Organizational adaptation (sometimes referred to as strategic fit and organizational congruence) is a concept in organization theory and strategic management that is used to describe the relationship between an organization and its environment. The conceptual roots of organizational adaptation borrows ideas from organizational ecology, evolutionary economics, industrial and organizational psychology, and sociology. A systematic review of 50 years worth of literature defined organizational adaptation as "intentional decision-making undertaken by organizational members, leading to observable actions that aim to reduce the distance between an organization and its economic and institutional environments".^[1]

Adaptation is a concept that has been studied from multiple perspectives and, as a result, transcends multiple levels of analysis including organizations, populations of organizations, and organizational fields.^[2]

Studies of organization adaptation are mainly concerned with the evolution of organizations in conjunction with the environments in which they are situated. Early works emphasized a notion that managers possessed the ability to determine the optimal means by which organizations could be structured. Aspects of adaptation began with a focus inside organizations and the adapting of internal structures to achieve the highest rates of success (see scientific management as an example). The study of adaptation evolved to focus on the interplay between strategy and structure, classically studied by Chandler (1962)^[3] which laid the foundation for subsequent studies of adaptation that elaborated more explicitly on the environment.

The two most prominent seminal works of adaptation evolved to describe the relationship between organizations and their environments. Cyert and March (1963), in their influential work, A Behavioral Theory of the Firm, emphasized the adaptation of decision rules that facilitated the ways that organizations learned to cope with uncertain environments. Relatedly, Lawrence and Lorsch (1967) elaborated upon the notion of "fit" between organizational structures and the various sub-environments in which they operated.^[4] Organizations that were best able to match their organization structures to sub-environments outperformed other organizations, spawning a rich literature in contingency theory.

Adaptation is often contrasted with inertia and selection (see organizational ecology) and reflected as survival, growth, or performance.^[10] The attributes that reflect the concept of adaptation do not fully reflect either survival nor success for organizations, however, as biological notions of adaptation do not easily translate to organizations.^[11] Adaptation, as a standalone concept, does have distinguishable attributes from its related concepts. More specifically, organizational adaptation is premised on organizational decision-making that is intentional, whereby decision-makers are aware of their environment; relational, in that organizations and environments influence one another; conditioned, in that environmental characteristics evolved with other organizations’ actions; and convergent, in that organizations attempt to move closer to a set of environmental characteristics.^[1]

The widespread use of adaptation and its relationships to many theoretical perspectives has led to a diverse body of literature that spans multiple levels of analysis and multiple topics of study. A systematic review of 50 years worth of academic literature on adaptation uncovered 6 theoretical perspectives and 16 unique topics that have been studied with the concept of adaptation (see the interactive model of topics). Broadly, studies of organizational adaptation focus on 3 main areas: how do organizations pursue adaptation, what constrains organizational efforts to adapt, and what are the environmental forces that initiate adaptation.^[1]

The three areas in which adaptation has been studied has led to some conceptual challenges that stem from the various levels and perspectives from which organizational adaptation has been studied. A systematic review identified 11 difficulties in adaptation research, which is summarized broadly in the following table.^[1]

• Adaptive management
• Adaptive performance
• Biocultural evolution
• Bounded rationality
• Complex adaptive system
• Open and closed systems in social science
• Organizational behaviour
• Organizational development
• Organizational field
• Organizational learning
• Organizational performance
• Organizational studies
• Organizational theory