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Decisions about strategies to be implemented and organization design are important in having competitive advantage for companies. Although this statement widely takes place in management literature, very little research has been done on this subject in Turkey. The aim of this study is to examine the mediating role of competitive strategies in the impact of organizational flexibility on competitive advantage in order to extend about empirical literature of the structure-strategy-competitive advantage paradigm based on the resource-based view (RBV). In this context, the data were collected from the top 500 industrial enterprises in Turkey. The data were tested via structural equation model. The findings of our research show that the direct effect of organizational flexibility on competitive superiority was marginally significant and when three different competitive strategies were included between these two variables in the model, the marginally significant effect of organizational flexibility on the competitive advantage disappeared. In other words, the full mediating role of applied competition strategies in the effect of organizational flexibility on competitive advantage has been identified. Our findings are similar to the findings of other studies that consider organizational structure as a valuable resource and examine the relationship between the structure and the strategy according to the RBV.

Throughout history, enterprises have tried to survive by competing in a dynamic environment. This competition has currently been to be more severe more in the age of Industry 4.0 due to modern automation systems, production technologies, and data exchanges. Today’s high technology and speed environment changes have created volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) for almost all companies. To be able to cope with these environmental conditions, they have to be more dynamic, have more flexible and agile abilities. Not only it is not enough to have these abilities but also they need to use these abilities effectively. As to usage of these capabilities, it depends on organizational structure that have been built by considering several situational factors such as technology, technological change, innovation, and environmental instability. Organizational structure is a very important variable to increase the performance of the organization and to gain competitive advantage over enterprises’ competitors. In order that this study is guide for practitioners, it has been tried to explain the linkages among VUCA World, organizational structure and competitive advantage. Also, suggestions have been offered them to build their organization structure in order to be competitive by gaining success in three platforms called human resources, knowledge, and technology.