Socio-technical foundations of sustainable business practices during VUCA

This study explores 18 UK companies' business practices across diverse sectors, emphasizing the role of learning and organizational design as key foundations for managing uncertainty. Applying the Market Intelligence Accumulation and Transfer Model (MIATM) 3.0, we uncover how organizations adjust to changes, challenge, transform, and adapt operational practices in response to VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) times. Results indicate that participants from knowledge-intensive and technology-based firms, particularly those operating a B2B business model as well as entrepreneurial smaller firms, exhibit a greater ability to learn and transform, attributed to leadership styles that promote an environment conducive to continuous learning and strategic reinvention. Conversely, rigid hierarchical structures and autocratic leadership are shown to impede business practices transformation due to poor knowledge flow and sharing, employee alienation from the company's goals and purpose, centralized decision-making, and hierarchical structure. The findings underscore the necessity of cultivating a culture that encourages proactive learning and employee-calculated risk-taking that enables decision-making through collaboration and experimentation, backed by leadership that supports a dynamic, open-minded, and flexible organizational design. Moreover, we provide a holistic model to guide organizational context design for successful learning as a key foundation of business practice transformation in turbulent and uncertain times.