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Customer value creation is dependent on a firm’s capacity to fulfil its brand promises and value propositions. The purpose of this paper is to explore frontline employees’ (FLEs’) motivation to align with value propositions.

The paper explores FLEs’ motivation to align with a firm’s value propositions as operationalised brand promises. A longitudinal, three-phase case study was conducted on a business-to-business company in the building and technical trade sector.

This study reveals factors that foster and weaken employees’ motivation to align with a firm’s brand promises and value propositions. The findings show that co-activity and authentic, practice-driven promises and value propositions foster FLEs’ motivation to uphold brand promises and value propositions, whereas an objectifying stance and power struggle weaken their motivation.

The study indicates that a bottom-up approach to strategising is needed and that FLE is to be engaged in traditional managerial domains, such as in developing value propositions. By creating space and agency for FLE in the strategising process, their motivation to align with value propositions is fostered. Four motivational modes are suggested to support bottom-up strategising.

The paper is unique in its focus on FLEs’ motivation. Developing value propositions traditionally falls within the domain of management strategising, while employees are ascribed the role of enactment. Contrary to the established norm, this paper highlights employees’ active role in strategising and developing value propositions.

While inter-organizational collaboration concerns processes of organizing between firms, it is always initiated and enacted by individual people who perceive a need for collaboration. This chapter takes the perspective of these actors and their efforts to seek collaboration as they pursue an agenda for change. Collaboration processes are thus conceptualized as path creation and internal strategizing. The chapter focuses specifically on how actors sell the need for collaboration internally and how they draw on their external network to promote change. It illustrates this process of issue selling and collaboration with six case studies in the area of new product development, new forms of network governance, and network-wide change of business practices. Comparing these more or less successful trajectories highlights the relevance of the relational context in issue selling, the role of intentionality within emerging processes, and interplay between external collaboration and internal strategizing.

The abundance of technological innovations has dramatically increased the prominence of digital transformation processes in many organizations and sectors. At the present time, digital transformation is first and foremost depicted in the literature as a strategy carefully elaborated and deployed by diligent executives. This stands in sharp contrast with contemporary organizational theory, and most especially the strategy-as-practice research stream, which has increasingly underlined the capability of middle managers to weigh upon strategizing processes. An empirical inquiry conducted in a major aeronautics company reveals that digital transformation can be largely driven by middle managers in charge of specific technological projects, who operate in the absence of a well-defined, overarching strategy. Drawing on the sociology of translation, the chapter identifies four tactics used by middle managers to ensure that their projects make it to the strategic agenda of the firm. Ultimately, the findings suggest that digital transformation processes cannot be solely understood as strategic endeavors, and can result from the addition of disjointed technological projects driven by middle managers instead.

The purpose of this paper is to research the nature of supply chain strategy (SCS). It represents one stage of an on‐going research initiative aimed at providing a framework for systematic understanding of the linkages between corporate strategy (CS) making and supply chain management (SCM).

The paper explored the theory and literature related to strategic management and SCM. Four generic levels of strategy were linked to SCM, and synthesized into an explanatory SCS‐framework. Propositions for future research were presented based on the framework.

The paper shows that most of the literature on SCS relates to the functional level. Largely undiscovered are the links between corporate and business unit strategies with supply chain strategies and capabilities, especially on the network level (NL).

A fit between CS and SCM positively impacts the performance of a firm. The framework developed can be used by managers to assist in thinking through possibilities to link supply chain capabilities with the CS making processes.

By distinguishing between functional, business, corporate, and NLs, the paper provides a framework for future research to enhance knowledge related to supply chain strategies and capabilities.

Although we have seen a proliferation of studies examining the discursive aspects of strategy, the full potential of the linguistic turn has not yet been realized. This paper argues for a multifaceted interdiscursive approach that can help to go beyond simplistic views on strategy as unified discourse and pave the way for new research efforts. At the metalevel, it is important to focus attention on struggles over competing conceptions of strategy in this body of knowledge. At the mesolevel it is interesting to examine alternative strategy narratives to better understand the polyphony and dialogicality in organizational strategizing. At the microlevel, it is useful to reflect on the rhetorical tactics and skills that are used in strategy conversations to promote or resist specific views. This paper calls for new focused analyses at these different levels of analysis, but also for studies of the processes linking these levels.

This study develops the idea that resource orchestration (RO) of ISS-enabled strategy-making (ISS-SM) can influence dynamic and improvisational capabilities in innovation resulting in corporate performance (CP) gains under a hostile environment.

The structural equation modeling is applied to the data collected from 551 Brazilian firms.

The results suggest that ISS-SM facilitates dynamic and improvisational capabilities in innovation, consequently promoting CP. The research also showed that, under conditions of high environmental hostility, the impact of improvisational capabilities in innovation on CP is significantly amplified. Finally, in the specific case of high hostility, ISS-SM is especially important in enabling organizational capabilities on CP, for digital mastery firms, large firms in the manufacturing and services sectors.

The findings provide insights on how RO of ISS and resource management action enable strategy-making to leverage innovation and corporate performance during an uncertain environment.

This study developed an original contribution to resource orchestration, information systems strategies, and strategy-making literature through developing a novel construct of ISS-enabled strategy-making to enhance proximate and distal outcomes under a hostile environment.

Open strategy is a new paradigm that has more benefit to business especially small ones. The aim of this research is to clear this proposition that in the age of digital transformation adopting open strategy paradigm will help business to attain competitive advantage. To this purpose, two main variables that have capability in the mentioned new paradigm, learning and innovation, came into focus. Based on a standard questionnaire, data were gathered from high-tech Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are active in Tehran science and technology parks. Reliability of the instrument was confirmed at an appropriate level. Data were analyzed based on structural equation modeling and results have shown the positive effect of learning on innovation and competitive advantage, and between innovation and competitive advantages. These findings indicate that SMEs must pay close attention to the nature, dimensions, dynamics, and elements of open strategy to attain competitive advantage in the VUCA¹ world.

Strategic management is traditionally seen as an exclusive managerial task rather than inclusive where accountability is reserved for top managers. However, contemporary strategy management practices increasingly pay attention to equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) by engaging with broader internal and external stakeholders via more open business models such as ecosystems. Hence, central to our examination is the concept of openness disposition, which in the context of strategic management refers to the tendency of individuals, collectives, and managers to make strategy transparent, participatory, and/or inclusive, or look for closure. While openness in strategy is regarded as a positive means of contemporary management, fostering diversity, creativity, innovation, and empowerment, there are some researched downsides too. The purpose of this chapter is to address the openness puzzle in strategy and gain a deeper understanding of the dilemmas of bottom-up strategy initiatives, and investigate the associated dilemmas, if any in the context of manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs). We contribute to addressing the performative effects of the dynamic expansion and contraction in openness within the SME strategy process while using the concept of openness dilemmas, tensions, and disposition. Using the Management Control Theory, this chapter will combine theory with SME practitioners’ experiences of bottom-up strategy initiatives to increase EDI in their organisations. Based on findings that emerged from a four-year longitudinal multiple case study research with 10 European SMEs, we found that bottom-up strategy exercises are more interactive. They consider a greater number of views, increase legitimacy, and EDI at the workplace, and yield more process benefits, but are time-consuming and difficult to organise that require special attention to the capability, reciprocity, and credibility dimensions.