Strategies to Respond to a VUCA World

Abstract: Purpose - The business world today becomes more VUCA than ever. Organizations around the world need to develop and establish strategies to respond to this disruptive environment. This paper aims to explore what strategic responses that organizations could adopt in order to survive and thrive in a VUCA world. The initial research indicates the emphasis on the critical role of organizational development and human resources management in the preparation needed to cope with a VUCA world. Thus, by focusing on theoretical and empirical findings within scholarly literature, this paper aims to describe, synthesize, and analyze the main themes in those suggested solutions for the topic. Methodology - A literature review is conducted to provide objective findings of existing knowledge in the academic field. Findings - The literature review reveals the need to prepare both the organization as a whole and the individual to survive and thrive in a VUCA business environment. At the macro-level, organizational structure and culture are found as the two main themes. The organizational structure is featured with entrepreneurial mindsets, resilience, responsiveness, and decentralized management. The organizational culture is characterized by learning organizations, strong engagement, supporting innovation, collaboration, and non-linear thinking. At the micro-level, the focus is on management and leadership, which addresses what skills managers should have, how to get managers with the right qualities, and how managers should use their abilities. Besides, how to prepare the staff to be VUCA-ready is found as the main theme. Different interactions between staff and leaders and managers are also identified. Contribution - This paper provides valuable insights into VUCA-related strategies for those who share a similar interest in the topic. By scrutinizing a significant number of scholarly articles, this paper shall bring a better understanding of organizational development as well as human resources management as the strategic approach that leaders and business managers can adopt to cope with a highly turbulent and complex environment. Further, the findings are useful for future researchers since it provides a summary of the existing knowledge in the research literature of this topic. Keywords - VUCA, volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, strategy, organizational development, human resource management.