THE ROLE OF ADAPTIVE ABILITY IN FIRM PERFORMANCE: MODERATING EFFECT OF FIRM SIZE AND AGE

THE ROLE OF ADAPTIVE ABILITY IN FIRM PERFORMANCE: MODERATING EFFECT OF FIRM SIZE AND AGE

Asian Economic and Financial Review ISSN(e): 2222-6737 ISSN(p): 2305-2147 DOI: 10.18488/journal.aefr.2019.97.807.823 Vol 9, No 7, 807-823 © 2019 AESS Publications All Rights Reserved URL: www.aessweb.com THE ROLE OF ADAPTIVE ABILITY IN FIRM PERFORMANCE: MODERATING EFFECT OF FIRM SIZE AND AGE Ngatno1+ Reni Shinta Dewi2 Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Social and Polotical Science, Universitas Diponegoro, Indonesia Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Administration Science, Universitas Brawijaya, Indonesia (+ Corresponding author) ABSTRACT Article History Received: 19 April 2019 Revised: 22 May 2019 Accepted: 25 June 2019 Published: 23 July 2019 Keywords Performance Adaptive capability MSMEs Firm Size Firm age JEL Classification: This paper explores the relationship between adaptive capability and firm performance to determine if corporate managers’ adaptive capabilities could directly impact firm performances The proposed conceptual model was tested with the moderating effects of firm size and age An empirical study tested the conceptual model of a batik-industry sample of Indonesian MSMEs The author used the Generalized Structured Component Analysis (GeSCA) online software program Empirical findings revealed that adaptive capability could have a positive and significant effect on business performances These positive relationships tend to decrease when the corporate size is large and have existed for a long period of time Managers therefore must realize that adaptive capability is needed to improve business performance It should also be noted that the size of the firm and the age of the firm can reduce the relationship between the two variables J24; L20; L21; L25; L26 Contribution/Originality: This study is one of the few studies to investigate adaptive abilities that have a role in the performance of MSMEs in Indonesia and to investigate the moderating effects of firm size and age INTRODUCTION The difference in firm performance depends on the ability of the adaptation, namely the firm’s efforts to understand and adapt to threats and opportunities from environmental change (Grant, 1991; Urban and Star, 1991; Walker et al., 1992; David, 1993) Adaptive capability can be defined as the capability to identify and utilize emerging market opportunities (Miles and Snow, 1978; Chakravarthy, 1982; Hooley et al., 1992) Thus companies that have high adaptive levels will be able to take advantage of opportunities and perform better (Bourgeois, 1980; Snow and Hrebiniak, 1980) This ability to improve performance is important for Indonesian companies because ASEAN countries were expected to implement economic integration by the end of 2015 Not only will integration lead to higher competition in the domestic market but also additional opportunities abroad These conditions indicate that environmental changes are currently taking place and marking the sign of hypercompetitive (Liebeskind et al., 1996; D'Aveni, 1998) In a dynamic environment, flexibility is needed, and must be supported by the right adaptive capability as a controller (Biedenbach and Söderholm, 2008) In strategic literature it is generally argued that strategic choice depends on how closely a business is aligned with its environment (Hofer and Schendel, 1978; Porter, 1980) 807 © 2019 AESS Publications All Rights Reserved Asian Economic and Financial Review, 2019, 9(7): 807-823 Therefore, in order to create a competitive advantage, the firm must be able to respond to this change much faster than its competitors Roberts and Grover (2012) although organizations have a limited ability in understanding and overcoming this reality (Day, 2011) The effort to understand a firm adapting to environmental challenges and opportunities is a topic of academic research that has long been discussed in literature Initially, research has shown that the process of organizational adaptation is related to firm actions and decision-making processes when facing market conditions (Miles and Snow, 1978; DeSarbo et al., 2005) This has made adaptability an inseparable part of strategic actions, leading to the reconfiguration of organizational resources, competencies and routines to capture opportunities from changes happening in the business environment (Teece et al., 1997; Ambrosini and Bowman, 2009; Teece, 2012) The majority of the literature on adaptive capability discusses the consequences of adaptive capability on firm performance Bourgeois (1980) stated that the main benefit of adaptability is that it can improve performance Hooley et al (1992) found that highly-adaptable companies will perform better than other companies Several other studies also showed that adaptive capability has a positive effect on organizational performance (Oktemgil and Gordon, 1997; Wei and Lau, 2010; Biedenbach and Müller, 2012; Eshima and Anderson, 2017) However, Snow and Hrebiniak (1980) showed that at a certain point, market adaptation also plays role in performance, but not necessarily in all dimensions of performance The seemingly unpredictable consequences of adaptive capabilities indicates that more research on this particular subject is still needed Although efforts in understanding how companies adapt to environmental change are increasing, there is still a lack of development in this field of research Ambrosini et al (2009) stated that more work on the topic of capability were needed, especially those involving unique and specific environments These environments should not be always exclusively generated by external factors such as market, competitors and government policy but could also include internal environments As an example, the internal environment could be in the form of size (Carr et al., 2010) and age (Rafiq et al., 2016) or both (Huang et al., 2013; Radipere and Dhliwayo, 2014) Unfortunately, the number of studies that specifically examine the moderating effects of organizational age and size and their relations with adaptive abilities and performance are still very rare, even nonexistent Therefore, to fill this gap, it was critical for a new study focusing on the influence of the internal environment on adaptive capability to be developed (Kaehler et al., 2014) The effectiveness of the organisation’s size in influencing firm performances has long been debated Some studies posited that smaller organizations should have a stronger impact while the others argued the opposite (Mintzberg, 1973; Hambrick and Mason, 1984; Hambrick, 1989; Koene et al., 2002) Vanpoucke et al (2014) showed that firm size can influence the implementation of corporate environmental practices because larger companies have more resources to reduce environmental stress than smaller companies Some scholars have agreed that the age of the firm would likely determine the growth of the firm They claimed that the critical level the company would go through would decrease over time, whereas the survival ability would increase along with the age of the firm Unknown, newly established companies would be normally unable to achieve economies of scale and would have insufficient resources and managerial expertise while time and growth would make them more reliable in coping with such problems However, previous empirical studies showed that the age of the firm did not provide conclusive evidence in relation to performance According to Sørensen and Stuart (2000) and Zahra (2003) a more experienced and older firm can produce more innovation than younger companies but generally only on incremental innovation and lower quality Withers et al (2011) stated that older companies have a higher level of innovation than younger companies and concluded that the age of the firm plays an important moderating role when examining the performance of MSMEs Innovation would also improve firm performance (Fruhling and Keng, 2007) 808 © 2019 AESS Publications All Rights Reserved Asian Economic and Financial Review, 2019, 9(7): 807-823 This study examined the degree of adaptive capability of MSMEs and their impact on their performance The research also examined the relationship between adaptive capability and its effect on performance when moderated by size (total sales, total employees, total assets) and experience (firm age) LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Adaptive Capability The discussion of strategic capabilities is framed through a resource-based view (RBV) The RBV claims that organizational growth depends on how companies collect their resources and use them (Penrose, 1959) Further research has expanded on the RBV by adding the concept of capability (Richardson, 1972) or combining individual skills with organizational capabilities (Nelson et al., 1982) The RBV states that competitive advantage is created from differences in resource allocation and ability (Peteraf, 1993) Adaptive capability represents the firm's internal capacity as the core of the response (Ansoff et al., 1976) It refers to the capability of a firm to coordinate quickly and reconfigure resources in response to sudden environmental changes (Gibson and Birkinshaw, 2004) while maintaining previous performance (Aggarwal et al., 2016; Kaur and Mehta, 2017) The adaptive capability has been understood as a capability related to problemsolving and responding to customers (Hakansson, 1982) which are characterized by three areas of organizational activity: the firm's response to customer-market opportunities, marketing activities to respond to these opportunities, and a rapid response in pursuing these opportunities This capability can be achieved through a mechanism that allows one to try to identify and resolve problems collectively and effectively Therefore SMEs must be able to build adaptive capability by analyzing changes in market trends and allocating appropriate resources (Oktemgil and Gordon, 1997) MSMEs must have adaptive capabilities needed to replace old traditions and routines with new ones (Akgün et al., 2012) and must have the ability to respond to changes in accordance with organizational priorities (Wang and Ahmed, 2004) Thus MSMEs that have adaptive capabilities are able to identify and take advantage of opportunities offered in the market (Tseng and Lee, 2014; Hofer et al., 2015) Therefore, by having this adaptive capability, MSMEs can monitor customers and markets (Morgan et al., 2003) and subsequently adapt products, prices, promotions and distribution, and develop new markets and products (Filipe and Montgomery, 2004; Wang and Ahmed, 2004; Hultman et al., 2009; Ahn, 2017) 2.2 Firm Performance Firm performance can viewed through several different perspectives Firm performance is a measure of how a manager utilizes organizational resources efficiently and effectively to achieve organizational goals and satisfy all stakeholders (Jones and George, 2009) This can be measured by two concepts, namely objective concepts based on absolute performance measurements and subjective concepts based on self-reported measurements Objective measurements are directly taken from external reports that are recorded and audited using absolute measurements; while subjective measures are based on respondents' assessment of their firm's performance (Wall et al., 2005) The growth rate is one measure of firm performance based on the belief that growth is a precursor to achieving sustainable competitive advantage and profitability (Markman and Gartner, 2002) Firm performance can be assessed using financial and non-financial measures (Martín-Consuegra and Esteban, 2007; Panigyrakis and Theodoridis, 2007) Besides that the measurement of firm performance can use sales growth (He and Wong, 2004; Wu et al., 2006), employment growth (Baum et al., 2000), and growth in the premises (Morris et al., 2006) 809 © 2019 AESS Publications All Rights Reserved Asian Economic and Financial Review, 2019, 9(7): 807-823 2.3 Conceptual Framework and Hypotheses 2.3.1 Adaptive Capability and Performance Although it is said that the achievement and application of adaptive capabilities are very expensive (Zammuto, 1982; McKee et al., 1989) this can provide the main benefits of improving performance (Bourgeois, 1980; Snow and Hrebiniak, 1980) This relationship is supported by several studies showing that adaptive capability affects organizational performance (Wei and Lau, 2010; Biedenbach and Müller, 2012; Eshima and Anderson, 2017) Some researchers found that highly-adaptable companies seem to perform better than other companies, but Snow and Hrebiniak (1980) concluded that while market adaptation was positively related to performance up to a certain point, that at a higher level, there was a negative relationship Miles and Snow (1978) argued that there were no significant differences between types of strategies with respect to performance, which were supported by the empirical study by Slater and Narver (1994) where there were no significant performance differences in various organization strategies Even though empirical conflicts occur, all the objectives of adaptability are to pursue market opportunities, develop and enhance marketing activities, and respond to environmental changes faster than competitors, so that performance can be eventually improved Referring to the understanding of some researchers, it could be stated that any adaptive capability possessed by a firm is a source for achieving competitive advantage (Powell, 1992; Powell, 1995) and a source of corporate innovation (Adeniran and Johnston, 2012) Therefore, we proposed the following research hypothesis: H1: Adaptive capability has a positive effect on MSMEs performance 2.4 The Effect of Firm Size on the Relationship between Adaptive Capability and Performance Firm size and resources are two important aspects in terms of the relationship between components of adaptive capability and performance (Aldrich and Ellen, 1986; Baker and Cullen, 1993; Wales et al., 2011) The effectiveness of managing an organization that depends on firm size has long been debated (Mintzberg, 1973; Hambrick and Mason, 1984; Niresh and Velnampy, 2014) whereas the relationship between firm size and performance has been considered ambiguous (Ramasamy et al., 2005) Therefore it is necessary to consider industry specifications and case-by-case studies to avoid generalization The literature shows that large firms are more bureaucratic and more formal than smaller organizations (Child, 1972; Weber, 1978) leading them to create formal decision standards (Baker and Cullen, 1993) which cause structural inertia and inflexibility (Hannan and Freeman, 1977; Hannan et al., 2002) The structural inertia helps the firm carry out stable exploitation rather than pursuing exploration If this situation exists in the firm, the exploration strategy of large companies is hindered Therefore, it is possible that firm size has a negative effect on firm performance This idea was supported by Palangkaraya et al (2009) who stated that larger and older companies were less productive The firm size in this study was also introduced as a moderator in the relationship between adaptive capability and firm performance Previous research has shown conflicting evidence about the relationship among organizations, innovation, and firm size Some studies have suggested that larger organizations may be more suitable for pursuing innovation than smaller companies (Baldridge and Burnham, 1975) but evidence of the reverse has also been found (Blau, 1979) We argued that firm size is a key contextual variable in the study of adaptive capability in relation to firm performance Koene et al (2002) found that in smaller organizations, the success of organizational management has a stronger impact than in larger ones Peteraf (1993) and Wernerfelt (1994) argued that the key difference in strategy and level of performance among competitors is a unique firm characteristic that produces core competencies Firm size is one of the factors that can influence the implementation of management practices to respond to environmental changes The larger firm has more resources but receives greater environmental pressure than a smaller firm (Vanpoucke et al., 2014) Chung et al (2003) stated that as an adjustment variable, organizational size 810 © 2019 AESS Publications All Rights Reserved Asian Economic and Financial Review, 2019, 9(7): 807-823 influences the relationship between the management model and organization development Therefore, we proposed the following research hypothesis: H2a : The total employees negatively affects MSMEs performance H2b : The total assets negatively affects MSMEs performance H2c : The total sales negatively effect MSMEs performance H3a : The total worker moderates the relationship between adaptive capability and MSMEs performance H3b : The total assets moderates the relationship between adaptive capability and MSMEs performance H3c : The total sales moderates the relationship between adaptive capability and MSMEs performance 2.5 The effect of Firm Age on the relationship between Adaptive Capability and Performance One of the inherent characteristics in a firm is experience (Carr et al., 2010) This experience can increase with age, that is how long the firm has been operating (Morgan et al., 2004) The greater the experience of a firm, the better its understanding of market trends and the more business opportunities it can take advantage of (Ahn, 2017) Therefore, companies that operate longer will gain more experience and more resources so that they will be better at responding to environmental changes (Carr et al., 2010) New companies are more likely to fail than older ones, due to the lack of experience, established routines, and available resources Previous research showed that new businesses tended to be adaptable and responsive in reallocating and mobilizing their resources (Oviatt and McDougall, 1994) They were better than established companies because they had the ability to vicariously learn which is a requirement for success and then they used this knowledge to produce performance growth (Autio et al., 2000) With flexibility and adaptive capability, new businesses can quickly decide to move forward in order to realize the goals of growth Consistent with an aging perspective which states that younger companies can experiment and identify or adopt successful competitive recipes, they can accelerate their entry into different markets and achieve their growth goals In addition, younger companies tend to invest adequately in anticipating and exploring new opportunities (Massis et al., 2014) When younger companies choose to enter new markets, they can sometimes take advantage of their capabilities and successfully transfer experience to new markets Finally, higher growth can be realized after new capabilities are available (Sapienza et al., 2006) Based on this perspective, we argued that the age of the firm has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between adaptive capability and firm performance This study also tested whether younger companies performed better than the older ones and whether the relationship between adaptive capability and firm performance was stronger in younger firms Therefore, we proposed the following research hypothesis Figure 1: H4 : Firm age has a negative effect on MSMEs performance H5 : Firm age moderates the relationship between adaptive capability and MSMEs performance Figure-1 Conceptual Model Source: Suggested by authors based on literature review 811 © 2019 AESS Publications All Rights Reserved Asian Economic and Financial Review, 2019, 9(7): 807-823 METHODOLOGY AND MEASUREMENT 3.1 Data collection The target population for this study was the UMKM Batik entrepreneur group in Central Java which is divided into three central areas of batik Data collection was via questionnaires which were completed by MSME owners or authorized managers on a voluntary basis 198 questionnaires that were filled in completely with sufficient information were selected for the study 3.2 Measurement The measurement model refers to an implicit or explicit model that links latent variables to the indicator The latent variables in this study used reflective multi indicators The questionnaire used in this study was developed through an extensive review of the available literature on adaptive abilities and the performance of MSMEs including sources such as textbooks, research papers, and academic journals Adaptive ability was measured by eight items: monitoring customers and markets (Morgan et al., 2003); product adaptation; price; promotion and distribution; and, the development of markets and new products (Filipe and Montgomery, 2004) Firm performance in this study was measured subjectively based on the manager's perception of the growth of his business The use of growth as a measure of firm performance is generally based on the belief that growth is a precursor to the achievement of sustainable competitive advantage and profitability (Markman and Gartner, 2002) This growth was measured by items: (1) sales growth, (2) profit growth, and (3) asset growth (Delmar, 1997) These two constructs used a 5-point Likert scale The age of the firms were measured by the length of time they were in operation (Sousa et al., 2008; Park and Rhee, 2012) The age of the firms were grouped into three groups (Indonesian Bureau of Statistics): (1) companies that were young ( 10 years) whereas the size of the firms were measured by total employees, total sales and total assets (Indonesian Bureau of Statistics) Firm sizes were grouped into three groups: (1) micro businesses (with 10 years Total ≤ 50 million 50 - 500 million >500 million-10 billion Total ≤ 300 million > 300 million -2,5 billion >2,5 -50 billion Total N Percent 112 86 150 28 100 22 42 198 56,57 43,43 100,0 1,52 14,14 50,51 11,11 21,21 1,52 100,0 25 24 71 78 198 29 85 84 198 37 111 50 198 49 84 65 198 12,63 12,12 35,86 39,39 100,0 14,45 42,93 42,42 100,0 18,69 56,06 25,25 100,00 24,75 42,42 32,83 100,0 Source: Results from data processing, 2018 As shown in Table 3, the value of √AVE (mentioned in diagonals) was greater than the correlation coefficient between the latent variables (mentioned outside-diagonally) The √AVE value for constructive ability construct = 0.559 which was greater than 0.220 and the square root value of average variance extracted AVE for the constructs of firm performance was 0.881 and greater than 0.220 Thus, the two constructs were in accordance with the criteria of discriminant validity 813 © 2019 AESS Publications All Rights Reserved Asian Economic and Financial Review, 2019, 9(7): 807-823 Table-2 Construct reliability and convergent validity Variable ADAPTIVE CAPABILITY New_poduct Introduce New_market Entrance Market_Monitoring Competitive_Monitoring Product_modification Price_modification Promotion_modification Distribution_modification PERFORMANCE Profit growth Sales_ growth Asset_ growth Loading Estimate SE CR AVE = 0.312, Alpha =0.674 0.497 0.086 5.77* 0.595 0.07 8.48* 0.407 0.114 3.57* 0.624 0.058 10.69* 0.73 0.044 16.5* 0.48 0.092 5.23* 0.589 0.081 7.22* 0.481 0.093 5.17* AVE = 0.776, Alpha =0.845 0.956 0.004 224.95* 0.956 0.005 182.7* 0.709 0.058 12.2* Source: Results from data processing, 2018 CR* = significant at 05 level Table-3 Measurement model: cross-loadings Correlations of Latent Variables (SE) ADAPTIVE CAPABILITY ADAPTIVE CAPABILITY 0.559 (√AVE) PERFORMANCE 0.220 (0.079)* PERFORMANCE 0.881 (√AVE) Source: Results from data processing, 2018 4.3 Structural Model and Hypothesis Testing Model showed that adaptive capability has an estimated value (b = 0.224) and a critical ratio (CR>2.58), thus this variable was found to have a positive influence on firm performance as can been seen in Table From this investigation, there was a significant positive effect of adaptive capability on firm performance Regression analysis argued that strategic planning was a significant input that adds variation to firm performance This combination strongly supported H1, which stated that there is a positive influence between adaptive capability on MSMEs performance, therefore H1 was supported Table-4 Regression of firm performance: additional results by total of employees, asset, sales and age Independent variables Adaptive Capability Total employees Total asset Total sales Age Adapt- Cap* Tot-asset Adapt- Cap *Tot-sales Adapt- Cap * Tot-empl Adapt- Cap *Age R2 ΔR2 Model Estimate CR 0.224 3.02* 0.05 0.05 Firm performance Model Estimate CR 0.207 2.59* -0.126 0.82 -0.242 3.13* 0.174 1.87 -0.002 0.03 0.105 0.055 Model Estimate CR 0.958 2.67* 1.072 2.38* 1.979 2.43* -1.572 1.33 -0.361 0.53 -2.337 2.61* 1.943 1.44 -1.353 2.58* 0.419 0.61 0.254 0.149 Source: Results from data processing, 2018 CR* = significant at 05 level In Model 2, assets had an estimate value (b = -0.242) and critical ratio (CR> 2.58); worker had an estimate value (b =-0.126) and a critical ratio (CR