Organizational Flexibility in Saudi Construction Firms

In the increasingly unpredictable, dynamic and competitive market of Saudi Arabia, managers of construction firms face a dilemma when making a choice on the organizational setup that would endow their firm with a sustained competitive advantage. A rigid, mechanistic setup on one side, and a flexible, agile, highly adaptive one on the other. Entailed in their choice are high-stake trade-offs, such as operating costs, efficiency, control, strategic focus, and opportunity response. To a large extent, this choice is rooted in these manager s ontological standpoint towards the three dominant management perspectives, the classic, the modern and the postmodern. Against this background, this book delves into the organizational setup and adaptation practices used by these managers, and looks into the different types of flexibility at the strategic, structural and operational levels. This book also provides the relation between these practices and their performance implications, leading to a framework that guides managers working, or planning to work in Saudi Arabia on the type of organizational setup that works best for large, as well as small construction firms.

Autorentext

Fadi Atassi is an engineering and business management graduate. He founded and co-founded several construction firms in the Middle East, and spent most of his twenty-five years career occupying top management position in Saudi construction firms.