Name Tsvangirai Fidelis P

Student Number R123479V

Program Msc HRM

Course Organizational Analysis and HR Strategy MHRM 709

Lecturer Dr.L.Maunganidze

Institution Midlands State University

Question: Class Presentation

Configuration logic indicates that high performance results from a strong external fit between the
firm’s overall strategy and its environment and a tight internal fit among capabilities, structures,
processes and management. Illustrate your take of this posture using examples of either local or
international organizations.

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Introduction

Companies in these modern days need to develop a competitive advantage over the rivals to cope
with change and survive. In most set ups, organization’s systems, structures, and processes can
be used to support achieving and maintaining a competitive advantage. Moreover, to achieve life
success, an organization should align employees’ skills and motives with organizational systems,
structures, and processes that achieve capabilities on the organizational level. The premise
underlying the concept of fit is that organizations are more efficient and effective when they
achieve fit than in a situation of a lack of fit, thus, according to the fit concept, an organization is
most effective when all its pieces fit together. All elements, like situational factors, strategy ,
coordinating mechanisms seem “to fall into natural clusters or configurations” (Mintzberg, 1983)

The Configuration Logic and Application.

According to Guest (1997), the configuration model of organization explores dynamic

relationships between internal environment and external environment and competitiveness. It it is
inevitable in highly dynamic and uncertain environments. In such situations where the rule of the
jungle: survival of the fittest applies, a business strategy of any organization is concerned with
how businesses achieve a competitive advantage. Its implementation involves the fit between the
organization's business strategy and its internal processes. An appropriate match enhances
organizational effectiveness and generates superior performance. In Zimbabwe many companies
are having high performance results from a strong external fit between the firm’s overall strategy
and its environment and a tight internal fit among capabilities, structures, processes and
management, companies in retail like Ok Zimbabwe, Spar, and T.M to mention but a few. The
external environment is such that customer taste is changing rapidly and globalization has made
the world into one family. Many shops are sprouting but these seasoned companies still find the
going as easy as before due to a swift response to environment through a tight link between their
business strategy with internal and external environment.

According to Guest (1997), internal fit refers to a fit between different organizational practices,
whereas external fit implies a fit between the organizational system and its external
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environmental context. Guest (1997) recognizes five types of fit within these dimensions: fit as
strategic interaction, fit as contingency, fit as an ideal set of practices, fit as gestalt, and fit as
bundles. An organization makes strategic choices about how to compete in the environment and
according to this view; HR practices should match these choices. A better match is supposed to
lead to higher performance. Organizations that are more responsive to the external context of the
organization, that is, the nature of the market, nature of the sector, changes in legislation are
supposed to perform better (Schuler and Jackson 1987). In the transport industry, failure to
adjust to eternal environmental changes can stifle business. Mhunga Bus Company is on the
verge of collapsing due to its failure to adjust to the calls of nature. Most customers now prefer
to travel with luxury coaches to chicken buses and Mhunga Bus Company is taking time to
respond to this shift in customer taste. Coaches like Pathfinder, City link; Greyhound, Bravo to
mention but a few are taking the show.

The system approach interprets fit as “feasible sets of equally effective alternative designs, with
each design internally consistent in its structural pattern and with each set matched to a
configuration of contingencies facing the organization” (Drazin and Van deVen, 1985).
According to this approach, the organization is regarded as an open system that interacts with its
environment, and is more than just a set of interrelated elements. Configurational analysis looks
for resemblance between the existing HR system and the ideal bundle of HR practices for that
organization. The larger the deviation from the ideal type, the lower the performance of the
organization will be. An example is TelOne Zimbabwe, the ideal HR practice is to promote
internal staff( if qualified) in cases of vacancies arising, train the staff and retain them but due to
fast changing business environment TelOne is now leaving those practices citing restrategizing,
this has lead to a scattered internal environment and overall performance is poor.“In general,
configurational logic is concerned with how the pattern of multiple independent variables is
related to a dependent variable rather than with how individual independent variables are related
to the dependent variable” (Delery and Doty, 1996)

The dimensions of internal fit are anchored in the compositional elements of the team as well as
the relationship between team composition and team characteristics that can be referred to as
linking mechanisms: capabilities, structures, processes. Capabilities fit, is the team-level analog

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to person-organization fit which suggest that congruence on psychological constructs such as
goals and personality and attitudes can improve individuals’ attitudes, participation, and
performance in collective activities. It is Delery and Doty (1996)’s contention that greater
affective fit is related to more positive individual attitudes in the team and perceptions of greater
influence in the team. In a bid to foster team work, many companies embark on different team
building exercises, ZESA Holdings hold annual sports tournament, all in the spirit of team
building and the annual theme is “team building through sports”. This goes a long way in
enhancing internal relations or fit and achievement of overall organizational goal.

According to Donnelly Cox and O’Regan, (1999), there are two and distinguishable external
environments to which an organization and its internal environment operations are
fundamentally linked to, these are legitimization environment and task environment and these
have an impact on performance of the company. Legitimization environment refers to all
stakeholders of organizations, these include but not limited to customers, shareholders,
employees and suppliers, which sometimes may even pursue conflicting interests. This is
what is commonly understood as institutionalism , that is organizations do not only
reflect their members” goals, motives or needs but are to some extent, dependent on
goals, motives and needs of the external environment. In Zimbabwe, most organizations respond
to legitimacy environment by engaging into corporate social responsibility activities. Mimosa
mining company provided new “welcome notes” into and out of Zvishavane and direction signs
for most schools in Zvishavane area. The idea is to justify their activities to the legitimacy
environment.

The second type of external environment according to Donnelly-Cox and O’Regan,

(1999) is task environment. This is mostly associated with ‘the market’. Generally,
organizations develop strategies to achieve certain tasks that are either profitable or, at least,
constitute financial survivability. Thus, organizational structures need to account for
certain levels of performance, for example, while on profit organizations aim at
equaling expenditures with revenues and donations, for profit organizations, the
intention can be to generate revenues that exceed their expenditures, resulting in a
profit (Child, 1972). In Zimbabwe Econet wireless strategy is being aligned to mesh with task
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environment for organizational success. Econet was the first Telecommunication Company in
Zimbabwe to launch money transfers via mobile phones popularly known as EcoCash. Some of
the profits recognized from EcoCash are used to offer scholarships to students under the name
Joshua Mqabulo Nkomo scholarship. The aim is to equal expenditures with revenues and
donations. Consequently, operations are directed at the successful accomplishment of tasks,
performed by a given organization structure and strategy.

A weak response to both internal and external environment can backfire the company‘s strategy.
This can be seen with how both the internal squabbles and poor external environmental analysis
is crippling down NRZ. Most passengers are now opting to travel by road, air or water as
opposed to rail but its taking NRZ ages to wake up to this call of the nature and if they continue
like this one day they will collide with reality. On the internal environment, strikes are orders of
the day at NRZ such that production processes and employee relations are in bad shape. Such
poor response can lead to total company closure as was the case with National Blankets and
David Whitehead Textiles.

On the other side of the coin, to a lesser extent,However it is important to note that high
performance does not always results from a strong external fit between the firm’s overall strategy
and its environment and a tight internal fit among capabilities, structures, processes and
management. Managers may have to perform their adaptive tasks sequentially striving for a
harmonious alignment among their internal variables in order to achieve smooth functioning, but
periodically disrupting this harmony to adjust to a changing environment (Child, 1972). In
other words, it can be concluded that is not always the case that when the external environment is
bad the internal environment or processes will suffer. In Zimbabwe, Marange Diamond Mine’s
external environment is bad due to politics such that the company cannot export diamonds
outside the country but its internal environment is not affected by the external environment and
the internal structures, processes and management are good as shown by it being the employer of
choice in Zimbabwe.

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Conclusion
To a greater extent, yes, high performance results from a strong external fit between the firm’s
overall strategy and its environment and a tight internal fit among capabilities, structures,
processes and management. Examples that support this notion were given in the above
discussion. It is only to a lesser extent that we can divorce high performance results from a
strong external fit between the firm’s overall strategy and its environment and a tight internal fit
among capabilities, structures, processes and management. To justify this position, an example
from Zimbabwe was used in the discussion.
Presentation should be concise and a max of 4 pgs.
You show evidence of much literature review but you need to me more analytical 72%
a good effort though

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References

Child J (1972) Organizational Structure, Environment and Performance: The role of Strategic
Choice, Sociology :Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Delery R and Doty V (1996). Rational behavior in groups: The free-riding tendency. Academy
of Management Review, 10, 244–255.
Donnelly-Cox I and O’Regan B (1999), Value congruence between co-workers and its
relationship to work outcomes. Group and Organization Management. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Drazin S and Van deVen M (1985). T h e s t r a t e g y / s t r u c t u r e d e b a t e : a n e x a m i n a t i o n
o f t h e performance implications. Journal of Management Studies, 37 (4)
Guest L (1997). As the left foot follows the right? The dynamics of strategic and structural
change. Academy of Management Journal, 37 (6), 1427-1452.
Mintzberg R, (1983) Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of
Management, 17 (1)
Schuler A and Jackson Z (1987). S t r a t e g y a n d s t r u c t u r a l a d j u s t m e n t t o r e g a i n f i t
a n d p e r f o r m a n c e : i n defense of contingency theory. Journal of Management
Studies, 24 (1)

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