Strategic Flexibility and Its Impact on Enhancing Organizational Effectiveness: An Applied Study on Jordanian Hotels

The current study aimed to identify the impact of strategic flexibility (Market Flexibility, Production Flexibility, and Competitive Flexibility) on organizational effectiveness in the Jordanian hotels (five stars).in order to achieve the objectives of the current study, the researcher designed questionnaire composed (31) paragraphs . The questionnaire divided into three sections. The section one involved the personal information (demographics information) the second section involved the items covered the questions that related with dimensions of strategic flexibility. And the third section involved the questions that related with organizational effectiveness. Moreover, the current study concluded that the strategic flexibility and its dimensions (market flexibility, production flexibility and competitive flexibility) have a positive impact on organizational effectiveness in the Jordanian hotels (five stars). Hence, According to these results the researcher recommending focusing the employees in the Jordanian hotels (five stars) on the production flexibility by adopting new system make the production within hotels (five stars) more flexible and updating the equipment's that used in the production and modifying the characteristics of current products.in addition, The current study has been applied on the Jordanian hotels located in Amman. Therefore, one of the most important limitations it is not possible to generalize the results of this study to hotels in other governorates while the current study focused on five star hotels. On the other hand, the current study took three dimensions of strategic flexibility, but there are many dimensions should researchers take it in their study in the future and conducting more research and future studies that link strategic flexibility and organizational effectiveness and applied it on other sectors such as banks and hospitals with the introduction of some intermediate variables such as the infrastructure of the Organization and organizational culture.


Introduction
The hotel sector is considered one of the most sensitive sectors. It has recently been noticed that there are a large number of hotels widespread around the world because of their great role in developing and revitalize the economies of countries by acquiring the largest market share and then achieve the competitive advantages. At the local Arab level, especially Jordan, it has built many hotels that attract tourists from all over the world for tourism.
On the other hand, the rapid technology and economics based on knowledge and highly dynamic environment and also the competitive between the companies and its effects on all the countries aspects made the companies seeking to get the best ways by exploiting their resources in order to gain the high reputations by providing a high quality of products and services. This requires from companies to look continually for the best flexible strategies and keep up with the internal and external factors that maybe effect on the nature of work.
All the factors above and using the computers in the organizations work made the organizations looking for strategic flexibility in order to achieve what they want based on their available resources and the hyper-competition among the organizations, More specifically, each organization needs to be flexible and more response with their environment by acting more effectively and intelligently . And the high of organization performance not get only from the needed information in the particular time about changing markets but also by knowing the effects which are essential as outputs of this knowledge (Javalgi, et al., 2005). Accordingly, the strategic flexibility is very important in the dynamic and instability environment. Therefore, the (Supeno et al., 2015) describes the strategic flexibility as a potentialities source that gives Small and medium-sized companies competitive advantages in the dynamic environment. Moreover, Organizations seek to adopt a flexible strategy that helps overcome all the forces that influence the work environment and this achieves organizational effectiveness.
According to (uhl-bein, marion and mckelevey ,2007) Organizational effectiveness mean that the organization is effective when they have to able manage some important elements such as uncertainty cases, knows their main works, employees empowerment , structured learning, flexibility, customer , production and value -oriented .
More specifically, and from the reviewing previous studies there is no past studies conducted to found the impact of strategic flexibility on organizational effectiveness. Accordingly, the current study attempts to identify the impact of Strategic flexibility on organizational effectiveness in the Jordanian hotels.

Concept of Strategic Flexibility
There is a difference of views regarding the concept of strategic flexibility. Therefore, the strategic flexibility concept refers to how companies adapt and response to internal and external environment factors to implement their tasks and activities. Additionally to, the strategic flexibility is very closely linked to uncertainty of environmental (Abbott and Banerji, 2003).
According to (Grewal and tansuhaj, 2001) the strategic flexibility can be defined as the ability of organizations to manage Political and economic risks through rapid response to market opportunities and threats by using the method of action and reaction. In addition to, the strategic flexibility describe as the ability of organizations to identify the changes in external environment and rapid response to these changes (Katsuhiko and hitt, 2004). On the other hand, some researchers identified the strategic flexibility concept as an ability of organizations to deal, respond and adapt with environmental changes especially in external and this will help the organizations to get the competitive advantages (cingoz and Akdogan, 2013).
According (Shah, 2013) the strategic flexibility refers to the ability of organizations to modification career upon on new information which perhaps different from past information. On the other side, many researchers such as (Aaker and Mascarenhas, 1984;Bahrami, 1992;Evans, 1991;Buckley and chapman , 1997;Matusik and Hill, 1998;Tihanyi et al., 2003 andShah, 2013) mentioned that the organizations are strategically flexible if they are able to responding rapidly to any change may will happened in the external environment.

Dimensions of Strategic Flexibility
The strategic flexibility takes many dimensions based on researchers' views. For example, according to (Abbott and Banerji, 2003) the dimensions of strategic flexibility is divided into three categories namely market flexibility, production flexibility and competitive flexibility. While other researchers' proposed two categories for dimensions of strategic flexibility , the first one namely externally observable that includes manufacturing process flexibility, operational scope flexibility, market flexibility , product flexibility , Procurement flexibility and financial flexibility and the second category namely internally observable which includes the ability to implement strategy, value chain flexibility, Control flexibility , learning flexibility , functional flexibility , human resource flexibility and information system flexibility ( beach et al .,2000) and (Setijono,2010). Accordingly, the current study choosing the following dimensions according to (Abbott and Banerji, 2003) in order to achieve the study objectives.

Market Flexibility
Many researchers have identified the concept of market flexibility such as (Abbott and Banerji, 2003) as the ability of organizations to modify or fit marketing efforts in a changeable environment in the long Period of time. While, the (Grewal and Tanshuhaj, 2001) defined the market flexibility as the ability of organizations to assess and adjust its marketing efforts a short period of time to face and respond rapidly to any changing environment situations. Whereas, other researchers describes the market flexibility as the ability of organization or firm to adapt with market changes easily without effect on works of company (Gupta and Somers, 1996).
According (Das, 2001) defined the market flexibility as the ability of organizations to face and response or to influence to market changes. On the other side, and according to (Abuzaid, 2014) the market flexibility involves many dimensions such as entry to new market, market share and rapidly response for demands of customers. Therefore, the market flexibility refers to how the organizations or companies deal with the market changes by response rapidly to these changes and focus on marketing efforts in order to grow up and survival.

Production Flexibility
The second dimension of strategic flexibility is production flexibility. According to (Abuzaid, 2014)the production flexibility describes as an ability of organizations to produce and provide goods and services to the markets around the worlds with Preferential or competitive price during a few or little period of time . to achieve this requires many things such as processes , functions , materials and equipment's and produce productions and know how the system response and flexible and interact to changes (Abbott and Banerji, 2003). Therefore, the production flexibility can be defined as a power that gives to organizations to be more flexible in provide the goods and services and react and response to the environment changes.

Competitive Flexibility
The third dimension of strategic flexibility it is called competitive flexibility mean the ability of organization to response to distinctive and changes of customer needs and diagnosis of environmental changes and adapt to it (Allen and Pantzalis, 1996). The competitive flexibility is the capacity of firms to compete effectively in hyper-competitive markets and its markets characterized by speed technological changes and uncertain demand (Abbott and Banerji, 2003).on the other side, the dimensions of competitive flexibility involve: identifying the competitive prices, reducing the cost of production and diagnosing the external environmental changes.
The competitive flexibility can be defined as the ability of organizations or companies to response to all competitive factors and changes in external environment.

Concept of Organizational Effectiveness
According to (Uche and Timinepere, 2012) the organizational effectiveness concept is called on another way as organizational success or organizational worth that related with goal achievement.
Many researchers defined the organizational effectiveness concept such as (Ambro and Praprothnik, 2008) as the ability of provider of service to satisfy the customer needs and wants. According to (Jones, 2001) the organization effectiveness refer to the extent to which the Organization is able to satisfy and achieve the objectives of stakeholders.
According to (Kanwal et al., 2017) the Organizational effectiveness is used to measure how an organization achieves their organizational goals. According (Samuel, 2013) the Organizational effectiveness refers to how effective an organization in order to achieving its goals.
Moreover, the effectiveness of an organization can be measured through many ways and this involves different criteria such as stability and cohesion, turnover, growth, productivity, profits. Additionally, the Organizational effectiveness also can be measured by three different dimensions such as employee performance, operational performance and financial performance (Ketkar and Sett, 2010).

Literature Review
According to (Kamasak et al., 2016) conducted study entitled importance of strategic flexibility on the knowledge and innovation relationship: An emerging market study. This study amid at seeks to discover the impact of strategic flexibility on the relationship between knowledge management and innovation performance. In order to achieve this study, the researchers used a selfadministrated questionnaire was conducted on a sample of 187 firms from different industries in Turkey. And descriptive analysis was used. The result of this study found that the effectiveness of knowledge management leading to innovation performance is contingent on strategic flexibility.
Other study conducted entitled the impact of strategic intelligence on firm performance and the mediator role of strategic flexibility: An empirical research in biotechnology industry. This study conducted by ( Agha , Atwa and Kiwan,2014)in order to explore the impact of strategic intelligence and its dimensions of (foresight, visioning, and motivation) on firm performance and to examine the mediating role of strategic flexibility and its dimensions of (production flexibility, marketing flexibility and competitive flexibility) . And this study was used the SPSS and Amos programs to analysis and test hypotheses. The result of study found that that there are significant positive impacts of strategic intelligence on firm performance, positive impacts of strategic intelligence, on strategic flexibility, and positive impacts of strategic intelligence on firm performance in the presence of strategic flexibility as a mediator variable.
In addition to, the (cingoz and Akdogan, 2013) conducted a study tested the relationship among strategic flexibility, environmental dynamism, and innovation performance by using a sample of 69 firms from Kayseri (Turkey). The study concluded that there is a positive relationship among strategic flexibility, innovation performance, and environmental dynamism.
On the other side, many scholars such as (Kanwal et al., 2017) have conducted study about does Organization learning capacity influence the organization effectiveness? Moderating role of absorptive Capacity. The result of study found that organizational learning capacity positively and significantly correlated with organizational effectiveness. In addition to, the absorptive capacity also significantly moderates the relationship between organizational learning capacity and organizational effectiveness.
Additionally, the (Liputra and Munawaroh, 2016) discussed study about the effect of organizational culture on organizational effectiveness: case study on hotel-x Jakarta. The study was used SEM analysis discloses and the study found there is significant influence of organizational culture to the organizational effectiveness and strategic direction tends to be the strongest factor loading of organizational culture that affects organizational effectiveness significantly.
Other scholars such as (masa'deh, 2016) wrote an article titled the role of emotional intelligence in enhancing organizational effectiveness: the case of information technology managers in Jordan. The result of current study found there is a significant positive impact of management of one's own emotion, awareness of other's emotion, and management of other's emotion on organizational effectiveness in Jordanian public shareholding firms.

Research Hypotheses
The current study aimed to testing the strategic flexibility and its impact on enhancing organizational effectiveness on Jordanian hotels. Therefore, the researcher formulates the hypothesis of study as follows: H00: There is no statistically significant impact at significance level (α≤0.05) of strategic flexibility dimensions (market flexibility, production flexibility, and competitive flexibility) on organizational effectiveness in the Jordanian hotels.

Research Methodology
The current study aimed to identify the impact of strategic flexibility (Market Flexibility, Production Flexibility, and Competitive Flexibility) on organizational effectiveness in the Jordanian hotels (five stars). Therefore, the current study uses the descriptive and analytically methodology in order to describe and analysis data that collected from respondents.

Population and Sample Study
The study population composed of (15) a hotel of five stars category according to (The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities) which operating at Amman Governorate. In addition to, the study sample included all the study population. And the sampling unit and analysis (respondents) included (150) workers at marketing department and strategy planning department and hotel Services department and selected purposely based on their work which related to strategic flexibility and organizational effectiveness.

Study Instrument (Tool)
The instrument of current study is questionnaire that divides into three parts. The first part involves personal (demographic) information (Gender, experience years and age). The second part includes the items covering the dimensions of strategic flexibility (market flexibility, production flexibility and competitive flexibility) which are adopted from (Abuzaid, 2014) and measured by (14) items. The third part include the items covering the organizational effectiveness which adopted from (Samuel, 2013) and measured by (17) items. In addition to, the current study used the five likert scale.

Instrument of Va lidity and Reliability
To achieve the instrument of validity the researcher presented the study instrument (questionnaire) to a group of specialist academicians in field of current study in order to give their opinions regarding the Paragraphs of the study instrument and its clarity and coherence. In addition, the researcher responded to these observations by deleting, modifying and integrating some of the paragraphs of the questionnaire. Therefore, the study instrument is valid for the measurement and fit to current study.
On the other side, the researcher used Cronbach alpha coefficients to verify the reliability of the current study and ensure the internal consistency among questionnaire items and paragraphs. Therefore, the Cronbach alpha value for strategic flexibility is (85) while the Cronbach alpha values for organizational effectiveness (89) and the (81) for instrument as a whole. Therefore, the Cronbach alpha values are accepted because it is more than (60%) according to (sekaran, 2008).

Data Presentation (Offering)
The following tables explains the means and standard deviations for the respondent's answers on the questionnaire items related to the strategic flexibility presented in the table (2) and table (3). While table (2) presents the means and standard deviations for the respondent's answers on the questionnaire items related to the strategic flexibility, whereas table (3) presents the means and standard deviations for the respondent's answers on the questionnaire items related to the organizational effectiveness. The results of table (2) indicate that the employees in the Jordanian hotels (Five stars) have high market flexibility with average of means (4.09). Also the item (Our hotel modifies its products continuously to fit with requirements and needs of the market that works in it) has the highest mean (4.20) while the item (Our hotel able to response for the renewed needs of customers in different markets) has the lowest mean (3.92) within market flexibility. In addition to, the results showed that the item (Our hotel able to modifying the characteristics of current products to fit the requirements of customers) has the highest mean (4.00) while the item (Our hotel has high capability to produce in one country and export to other countries) has the lowest mean (3.60) within production flexibility. Moreover, result indicate that the item (Our hotel responding quickly to the renewed needs of customers) has the highest mean (4.27) while the item (Our hotel able to exploitation of opportunities and confrontation the threats of competitors) has the lowest mean (3.00) within competitive flexibility. The results of table (3) indicate that the employees in the Jordanian hotels (Five stars) have a high organizational effectiveness with average of means (3.88). Moreover, the results from table (3) showed that the item (The hotel has been reporting increased revenue) has the highest mean (4.50) while the item (Regularly measure organizational performance) has the lowest mean (2.99).

Testing of Hypotheses
In the current study and before testing hypotheses the researcher used multicollinearity test to make sure there is no correlation between independent variables which are (market flexibility, production flexibility and competitive flexibility). According to (Montgomery, peck and vining, 2001) the correlation that reaches over (0.80) evidence or indicates that there is a linear correlation problem. )**(significant at the level( 0.01) The table above (4) explain that there is a highest correlation between independent variables is (8.37) between production flexibility variable and competitive flexibility variable while the value of correlation coefficient was less than that. This indicates there is no linear correlation between independent variables. According to the results of multicollinearity test; the researcher was conducted multiple linear regression analysis in order to test the study hypothesis. The following tables show the model summary (5), and table (6) explains ANOVA analysis whereas the table (7) presents beta and t values for the study hypothesis.  The results in the table (6) indicate that the value of (F) is (1043.295) with significant (0.000) that is lower than the identified value (0.05). Therefore, the model is appropriate and acceptable. The table (7) showed that the result of multiple regression analysis means that strategic flexibility impact on organizational effectiveness. And also the values of beta and t-tests explained that the following dimensions: market flexibility, production flexibility and competitive flexibility has a positive impact on organizational effectiveness at (α ≤ 0.05). In addition to, the highest impact was for competitive flexibility and then for market flexibility whereas the lowest impact for production flexibility.

Study Conclusions and Recommendations
The current study aimed at recognizing the impact of strategic flexibility on organizational effectiveness in the Jordanian hotels (five stars). Therefore, the current study concluded that the strategic flexibility and its dimensions (market flexibility, production flexibility and competitive flexibility) have a positive impact on organizational effectiveness in the Jordanian hotels (five stars). Moreover, the highest impact was for competitive flexibility and then for market flexibility whereas the lowest impact for production flexibility. According to these results the researcher recommending focusing the employees in hotels Jordanian hotels (five stars) on the production flexibility by adopting new system make the production within hotels (five stars) more flexible and updating the equipment's that used in the production and modifying the characteristics of current products . In addition to, the current study recommending that the workers at marketing department and strategy planning department and hotels Services department should keep going to improve the strategic flexibility and their dimensions to get a high competitive position and to be more effectiveness.

Limitations and Further Research
The current study has been applied on the Jordanian hotels located in Amman. Therefore, one of the most important limitations it is not possible to generalize the results of this study to hotels in other governorates while the current study focused on five star hotels. On the other hand, the current study took three dimensions of strategic flexibility, but there are many dimensions should researchers take it in their study in the future and conducting more research and future studies that link strategic flexibility and organizational effectiveness and applied it on other sectors such as banks and hospitals with the introduction of some intermediate variables such as the infrastructure of the Organization and organizational culture.