Long term investments in critical infrastructure under environmental turbulence; Dilemmas of infrastructure responsiveness

Organizations operate in a turbulent environment which implies that the potential of long-term strategies is highly uncertain. Especially critical infrastructure providers face this issue as they typically invest with a time horizon of 50 years or more. Therefore, these organizations want to be responsive: they have the desire to take future developments into account when making strategic decisions, in order to avoid disinvestments. Literature on responsiveness is scattered and there are various related concepts including ambidexterity, organizational resilience, and stakeholder theory. This study builds on these bodies of knowledge to analyze the responsiveness strategies of six Dutch critical infrastructure providers. Confronting the responsiveness strategies as practiced with the literature results in nine dilemmas of responsiveness. Together these dilemmas show where, from the point of view of these organizations, future research may help taking long term trends into account more effectively.