Business Agility: Does the Size Really Matter?

Abstract

The context in which organizations are operating is more and more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous and the Business Agility helps to keep operating in an always more demanding environment, turning constraints such as environmental, social and governance into opportunity. Since 2018, the Business Agility Institute collects data worldwide with a questionnaire based on self-authored model to measure the state of the art on Business Agility across the globe. The model appears to be valid based on a Confirmatory Factor Analysis based on a thousand of observations gathered by the Institute over the last 3 years (Bronlet, 2022). It’s therefore interesting to go one step further and explore how a factor like the size of the organization may influence the ability of an organization to adapt swiftly. This paper explores the relationships between the organization size based on headcount and the Business Agility. The methods used for the research are based on analysis of variance (One-way ANOVA) and confirmatory factor analysis for the estimation of the constructs. All the indicators suggest that the size of the organization has a significant influence on the relative Business Agility and the analysis suggests a clear cut between the groups formed by less than 200 staff members and the others formed with more than 200. In essence, the smaller organizations experience, on average, 10% higher Business Agility compare to their larger peers. This paper may therefore contribute to the body of knowledge around the Business Agility and the future of work. It may reinforce ideas of smaller units working in autonomy such as the Autonomous Production Unit or create connections with the studies performed by Dunbar who establish the so call Dunbar’s number, 150.