexity, i.e., complexity arising from coordinating various organizational tasks and operations, and task complexity, i.e., complexity arising from coordinating needs within particular tasks.