Relationship between Flexibility of Technology, Growth Strategy and Sustainable Performance of Firms in the Indian Iron and Steel Industry

In this chapter, we explore a few factors (variables) associated with the degenerationDegeneration phenomenon in an Industrial EcosystemEcosystem and their relationshipRelationship with long term performance of firms. It is an empirically observed phenomenon in the steel industry that the technologyTechnology-driven growth of firms leads to fluctuation in long-term performance. To further explore the degenerationDegeneration phenomenon, we have examined the relationshipRelationship of one of the attributes of process technologyProcess technology, i.e., FlexibilityFlexibility of TechnologyTechnology (FT), with the long-term performance of firms in the Indian Iron and Steel Industry (IISI). From the literature, it was inferred that, though the steel making process is highly degenerative, consuming a lot of material and was one of the highest emitters of carbon dioxide, FT has been one of the factors that supports the growth of firms. Data collected from two sample firms from IISI (Steel Authority of India Ltd. and Tata Steel Ltd.) for the period from 2009 to 2021 was analysed using Multiple Regression to understand the degenerationDegeneration phenomenon in Industrial EcosystemEcosystem. It was found that some of the variables of FT positively affected the socialSocial, environmentalEnvironmental and economicEconomics performance of the firms. But a contradiction was observed amongst a few variables of FT and those of long-term performance, such as socialSocial, environmentalEnvironmental and economicEconomics performance between the two firms. The study concluded that firms in the steel industry need to leverage the flexibilityFlexibility of technologyTechnology to enhance the long-term socialSocial, economicEconomics and environmentalEnvironmental performance for the overall sustainabilitySustainability of firms in the IISI. The outcome of this study is expected to further deepen the understanding of the degenerationDegeneration phenomenon in secondary ecosystemsEcosystem and help firms in the steel industry to further decipher the nexus between the flexibilityFlexibility of technologyTechnology, growth and sustainable performance of firms, while helping them make an informed choice during technologyTechnology deployment in making the system regenerative or sustainable.