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Developments in the social neurosciences over the past two decades have rendered problematic the main knowledge elicitation techniques currently in use by strategy researchers, as a basis for revealing actors’ mental representations of strategic knowledge. Extant elicitation techniques were advanced during an era when cognitive scientists and organizational researchers alike were preoccupied with the basic information of processing limitations of decision makers and means of addressing them, predicated on an outmoded conception of strategists as affect-free, cognitive misers. The need to adapt these techniques to enable the investigation of the emotional content and structure of actors’ mental representations is now a pressing priority for the advancement of theory, research, and practice pertaining to several interrelated areas of strategic management, from dynamic capabilities development, to upper echelons theory, to strategic consensus formation. Accordingly, in this chapter, we report the findings of two studies that investigated the feasibility of adapting the repertory grid, a robust method, widely known and well used in strategic management, for this purpose. Study 1 elicited a series of commonly mentioned strategic issues (the elements) from a sample of senior managers similar in composition to the sample recruited to the second study. Study 2 participants evaluated the elements elicited in Study 1 in relation to a series of researcher-supplied bipolar attributes (the constructs), based on the well-known affective circumplex model of human emotions. In line with expectations, a series of vector-based multivariate analyses revealed a number of interesting similarities and variations among participants in terms of the basic structure and emotional salience of the issues under consideration.

For their part, GSE went into 2002 with a vision of how they saw the year unfolding. 2002 would see the holding of a general election, and the momentum of GSE's petition gathering and public meetings could be utilised in an attempt to politicise the incineration issue as part of the overall election campaign. The shifting dynamic of the political opportunity structure surrounding the incineration issue had seen GSE and their local political allies losing momentum, due to the removal of the councillors’ powers on the waste issue. However, the response of a public now concerned at this perceived undermining of democracy allowed GSE to extend their democratic deficit frame.

Key forces shaping higher education drive institutions to make strategic choices to locate themselves in niches where they can make use of their resources effectively and efficiently. However, the concepts of strategy and strategic positioning in higher education are contested issues due to the nature and complexity of the sector and the university. As an industry facing increasing pressure toward marketization and competition, this study calls for an analysis of higher education, as an industry, in a more business-oriented framework. This chapter makes a contribution to scholarly research in higher education by applying Porter’s five forces framework to medical education. In doing so, it provides a foundational perspective on the competitive landscape, its environment, its organizations, and the groups and individuals that make up the higher and medical education sector.

This chapter proposes that organizational strategy formation should be characterized theoretically as a process that is subject to several interacting forces, rather than represented by separate discrete decision-models or theoretic perspectives, as is commonly done in the strategic management literature. Based on an extensive review of relevant theory and empirical work in strategic decision-making, organizational change theory, cognitive and social psychology, and strategy processes, seven kinds of “forces” – rational, imposed, teleological, learning, political, heuristic, and social – are identified as interacting in and having significant influence on the strategy formation process. It is further argued that by applying a holistic “forces-view” of the significant and interacting influences on strategy formation, we can better understand the dynamics and challenges in managing the process of defining and changing organizational strategies.

The study aims to contribute to the literature on board behavior and performance in public sector organizations, by investigating conflicts as a fundamental and inevitable part of interactions between board members. Despite impressive advances in studying the behavioral dimensions of governing bodies, several gaps still remain in our knowledge, especially for public sector boards. These face specific challenges related to multiple, conflicting, and ambiguous goals.

Earlier studies identified four different types of conflict (affective, cognitive, interest, and authority conflicts). These were used to guide a systematic literature review considering the source and the nature of conflicts to classify and describe the state of knowledge on the topic.

Most academic contributions emphasized cognitive and interest conflicts, suggesting that solving them was essential to improve board performance and enable boards to create value. The results suggest the utility of broadening the perspective of the governing board role, moving beyond agency and institutional theory, taking into consideration resource dependence theory as an alternative perspective to investigate board roles and task expectations.

Understanding conflicts within public boards is an interesting challenge from several perspectives. First, it provides a deep look inside board decision-making processes using a behavioral perspective. Second, analyzing the nature and sources of conflict places boards in a better position to address complex political issues. Finally, resolving conflicts may lead boards to channel their energies into collaborative activities that stimulate best practices, facilitate mutual awareness, and generate commitment to cooperation inside and outside the boardroom.

Teamwork has become increasingly prevalent both in undertaking research projects and in preparing papers for publication. While there are some reflections on the process of teamworking in the organisational studies literature, there is little published work in the area of entrepreneurship. Most existing studies distinguish between problems associated with task-based conflict and relationship-based conflict. In this chapter, the author provides an ethnographic account of a team involved with preparing a proposal and, subsequently, undertaking a small firm research project. The Evolution of Business Knowledge (EBK) was a major Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) initiative which funded 13 distinct projects. During the nine-month period of preparing and refining the research proposal, the team worked together extremely effectively. There were periods of intense knowledge sharing, which enabled the team to develop an impressive and successful bid to study the ‘EBK in 90 small firms’. A major dispute between team members, during the early stages of the fieldwork, led to a period of both task-based and relationship-based conflicts, which threatened to undermine the project. As a result of my first-hand experiences with the EBK project, the author suggests that accounts such as this will help those who find themselves operating in dysfunctional teams make sense of the underlying tensions associated with ‘academic knowledge creation’.

To provide a theoretical explanation of why outsourcing relationships are inherently dynamic, in that the dependence of each party upon the other inevitably changes over time and thus so too will the power asymmetries between the parties.

Our approach is theoretical and draws upon insights from resource dependence theory, transaction cost economics, and the resource-based view of the firm, to focus on the power asymmetries between the focal firm undertaking the outsourcing and its suppliers. We illustrate our arguments using a longitudinal case study of the evolving relationship between Apple and the Foxconn Technology Group.

For supplier firms, the message is to upgrade, develop distinctive resources and capabilities, and diversify the customer base. Otherwise, suppliers will forever be condemned to low operating margins and the threat of being replaced by cheaper, more agile rivals. For focal firms, the message is not to rest on your laurels. The potency of isolating mechanisms may well dissipate, suppliers will no doubt strive to lessen their positions of dependence and competitors will inevitably emerge, with the result that once-profitable outsourcing arrangements may quickly erode.

We highlight the crucial role played by isolating mechanisms to underpin power asymmetries in outsourcing relationships, and thus enable focal firms to appropriate the rents from externalized value chain activities. We argue that the efficacy of many isolating mechanisms will tend to dissipate over time as competitors emerge to imitate successful strategies and products, and as resource and capability asymmetries erode.