Alignment-Driven Adaptation Process & Tool (ADAPT): Towards continuous and holistic adaptation of organizations

This dissertation examines the dramatic decline of the average lifespan of S&P 500 organizations from 67 years eight decades ago to just 15 years today. It shows that organizations are failing to keep pace with today’s rapidly evolving business environment. Key factors contributing to this trend include global events such as Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical conflicts, and technological advances such as the AI arms race. These unanticipated and radical changes are creating a VUCA world characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, requiring new business strategies and adaptive measures. Organizations primarily respond to these external changes in three ways: proactively, reactively, or inactively. The dissertation argues that agile responsiveness and dynamic capabilities are key to sustainable success in this turbulent world characterized by constant change, complex interactions between organizations and their environment, and ad hoc responses by organizations. In response, this dissertation presents the ADAPT (Alignment-Driven Adaptation Process and Tool) framework, which integrates Dynamic Capability Theory, Systems Thinking, and the concept of Minimum Viability. ADAPT is designed to facilitate the development and implementation of continuous, holistic, and purpose-driven adaptation processes aimed at evolutionary fitness, the ability to sustain in the VUCA world. Moreover, ADAPT represents a holistic approach that aims to align dynamic capabilities with PESTEL requirements, revealing industrial dynamics that are further explored through the Five Forces logic. ADAPT is characterized by a two-phase approach involving the (1) design and (2) execution of purpose-specific adaptation processes tailored to navigate the organization in its constantly evolving environment. The dissertation emphasizes the importance of IT tool support in the implementation of ADAPT, specifically the use of the GOLD tool for generating purpose-specific web applications to guide stakeholders step-by-step through the adaptation process. The dissertation presents extensive research, including various studies, projects, workshops, and educational initiatives that have contributed to the development of the ADAPT framework. These efforts have focused on creating solutions, for example, adapted models, such as new canvases or canvas kits, or methods, such as canvas-based multi-perspective guidance, that balance academic rigor with practical applicability, in line with Hevner’s three-cycle view. ADAPT is the result of interdisciplinary research, driven by real-world needs and significantly shaped by collaboration with IT/software professionals. It emphasizes that organizational competitiveness depends on continuous, value-driven adaptation. At the heart of this adaptation strategy is the need to integrate diverse expertise through a structured negotiation process to appropriately align activities and thereby holistically bridge the knowing-doing gap. To establish this structured negotiation process ADAPT introduces an advanced framework for leveraging and synthesizing existing knowledge and guiding organizations in their precise communication toward a shared understanding and aligned execution. This holistic framework aims to significantly reduce the common 70% failure rate of organizational transformations. Central to ADAPT’s strategy is a focus on purpose-specificity, ensuring effective stakeholder guidance through advanced IT tool support to align diverse business functions around common organizational goals. This support facilitates early testing, failure, iteration, and identification of gaps for timely adjustments.