What Should Be Focused on When Digital Transformation Hits Industries? Literature Review of Business Management Adaptability

Abstract

How traditional industries adapt to the digital economy to achieve sustainable development has attracted scholars and practitioners. Exploring the concept of BMA (business management adaptability) can not only theoretically explain adaptive micro-operation mechanisms but can provide practical guidance for enterprises to form adaptability. To date, although a lot of effort is being spent on detecting the adaptive construction elements, refining the BMA to specific management levels, a comprehensive review combines adaptability construction elements and specific levels have not yet been formed. In this trial, this paper innovatively utilizes a hybrid method that consists of a bibiometric and structural literature review to conduct a comprehensive theoretical study of relevant literatures from 1970 to 2020. By displaying current research conclusions and their defects, this study combines adaptability construction elements and innovatively forms a multi-level BMA framework. In this framework, this paper reveals the importance of setting up performance evaluation systems that focus on corporate profitability, probing and counterpoising relations between internal and external environments. Finally, this paper provides recommendations for practitioners about how to build their own competitive advantages when the digital economy hits the global world.

1. Introduction

Digital revolutions have recently hit most industries, and external parameters such as politics, social trends, and customer preference have changed with unprecedented speed and scale, organizational changes having become unpredictable [1]. Enterprises have tried to deal with interconnected, capricious and aggressive economic transformations to generate sustainable advantages through business adaptability management [2,3]. Reasonable adaptive management is quite essential for companies to maintain sustainable competitive advantages. Therefore, carrying out research on the concept of business management adaptability is quite considerable.

The concept of business management adaptability has been investigated quite intensively in recent years [4]. Since Ford and Baucus [5] proposed that the concept of business management adaptability should include organizational learning and other unclear process management subjects through a systemic literature review, Huber [6], Pettigrew [7] and other scholars also made similar suggestions. Following this direction of research, Cognini et al. [8] developed the definition of operation process management adaptability to find the key business success modeling factors (i.e., adoption of emerging technologies) to accommodate the ever-changing environment. In other process management aspects, like learning adaptability, this was regarded as improving supply chain agility by internal learning (expressed in the internal capital outside the company) and external learning (expressed in the company’s ability to learn from its supply chain partners) [9]. More scholars have since conducted research into different perspectives of organizational structures that typically consists at individual and organizational levels. On the one hand, individual adaptability involves the development of individual abilities to adapt to different tasks, societies and environments [10,11]. Further research divided this perspective into employee adaptability (a socio-psychological structure that includes preparations and resources for tasks, occupations and unexpected challenges that may be faced) [12], as well as leadership adaptability (leaders promote organizational diversity in response to organizational changes by providing employees with headspace and contact opportunities) [13]. On the other hand, organizational adaptability is more related to corporate level such as product adaptability (users modifying and improving various additional functions of products which they bought before) [14], strategic adaptability (dynamically adjusting corporate strategy to adapt to the changing environment and maintain competitiveness) [15].

Adaptability performance, as one part of mainstream research that focused on various adaptability performance, was described [16,17]. Generally, adaptability performance both concentrated on the effect and the evaluation system [18]. For instance, meeting the needs of renewal projects during the continuous development of system functions are performances of system adaptability [19]. What is more, information system flexibility, knowledge of senior management, and team structures are utilized to evaluate system adaptability performance [20]. Moreover, cultural adaptability is performed to improve corporate performance and competitive advantages through manifesting different cultural obstacles, hence the cultural distance could be used to measure its performance [21,22]. At the same time, the definition of adaptive behavior (adaptive labor), and agile organization (the adaptive behavior is organization or teams) have also been developed. In addition, scholars are currently extending this concept to business asset fields. For instance, adaptive products (products with advanced sensor technology capable of real-time tracking in the supply chain) [23], adaptive strategies (using expert judgment, statistical forecasting, Delphi, and forecast market methods to make strategic adjustments to deal with uncertain environments) [24], and adaptive processes (value co-creation as a complex adaptive process) [25].

In summary, previous scholars have developed research into the concept of management adaptability both at an individual and an organizational level, but combining organizational adaptability and individual adaptability is not quite as common. Moreover, although some research into adaptive performance (i.e., system, culture) has been extended to the mutli-level of business, research in this field is still insufficient, particularly in process management performance [26,27]. Finally, a framework that integrates adaptive behavior and agile organization in the business asset fields is also scarce.

One exception is Almahamid et al. [28], who proposed that the construction of business management adaptability (as Figure 1) should include role flexibility [29], adaptive performance [18,30], adaptive labor or agile organizations [27], and adaptability [31]. This pioneer work initially established the theoretical framework of adaptability construction that influenced research tends to explore ignored details. For instance, adaptability labor has been extended to specific subjects such as adaptive employees (staff with the ability to adjust their advantages) [32,33,34]; and as adaptive products (refers to products with modular elements to achieve subsequent upgrades and transformations) [35].

In this trial, the objective of this research is summarized as the history and the current status of business management adaptability, and also generates a multi-level research framework to guide further research, as well as practical applications, by utilizing hybrid review methods (which consists of both a bibliometric and a structured literature review). Maltou and Bahta [36] have also used a conceptual review method to summarize former research, and drew a trend map of business management adaptability. This work can be regarded as the most comprehensive review due to its conclusions regarding role flexibility (both individual and team), and related adaptive processes. Unfortunately, elements of adaptability performance, as well as adaptive labor, did not obtain a definition or a description; in addition, the relatively simple review methods used in the paper may have led to defective and unverifiable research conclusions.

By defining adaptability performance as corporate profitability, and forming a multi-level business management adaptability framework using a hybrid method, this paper complements previous work and makes further contributions. Specifically, this paper makes the following contribution: (1) This paper presents a comprehensive theoretical study of a hybrid literature review consisting of a bibliometric as well as a structural literature review. It creatively utilizes CiteSpace and HisCite software to double check the credibility of the performance perspective. It is worth mentioning that the hybrid method we put forth can serve as a powerful tool in strengthening feasibility and variability and for reviewing other concepts like adaptability; (2) The study also explores the strong conceptual research of business management adaptability, simply speaking, which mostly covers the research issues concerning business management adaptability, and hence it will further the progress of theoretical research work within this concept detail field, equally playing an important role in promoting related empirical research; (3) The research provides management, economic and policy recommendations for practitioners on how to build competitive advantages when the digital economy hits a global world. Different to pervious works, it pays special attention to corporate profitability rather than social welfare or social responsibility.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In the continuation part of Section 1, a theory basis of adaptability and business management adaptability in the past decades will be described. Section 2 will focus on demonstrating a method that consists of data resource, selection, and analysis tools. Section 3 shows literature analysis information. Next, the main findings involved in the current emphasis, and further directions for business management adaptability will be discussed in structural review in Section 4. Section 5 will propose conclusions, contributions, limitations and further multi-subject research. Moreover, Appendix A and references will also be shown in the final section.

Overview of Adaptability

The pioneer work of adaptability and business management adaptability can be traced back to evolutionary biology, chaos theory and complexity science, which are the three main forming sources. During this long period, adaptability as well as business management adaptability subjects have been extensively explored. Moreover, this subject is still under investigation in methodological aspects as well as in concrete applications.

Nelson and Winter [37] noticed the relationship between environmental and economic theories, innovatively put forward the theory of economic evolution to explain organizational changes, and explored that companies must adjust their strategies to adapt to the assumption of maximum utility. However, this research extended adaptive research to the corporate perspective, which has not yet made a specific entrance at the specific micro-level. Advocates of progressive transformation [38,39] and revolutionary transformation advocates (that is, the discontinuous equilibrium theory) [40,41] are the follow-up two factions of evolutionary biology theory. The starting point of the former is to organize different business departments to respond to direct environmental changes through minor changes. The latter is a series of revolutionary changes involving multiple stakeholders in a short period of time, that is, business management adaptability is reflected in a disrupted environment [42].

Levy [43] first explained chaos theory, which is the interaction between enterprises, governments, institutions, consumers, the environment and other participants over time that brought about unpredictable development results. The core of chaos theory is the principle of nonlinearity [44]. Aphane et al. [45] later explored the main components of this theory, including attractors, strange attractors and chaotic edges. Attractors are system elements, the entire system and/or the entire ecosystem that affects a person, event or situation further [46]. The strange attractor is a self-contradictory phenomenon, and its behavior seems to be random on the surface; however, it is manifested as a dynamic pattern internally [47]. Moreover, this pattern is unpredictable [48]. For example, the random situation of regaining a competitive advantage due to launching a marketing campaign and causing competitors to lose their leading position [46]. The edge of chaos is the tipping point as well as balance point for an organization to maintain a stable or unstable competitive advantage [49,50]. Failure to adapt to the edge of chaos will lead to destruction and threaten the survival of an organization [47,49].

Some scholars thought complexity science is like chaos theory, as it involves multiple participants and interactions [51,52,53] and belongs to the same category of complexity science [47,54]. while other scholars regarded this theory from a different perspective and look at it as a simplified explanation and analysis of complex systems. For instance, Holland [55] proposed that a complex system is a non-linear dynamic system with many independent and interacting parts that perform complex functions together, while Surana et al. [56] believe that a complex adaptive system is a system that can learn and adjust itself to respond to an unstable environment. With the development of technology, the bottom-up development of new intelligence or models in complex systems is used to realize the interactions and collaborations of various agents to adapt to an environment has become a new research topic [57,58]. Based on this, Nilsson [59] concluded that the key concepts of adaptability under the complex theory included non-linearity, vitality, feedback, self-organization, emergence, and adaptability. Moreover, within complex adaptive systems (CASs), supply chain manufacturers, logistics operators and other relationship agents are given autonomy, and they cannot only make future decisions based on previous decisions, but develop a “coherent mode of meaning”.

Different to agility, which emphasizes profit efficiency, and the efficiency which pays attention to lean production, adaptability focuses on controlling costs to achieve profit breakthrough points [60]. Nowadays, organizational adaptability is the key element for organizational survival. It embraces a company’s ability to adapt to the internal as well as external environments [61,62]. Business management adaptability refers to the ability of an enterprise to repeatedly coordinate its own resource allocation to adapt to the changing external environment, especially the needs of the digital environment [63,64]. For example, traditional manufacturing companies use existing technology resources to establish digital twins and artificial intelligence models to improve insights to predict the supply model chain, then respond to the challenges of rapidly changing customer needs and the digital transformation environment [65].

With the passage of time, the main body of adaptability becomes more and more refined. On the one hand, research into adaptability is treated as synonyms to agility, flexibility or dynamic capabilities [66,67], hence adaptability construction should also consider the real-time environmental changes of an enterprise perception and environmental feedback flow. On the other hand, adaptive performance is refined with the refinement of adaptive subject research. A complete adaptive hierarchical research framework has not yet been formed to analyze current research hotspots and research deficiencies in adaptability. Thus, this paper aims to propose a multi-level adaptive management research framework to summarize current research hotspots and gain insights into future trends in adaptive research.

2. Materials and Methods

Compared with traditional unstructured literature review methods, a structured literature review as a research method reveals special advantages such as reproducible, scientific and process transparency [68]. In addition, it does not only minimize deviations and errors [68], but improves the quality of review processes and results [69,70]. In addition to improving the efficiency and effectiveness [71,72], the research involves the pursuit of adaptability theory to business management relevant domains. Therefore, this research will first consider domain-based structured literature reviews as a method.

While domain-based structured literature review methods focus more on research methods [73,74] and conclusions, etc. based on theoretical structures [75,76], a considerable problem is that the literature selected for reviewing may lack verifiability as well as credibility [77,78,79].

Thus, theoretical structures of adaptive theory will be introduced by combing bibliometric reviews firstly, then a structure literature review will be conducted. In one word, this article intends to point out the theoretical framework through a hybrid review method.

2.1. Conceptual Boundaries

As mentioned above, business management adaptability involves many specific fields. Thus, it is a broad concept that still has no distinct attribution. Consistent with our research purposes, the first step to accurately conduct a review is to define, clarify, and refine its objects and boundaries [80]. Therefore, this review intends to include articles related to adaptability between management, economic disciplines etc., rather than directly searching for business management adaptability.

2.2. Data Collection and Analysis

2.2.1. Bibliometric Literature Review

The Web of Science (WOS) database could be used to ensure the representativeness and accessibility of the data, and it is also a database supported by almost every bibliometric analysis tool [81,82,83]. This review intends to conduct bibliometric analysis to quickly obtain, double check, and form structural review basic frameworks [82]. Thus, the paper chose the Web of Science database to conduct the bibliometric analysis to obtain the latest results and longitudinal trends of business management adaptability keywords.

The knowledge graph conducted by bibliometric analysis software is an image of theh knowledge domain, showing the hidden relationships (i.e., network structure, evolution) between knowledge units involved in the same knowledge domain [84]. CiteSpace, as a visual analysis application, can analyze the related keywords (knowledge units) based on the knowledge domain [85]. With the “time zone” function WOS provided, it can identify the annual distribution of keywords calculated by frequency, and can effectively reveal the current research hotspots and frontier field dynamics [86,87]. HistCite is another software for knowledge analysis, which creates a knowledge development pathway by providing the exact timeline of published research articles [88,89]. According to these methods, literatures selected from WOS will conduct time zone analysis through CiteSpace, and literature citation relationship analysis through HistCite in order to detect the most important referenced topics, as well as the relationships between business management adaptability.

2.2.2. Structural Literature Review

Following the literature citation relationship and time zone analysis, the most important referenced topics were found. A structural literature review that consisted of the following steps was constructed (Figure 2):

• Double checking with the literature and then conducting a basis for structural business management adaptability;
• Retrieving these basic hierarchical words from multiple databases such as SSCI, ABI, Taylor and Francis;
• Compare, analyze, and integrate the retrieval results to discuss the research status of business management adaptability.

3. Literature Analysis

3.1. General Considerations about Literatures in WOS

As discussed in the previous section, this paper’s defined search term was “adaptability”. A search time from 1970 to 2020 was the limit; 42,937 literature were found in the WOS. From the list of top 100 subject areas that accounted for the largest number of article records (Figure 3), Management, Business, and Economics were mostly related to this research and were applied. 1705 relevant literatures were finally found and selected for a further literature review. Moreover, according to suggestions from Nolan and Garavan [90] and Wang and Chugh [91], this study recorded the data synchronously in a Microsoft Excel file to ensure accuracy and reliability.

3.2. Context of the Bibliometric Literature Review Research

3.2.1. Analysis by CiteSpace

This paper intended to use CiteSpace software to draw “adaptive” research hotspot time zone diagrams with the 1705 literatures resulted before. By setting the node as a keyword in CiteSpace and the keyword, a co-occurrence knowledge graph was obtained as shown in Figure 4. Each node in Figure 4 represented a keyword, and the size of the node represented the frequency of keywords occurrence. Lines were criss-cross nodes, indicating that the keywords were interrelated. Line thickness showed the strength of co-occurrence between keywords, whereas the depth indicated the time sequence.

It can be seen from Figure 4 that the most frequent and trending words of adaptive research during past decades were performance, operation, system, organization, strategy, etc. As time progressed, the research into role flexibility, namely the adaptive subject, and further details of the research was mainly carried out on the main concepts of leadership, policy, etc. On the one hand, the research on adaptability was mainly promoted to the concepts of flexibility and dynamic ability. For adaptive performance, research was also carried out on the performance of enterprises.

3.2.2. Analysis by HistCite

The HistCite software was used for citation analysis of the 1705 articles (see Figure 5). To ensure visual clarity, each node represented a publication with a located citation score > 4 and was linked to other publications. A larger node represented a higher number of citations [89,92]. It can be seen that the document numbered 88 and their citations are a branch of the citation analysis documents numbered 125, 121, and 142 and their citations are the main branch of citation analysis, and documents numbered 46 and other documents constitute the third branch. The latest literature, such as 1292, 949, 850, and so on, will also be taken into consideration.

The documents numbered 125, 121, 142, 88 and 46 are shown in

Table 1. Citation analysis table of adaptive research literature.

ID Number	Reference
125	LePine, J. A., Colquitt, J. A., & Erez, A. (2000). Adaptability to changing task contexts: Effects of general cognitive ability, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. Personnel Psychology, 53(3), 563–593.
121	Pulakos, E. D., Arad, S., Donovan, M. A., & Plamondon, K. E. (2000). Adaptability in the workplace: Development of a taxonomy of adaptive performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(4), 612.
142	Kozlowski, S. W., Gully, S. M., Brown, K. G., Salas, E., Smith, E. M., & Nason, E. R. (2001). Effects of training goals and goal orientation traits on multidimensional training outcomes and performance adaptability. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 85(1), 1–31.
88	Grabher, G., & Stark, D. (1997). Organizing diversity: evolutionary theory, network analysis and postsocialism. Regional Studies, 31(5), 533–544.
46	Gordon, G. G., & DiTomaso, N. (1992). Predicting corporate performance from organizational culture. Journal of Management Studies, 29(6), 783–798.
1292	Dubey, R., Altay, N., Gunasekaran, A., Blome, C., Papadopoulos, T., & Childe, S. J. (2018). Supply chain agility, adaptability and alignment: empirical evidence from the Indian auto components industry. International Journal of Operations & Production Management.
850	Baard, S. K., Rench, T. A., & Kozlowski, S. W. (2014). Performance adaptation: A theoretical integration and review. Journal of Management, 40(1), 48–99.
980	Schoenherr, T., & Speier-Pero, C. (2015). Data science, predictive analytics, and big data in supply chain management: Current state and future potential. Journal of Business Logistics, 36(1), 120–132.

. Among them, the first branch, the literature numbered 88, is mainly focused on regional adaptability. The second branch, literature numbered 125, 121 as well as 142, are mainly focused on individual adaptability, organization adaptability, and system adaptability. The third branch, that is literature number 46, is also focused on organization adaptability and its adaptability performance. For the latest paper, like 1292, 850, 980 all provided new directions of product and process management adaptability.

3.3. Context of the Structural Literature Review Research

Simultaneously, the adaptive research hotspot time zone chart with CiteSpace and the adaptive research literature citation analysis chart with HisCites all show the continued research of adaptability associated with detail management and resource level (i.e., organization, system, and process management). Combined with the former literature, this paper selects the most common and cited terms (strategy, organization, process, product) to construct a structural review of business management adaptability. The main themes of pervious research, as well as their deficiencies, will be summarized [93,94]. Additionally, the paper also proposed a heretical theoretical framework from multiple organizational management systems for guiding further research and real practices.

3.3.1. Structural Framework of Business Management Adaptability Review

This framework decomposes adaptive management into four levels: strategic adaptability (environmental adaptability), product and service adaptability, process management adaptability, and organizational adaptability. The research assumes that top-down is the perception flow of environmental changes, and that bottom-up is the feedback flow of environmental changes.

3.3.2. Searching Results of Structural Framework Keywords

Based on the structural framework of the business management adaptability review, a hierarchical frame word retrieval is performed from multiple databases such as SAGE, ABI, and Taylor and Francis. The search qualifiers and retrieval results are shown in Figure 6. There are 378 articles on environmental adaptability in the SAGE database, 252 articles in the ABI database, and 217 articles in the Taylor and Francis database. After comparing the search results, this paper selected 71 articles for detailed reading. In the SAGE database on product and service adaptability, there are 227 articles and 235 articles, 150 articles and 214 articles in the ABI database, 243 articles and 177 articles in the Taylor and Francis database. After comparing the search results, 63 articles were selected for further reading. The number of articles on organizational adaptability in the SAGE database is 252 articles, 348 articles in the ABI database, 196 articles in the Taylor and Francis database, and 69 articles were selected for reading after comparing the search results. The SAGE database has 541 articles on internal process adaptability, the ABI database has 364 articles, and the Taylor and Francis database contains 306 articles. After comparing the search results, this paper selected 84 articles for detailed reading.

4. Structural Review of Business Management Adaptability

4.1. Strategic Adaptability/Environmental Adaptability

Strategic adaptability refers to the ability of an organization to actively respond to and adapt to market changes to achieve strategic adaptation [95,96]. As a source of competitiveness and success, strategic adaptability should focus on proactive behaviors and should not just be conceptually limited to passive behaviors [97]. Carmeli et al. [98] also proposed that strategic adaptability should be the ability to actively respond to and adapt to market changes to achieve a strategic fit, and proposed that strategic adaptability will vary from industry to industry and should be able to “adapt to and respond to their respective industry dynamics and a way of turbulence”.

Regarding the formation process of strategic adaptability, Reeves et al. [2] initially focused on the internal management level of an enterprise. They categorized strategic adaptability into company-level adaptability, internal process adaptability, and employee adaptability. Moreover, they also pointed out that the process of proactive strategic adaptability should include: (1) being able to understand the signals of change and take action; (2) conduct rapid and frequent experiments on not only used products and services, but also used business models, processes, and strategies; (3) manage a complex and interconnected system of multiple stakeholders; and (4) motivate employees and business partners. Worley et al. (2014)’s [3] research focused on strategy implementation and control, and proposed that strategic adaptability should be the implementation and re-implementation of robust strategies, and this process is a continuous and normal process. Its innovative proposed agile organization design can quickly adapt to internal and external pressures to change or shift strategic intent. However, the design and implementation of agile organizations need to dynamically adjust their organizational structures, processes, and systems [99].

From the perspective of strategic management processes, some scholars have pointed out that strategic adaptability should include adaptability in three aspects: strategic planning/strategic analysis, strategic selection and evaluation, and strategic implementation and control. Since policymakers cannot assess the impact of all market forces in complex markets, possible alternatives are not always clear [100]. The realization of a strategic vision through scenario planning is a recognized method of dealing with uncertainties [101,102]. The development of an enterprise’s strategic adaptability requires a strong sense of ability to be able to adjust, adapt and reshape its business model in a rapidly changing environment (and ideally before being forced to do so due to the external environment) to obtain strategic adaptation [103]. Petzold and others have enriched the theory of strategic adaptability in strategic planning, and have proposed specific measures for enterprises to form strategic adaptability; that is, they need to constantly perceive technological development, complementary factor markets, customer needs, opinions of incumbents, and other participants’ expectations [22]. In terms of strategic choice, Lewis [104] proposed that given the turbulences in the business environment, correct strategic decision-making and execution are prerequisites for the continued competitiveness of enterprises, industries, and countries. From a technical point of view, Mousavi and Gigerenzer [105] have pointed out that heuristic algorithms or simple rules of thumb are more effective than calculation methods in uncertain environments that require fast decision-making. Presented below in Figure 7 is the review on strategic adaptability/environmental adaptability.

4.1.1. Adaptability to Market/Customer Needs

Changes in the business environment caused by changes in customer need, have led to uncertainty in decision-making parameters. Adaptability should be a company’s adaptability to changes in the business environment and to actively meet market and customer needs [106]. Tongzon and Heng [107] put adaptability in the shipping industry for research, and pointed out that the other most important factor that determines port competitiveness is adaptability to customer needs. As seaports belong to the service industry, port authorities and port operators should fully understand the requirements of their customers and should strive to meet and exceed their expectations to improve adaptability. Denison et al. [108] pointed out that market/customer demand adaptability is not only responding to and meeting customer expectations, but should also be able to predict their future needs. Subsequent research focuses on the dynamics of meeting demand. The adaptability of enterprises is related to the ability and flexibility to respond to new environmental requirements and demands while maintaining economic growth [109]. That is, the ability to flexibly respond to market expectations changes [110]. From the perspective of consumer types, Ma and Du (2018) emphasized that adaptability requires more effective consumer positioning to achieve a higher income per dollar [111].

Silver and Vegholm [112] through a case study of the banking industry, found that the adaptation process mainly relies on the interaction process between customers and enterprises, through communication channels, customer-specific business knowledge and capability reserves, and centralized use within banking organizations. Both formal and standardized systems will affect this interactive process. Kowalkowski et al. [113] focused on a goal-oriented adaptation process. They proposed that an adaptation process is a successful service injection strategy involving continuous modifications, seizing and calibrating opportunities, and the management of intertwined goals. Based on innovative service methods of online services, Weigelt et al. [114] proposed that an adaptation process is to reconfigure activities in the process of gradually approaching the changing needs of customers. Detailed diagram depicting the review on adaptability to market/customer needs is shown in Figure 8 below.

4.1.2. The Adaptability of Social Relations

Colby first proposed in 1991 that adaptability is reflected in the flexibility to respond to changes in future environmental regulations and market expectations [115]. Rindova and others combine research with corporate reputation and point out that organizational reputation is adaptable to external needs [116]. Companies are seen as social actors, aiming to increase their respect and impression in the eyes of voters. Improving their respect and impression is adaptability [117]. Gorshkova et al. [118] focus on adaptability under the positive influence of social and political forces on market conditions. Any company can only exist with a high degree of adaptability to the varying external environment, and realizes its dynamic balance. The adaptability of an organization’s social relations is mainly reflected in the organization’s ability to adapt to the changing conditions brought about by the crisis in terms of stakeholder relationships and operational crisis management capabilities. This ability will affect its capability to respond to public perception crises [119].

The socialization of enterprises will affect their adaptability, especially in emerging enterprises [117]. Gorshkova et al. [118] also put forward their concept based on life cycle theory, combined with the analysis of dynamic environment, in order to change the maximum impact behavior and promote adaptability to a certain level. Figure 9 shows the influencing factors of an enterprise’s life cycle and its adaptability of each cycle stage and the adaptive or anti-adaptive actions that can be taken. Points A–C are the nodes influencing factors of the enterprise life cycle. 7, 11, and 10 are adaptive actions, 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12 are the actions of the company’s own regular development, and 0, 2, 5 are anti-adaptive action, which is also an action that causes a company to fail and exit an industry. Organizational culture plays a crucial role in the adaptability of social relationship management [119]. Figure 10 presents the review on adaptability to social relationships.

4.1.3. Competitor Adaptability

Miles et al. [120] proposed that companies competing in an industry adopt different adaptive strategies, and can capture an enterprise’s adaptability to the intensity of competition. Based on the perspective of strategic alliances, Maurer et al. [121] pointed out that the dynamic integration of internal organization (horizontal and vertical differentiation, integration), social capital, and performance of an enterprise’s external partnership management can be termed as adaptability.

Relationships that evolve over time, especially the flexibility of partners to prepare for alliance goals and their autonomy to determine the future direction and activities of the alliance, will affect the formation of corporate adaptability [122]. McLay [123] also described a new five-impact analysis method of competition adaptability under cooperative alliance conditions to replace Porter’s five-force competition analysis model. It pointed out that if an existing core company capabilities and capabilities within this organization do not meet with these requirements, in the context of the redesign method of establishing a cooperative alliance, the focus will be on determining knowledge, skills, and expertise (especially product and process design capabilities), and technology (required to realize or utilize “blue”) elements [123]. Kim proposed the innovative concept of a “regional supply chain” in 2014. He pointed out that increasing a company’s awareness of the surrounding “business ecosystem” in which it operates, and increasing the awareness of broader supply network connections can improve adaptability and business operation performance [124]. Bridges adopted Kim’s theory to the study the mining industry and proposed that local companies formulate strategies, and locate and collaborate in the entire mining industry supply chain as an adaptive process [125]. In the Figure 11 below, the review on adaptability to competitors is shown.

With the deepening of strategic management research that has opened up, there is a perspective into strategic adaptability to competitors, and social relations as components of strategic adaptability. From this literature research the results show that not only do competitors, and social relationships make an effort towards strategic adaptability, but consumer adaptability will also directly impact on strategic adaptability. Therefore, the research showed that strategic adaptability research could be extended in three directions of customer adaptability: social relationship adaptability, and competitor adaptability. Moreover, the following Figure 12 also shows the research trends, as well as the defects, in this aspect.

4.2. Product/Service Adaptability

Research into the adaptability of products and services can be divided into two major trends. Some scholars focus on the adaptability of products and services from a consumer’s standpoint: adaptability reflects external concerns and active strategies for product innovation, and new market demands to create strategic priorities and provide competitive advantages [96,126]. Product adaptability is the adaptability of a product to market demand [127]. Goods and services must be delivered within the correct time frame and at the appropriate level of quality (the attributes of their procedures). Because product adaptability is reflected in how customers care about how organizations understand their special needs and respond to them [128]. Lévárdy et al. [129] developed the theory of product adaptability and proposed the definition of product adaptability from the perspective of dynamic adaptation; that is, adaptability means adapting to new situations and ensuring a dynamic effectiveness. Specifically, when a product cannot adapt to new requirements (such as technological progress, customer preferences, etc.), the product life will end [130]. Rijsdijk et al. [131] further pointed out that dynamic effectiveness is also reflected in the improvement of performance. For adaptive products, this dimension involves the ability to respond and adapt to their environment over time, which may lead to better performance. Product adaptability is further extended to service adaptability; that is, service providers can evaluate the costs and benefits of various migration strategies and target service architecture choices [132]. Other scholars focus on adaptability of products and services from the perspective of competitors: products are primarily affected by their need to survive in a competitive market. A successful product must provide a unique value proposition [133] as depicted in Figure 13.

Research into formation processes and influencing factors of product adaptability has gradually matured. On the one hand, formation of product adaptability is related to the adaptability of internal processes: formation of product adaptability means that greater flexibility and adaptability is required in the design process [128]. Product adaptability can be divided into specific product adaptability and general product adaptability in accordance with whether predictive information of specific adaptability is available. Since more adaptable products usually require more design and manufacturing work due to their diversity and complexity, all relevant life cycle aspects need to be considered to evaluate candidate designs [14]. With the advancement of product dynamic adaptability research, product upgrading is an effective means to extend product life and to improve product adaptability, especially for high investment, small-batch production, and long-life products [127]. Based on quantitative method of dynamic programming, Chung et al. [130] proposed to help to upgrade planners and product users to find the best upgrade plan, including prediction of technology development and end-of-life decisions.

From a technical point of view, Li et al. [134] proposed a two-stage manufacturing method for adaptive products. In the first stage, they used the variety index and change propagation category, and used visual fuzzy clustering to cluster the acquired modules into standardized and flexible modules. In the second phase, a general and extensible index based on product life cycle factors was developed to subdivide components in the flexible module into general and extensible types. In these two stages, a trapezoidal fuzzy algorithm was introduced to deal with inaccurate, approximate, or qualitative language evaluation. On the other hand, formation of product adaptability is related to corporate macro in terms of strategic adaptability, i.e., to ensure the effectiveness of a product for a long time means to ensure the dynamic effectiveness of that product. This requires adaptability to be integrated into the strategic plan [129].

4.3. Organizational Adaptability

4.3.1. Human Capital Adaptability

According to the assumed adaptability research-level framework, the adaptability of human capital mainly includes skill adaptability, learning adaptability, and training adaptability. Among them, training adaptability and learning adaptability can promote the formation of skill adaptability.

Skill adaptability: Hartline and Ferrell [135] define adaptability as the ability of employees in contact with customers to adjust their behavior based on interpersonal relationships encountered during the service. HR professionals must anticipate new challenges and developments, and must be able to spot trends and early signs, and initiate flexibility in a rapidly changing business environment [136]. A chief information officer (CIO) should lead an IT organization in a constantly changing and uncertain competitive environment. The adaptability of IT managers’ skills is reflected in dealing with changes in an external environment, changing internal customer needs, and rapid technological changes [137]. Bell et al. [138] developed this theory and extracted the general skill adaptability of employees in various departments of an organization. They pointed out that complexity and dynamics of a current business environment increasingly require employees not only to have professional capabilities, but must also be flexible enough to adapt to the changing environment. Ito et al. [139] emphasized that the key to the construction of skill adaptability lies in career development activities and employees’ adaptability or attitudes towards change. Haynie et al. [140] developed a definition, which conceptualized employees’ resilience, etc., as employees’ cognitive adaptability, which is defined as the ability to be dynamic, flexible, and self-adjusting to their own cognition in a dynamic and uncertain task environments. Coetzee and Harry [141], and Savickas and Porfeli [142], proposed a diversity of roles in response to current environmental changes, i.e., employees must not only develop their own skill adaptability, but also develop diversity. Adaptability of employee skills is mainly reflected in career adaptability, that is, career-related attention, control, curiosity, and confidence in adapting to career changes. As a psychological resource, it can help individuals coping with perceived challenges [143].

The formation process of skill adaptability is inseparable from participation in decision-making (PDM) and autonomy, as well as supervision of professional support (i.e., information, advice and encouragement). This process is positively related to commitment and is negatively related to willingness to leave [139]. At the same time, the quality of a trainee’s knowledge structure (e.g., consistency) is also a key factor in the formation of adaptive capacity [144]. Adaptability associated with career choices requires employees to be able to adjust their actions in order to be prepared for unexpected changes and future needs [145]. Through interacting with automated equipment, software, and work processes, the accumulated experience may be a “knowledge-based” ability that can support decision-making and the execution of job formulation and career adjustments to improve the skill adaptability of employees [143].

Learning adaptability: Lumpkin and Lichtenstein [146] proposed three types of organizational learning methods, which are related to the opportunity identification stage of creativity to realize opportunity identification and promote corporate adaptability. Management orientation that supports continuous adaptive learning can promote organizational sustainability pillars and improve organizational adaptability [147].

Individuals with a high degree of initiative and self-esteem are more likely to develop their future work self and heighten career adaptability by participating in more career exploration activities. Exploratory learning will enhance cognitive activities of high-ability students; but will inhibit the metacognitive activities of low-ability students [148].

Training adaptability: Training adaptability refers to the potential of cultivating workers to adapt their knowledge and skills to changing labor market needs. This is mainly driven by technological changes and other characteristics of the 21st century labor market (e.g., globalization). Training has a significant impact on the adaptive performance of employees in organizations [149].

Pulakos et al. [18] determined eight dimensions of adaptive performance through a review of the relevant literature and hundreds of adaptive performance across multiple jobs: handling emergency or crisis situations, handling work pressure, solving problems creatively, dealing with uncertain and unpredictable work situations, learning work tasks, techniques and procedures, demonstrating the adaptability of interpersonal relationships, demonstrating cultural adaptability and body-oriented adaptability. In 2013, Dollard et al. [150] expanded their research into organizational adaptability, treating health and well-being as equally important goals that will affect production performance. Adaptive performance adaptation of human capital is defined as the cognitive, emotional, motivational and behavioral modification in response to the needs of a new or changing environment or situational needs. Under the domain general category, there are two structure-driven methods that define adaptation as a performance structure and an individual difference structure. Researchers who adopt the conceptualization of performance construction focus on mapping adaptive criterion spaces and define adaptability as a set of performance dimensions or individual characteristics, so that individuals or teams can respond flexibly [151]. Figure 14 below depicts the human capital adaptability hierarchy framework as used in this study.

4.3.2. Information Capital Adaptability

System adaptability: Adaptability has different definitions in relation to IT, including system changes that adapt to environmental changes, ease of system/component changes, behavior changes in response to environmental changes, and adjustments to changing needs. Adaptability is also a non-functional (software) requirement [137]. In this new world defined by digital participation, the competitive advantage of organizations increasingly depends on their abilities to digitally transform and build software as business strategies [152]. Hierarchy framework for information capital adaptability has been displayed in Figure 15 below.

4.3.3. Organizational Capital Adaptability

Leadership adaptability: Adaptability of leadership refers to the ability of effective leaders to adjust their behavior to better effect the results of teams, especially in uncertain and emergency situations [153]. Uhl-Bien et al. [154] proposed that adaptive leadership refers to the adaptive, creative, and learning behaviors that occur in interactions when trying to adapt to stress (such as restraint or perturbation). For the first time, they pointed out that adaptability of leadership includes two asymmetries: authority-related and preferences-related (including differences in knowledge, skills, beliefs, etc.) The research of Carmeli et al. [155] emphasizes that innovative leadership is a kind of adaptive leadership. Leadership adaptability is a key source of organizational change. Innovative leadership is of great importance for cultivating an environment that can achieve more effective adaptive organizational systems. Hannah et al.’s research starts from an adaptation target and points out that adaptive leadership means that leaders have a high degree of adaptability to adapt to complex environments and environmental requirements, and can adjust their behavioral responses to meet with various role requirements [156].

An adaptive construction process of leadership depends mainly on changes between leaders (the way between leaders) or through a leader changing his own leadership style (the way inside the leader) according to situations [153]. Johannessen and Aasen [157] define this adaptive formation process as adaptive leadership, which is an informal leadership process that occurs when interdependent human actors (individual or collective) interact consciously, and leaders face an organization’s adaptive needs to produce and promote novel solutions. From the perspective of complex adaptive systems, Uhl-Bien et al. [158] pointed out that adaptive leadership is a dynamic process. In this process, an agent adaptive leader interacts dynamically with the complexity of emergency situations and uses his potential. Leaders should have necessary complexity to promote effectiveness across various roles [156].

Team adaptability: LePine (2003) [16] defines team adaptability as the modification of a team’s behavior and processes to respond to changing needs. Adaptability of a team means that an effective team can get rid of the conventional and rigid interaction mode so as to better adapt to emergency crisis situations [159]. Baard et al. [151] conceptualized adaptability as a set of individual difference characteristics that allow employees to become effective under changing task conditions. Adaptability of a team is embodied in a team’s ability to adapt to and successfully handle work requirements [160].

Adaptability of a team depends to a large extent on the network invention or a team’s ability to use knowledge gained through interactions during the execution of tasks and to modify from its current role configuration to a new one [16]. The process of building an adaptive team relies on four methods: increasing plan execution, promoting team learning, improving a team’s own adaptive behavior, and building a team composed of individuals with individual adaptability [160]. The formation of team adaptability is influenced by factors of team leadership, team goals, trust, consensus, and mutual supervision [161]. Subsequent research proved that teams with challenging goals and high performance-oriented members are unlikely to show adaptability [162]. In addition, the strictness of team goals and the autonomy of processes are positively related to team adaptability [163].

Cultural adaptability: Cultural intelligence is cultural adaptability, which refers to an ability required to operate effectively in different environments [164]. Cultural adaptability is reflected in the ability to predict self-efficacy and previous experience in a multi-cultural environment [165]. Adaptive culture refers to a culture that supports environmental strategies, which can encourage coordination and integration between all the functional departments of an enterprise, and it can also improve interaction and coordination within an enterprise [166]. Figure 16 below summarizes the organizational adaptability in the hierarchical framework.

4.4. Process Management Adaptability

An adaptive organization can create more profits, more value, more employment opportunities, more growth, and an ability to adapt to technological and market transformation. Adaptability of emerging economic organizations is very complex because they usually include innovation in sales, distribution, and business models, as well as strict product design and development processes [167].

4.4.1. Operation Management Process Adaptability

Operation process adaptation is usually defensive rather than dynamic. They may be based on minor adjustments to product designs for local markets, rather than on overall productivity gains or expansion into new market areas [168]. Based on a real-time enterprise model, Tsui et al. [169] proposed that adaptability of business processes is knowledge-supported business processes in which digital organizations interact at an ever-growing and relentless speed, and any specific “event” leads to a real-time “response”. When certain components of a business model are affected by external or internal events, a company should be able to take appropriate countermeasures. In this way, a business model must be flexible enough to adapt its strategy and business processes to changing factors to stay competitive [170].

Adaptability processes of the business process comes from knowledge management and its integration into the business processes of an enterprise. Information and communication technology is the key to improving adaptability. Because the level of business process adaptability depends on the core elements of a business model, as well as their dependence on strategy and business process design, service level agreements and related business rules should be seamlessly reflected in an integrated information system architecture and should be configured in a simple manner, and through relevant business intelligence insights obtained from the monitored business transactions of an enterprise [170].

4.4.2. Product/Service Innovation Process Adaptability

The adaptability of a product innovation process potentially results from the adaptability and consistency of a new product development process [171]. Enhancing product innovation capabilities, successfully launching new products, and ensuring a company’s financial performance is a product’s innovation process adaptability [172].

The number and type of agents, their corresponding connections and interactions, and the orderly or disorderly decision-making of all affect the adaptability of a product innovation process [171]. Obtaining suppliers’ technical intelligence to enhance product innovation capabilities is another key influencing factor in a product innovation process [172]. Developing products that are easier to adapt to future needs can increase their overall value. Adaptability of a product depends largely on the choice of product architecture, especially the adaptability or modularization of these processes [173] as shown in Figure 17 below.

4.5. Results and Discussion

This subsection is an overview of the research into the concept of business management adaptability up to now. That is, this study provides a complete literature review of the specific subject definitions, adaptive processes, influencing factors, and adaptive performance of business management adaptability by using a hybrid literature review approach. We summarize the current research findings and limitations on this concept in Figure 18 below.

From Figure 18, first we can grasp that the concept of adaptability was developed more and more maturely, and has been extended to the management field. Then it is obvious that research into the definition of adaptive subject and adaptability processes has become quite mature except for exploring the definition of detailed adaptive subjects related to business management process (i.e., operation management adaptive process), adaptive labor, and performance definitions. Thirdly, the need for developing research into formation mechanisms of various special adaptation (i.e., adaptive training formation mechanisms; adaptive system formation mechanisms) should also be focused on. Moreover, adaptive performance as a considerable issue (i.e., performance indicators description; performance evaluation system application) concept construction was stated as well.

Generally, the key to solving these research problems consists of two parts: on the one hand it is to improve the existing study of an adaptive construction system based on current adaptive subjects; and on the other hand it is to improve the definition of specific business management adaptive subjects and gain an insight into the relationships between them, before conducting a more complete study of adaptive system construction.

The balanced scorecard model can also ensure managers analyze performance in complex organizational environments from multiple perspectives [93,94]. Regarding the balanced scorecard model as a reference, the research forms a framework for further business management adaptive subject research (as Figure 19). The framework decomposes subjects of business management adaptability into four areas: environmental adaptability (strategic adaptability), product and service adaptability, organizational adaptability, and internal process adaptability. Environmental adaptability is the perception of external environmental demands (i.e., market/customer needs, social relations, competitors) and feeds into product and service adaptation. Organizational adaptability (i.e., human capital, information capital, organizational capital) is the capital of product and service adaptability sources, and is further integrated to form internal process adaptability (i.e., product and service innovation process, system management process, business management process).

5. Conclusions

In one word, this paper grasped the concept of adaptability to the business management field, and outlined a theoretical research framework to describe the current research trend through a bibliometric and structural literature review. In more detail, the paper concluded that research into the definition of adaptive subjects, adaptability performance, and adaptable labor/organization has becoming quite mature except for exploring the definition of detail adaptive subjects related to business management processes (i.e., operation management adaptive process). There is a need to develop research into formation mechanisms of various special adaptation (i.e., adaptive training formation mechanism; adaptive system formation mechanism). Moreover, adaptive performance as a considerable issue (i.e., performance indicators description; performance evaluation system application) concept construction was stated as well. Moreover, the paper proposed a hierarchy model of further business management adaptive subject research with a balance score card system theory to describe the further research trend.

It is obvious that the scope of this research contribution was divided into academic and practical sides.

For the practical aspect, this research provides some recommendations for practices about how to build a competitive advantages when the digital economy hits the global world. (1) Firstly, in terms of improving adaptability performance, which is certainly connected to the evaluation of each specific adaptable subject. For example, adaptive performance of information capital is mainly reflected in the improvement of adaptive organizational performance. In other words, it currently focuses on the supply chain adaptability as a concept that combines internal and external resource integration and emphasizes the integration and adaptation of internal and external capabilities related to production. The basic capital adaptation of an organization’s insufficient attention is paid to the construction of sexuality; (2) secondly, while the internal and external environment of an organization is pretty complex, changes and response capabilities of internal and external environments are also iterative immediately. How to perceive changes in an external environment and quickly match and integrate corporate resources to achieve immediate balance with the external environment has become the key to corporate adaptive management. (3) Finally, attention should additionally be paid to choosing the special adaptability performances that the industry want to realize, and constructing related adaptability indicator systems based on a theoretical framework. That is, companies should focus on planning adaptive building solutions based on their own digital transformation needs and match them with a corresponding performance evaluation system. As this part of the literature is relatively small, enterprises need to summarize their experience in self-development and innovate in constructing indicators on the one hand; on the other hand, they need to establish close links with academia to provide a theoretical basis with practice and promote development in this direction.

For the academic and theoretical aspects, the research will undoubtedly contribute to the following three areas: (1) This paper utilizes an innovative hybrid approach of bibliometrics and a structural literature review and provides a comprehensive theoretical study of the relevant literature from 1970–2020. In particular, this study first uses the Web of Science database to obtain adapted literature in the fields of management, economics and business for the CiteSpace and HisCites comprehensive scientific bibliometric analysis in order to construct the keywords underlying this study, and then conducts a literature search and a comparative analysis in multiple databases based on these keywords in order to ensure the quality, comprehensiveness, and verifiability of systematic review. (2) The study also explores an innovative multi-level BMA framework to present the current research findings and shortcomings by incorporating elements of adaptive construction. In this framework, the paper reveals in particular the importance of establishing a performance assessment system centered on corporate profitability and balancing the internal and external corporate environment. (3) Furthermore, the paper innovatively combines the balanced scorecard model to propose a framework for future research on business management adaptability, in particular on the specific definition aspect. Different to pervious works, it especially pays more attention to corporate profitability rather than social welfare or social responsibility.

There is an interesting finding that, although there are some limitations in this research, for instance, exploring formation mechanisms of adaptive systems may be due to the literatures selected for review, which included business, economics, and management disciplines, computer systems, environmental sciences, as well as other areas that have not been fully reviewed, and this still shows that there are not enough research phenomena in cross fields that are also regarded as multiple-discipline studies. The main simplifying assumptions are the considerable experts focused on detecting influencing factors of the adaptative process before because of their organizational behavior and psychology research fields, which were becoming more popular at the time. Therefore, this research speculates that interdisciplinarity should be the mainstay of future research directions in business management adaptation, and that cross-disciplinary research can provide a stronger contribution. For example, research related to system management adaptation conducted across disciplines in business management and computing disciplines will have more theoretical knowledge and practical experience than if they were to be studied separately, and therefore require less research time and have a higher likelihood and efficiency of outputting research results.