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The conditions that are constantly changing and transforming by digital technologies in today's world have forced businesses to think strategically and to comply with the rules and processes of strategic management. Technologies, such as the internet of things, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and big data, especially in the Industry 4.0 ecosystem, cause some conflicts or constructive and destructive effects on the management approaches and management strategies of businesses. Businesses need to understand these technologies and their effects to maintain their existence and manage their resources and capabilities effectively and strategically. In this chapter, it is aimed to examine the conflicts with destructive and constructive effects of digital technologies on the strategic management of enterprises. For this purpose, the literature was searched qualitatively, and a conceptual study was carried out. At the beginning of the chapter, strategic management literature was researched, and strategic management approaches and views were examined. In the next part, digital technologies in the Industry 4.0 ecosystem are explained. In the last part, digital technologies and their impacts in terms of strategic management approaches (position approach, resource-based approach, and complementing views of resources-based approach) have been examined.

This paper reports on a case study research regarding the development of capabilities from a multidimensional social capital perspective. Case study research together with a multi-disciplinary literature study are the platform for further theory development on the related questions: “How do organisations build capabilities?” and “What are the antecedents of the development of capabilities?.” We start by describing the theoretical origin of our research problem by focusing on a triangle: (1) the resource-based view; (2) the network approach; and (3) the social capital approach. Following this literature study, we discuss the case study research design that was developed within an industrial company (B2B). We next present the findings and refine our initial tentative conceptual framework.

Various authors have brought forth the idea that the increase in context turbulence and the relentless change in today's economic and competitive environments have rendered it essential for an effective firm strategy to combine both value appropriation and value creation (Porter, 1996; Moran & Ghoshal, 1999; Venkataraman & Sarasvathy, 2001; Hitt, Ireland, Camp, & Sexton, 2001b). Nonetheless, the methodological bases and the assumptions that characterize contributions concerning value appropriation and value creation are notably different and in many respects opposite to one another. These profound methodological differences hinder the possibility of a combined consideration of value appropriation and value creation issues within a coherent interpretative framework. By reinterpreting more conventional strategy studies in the light of the Austrian process view, this article builds a process framework which is able to consider and render mutually compatible both value appropriation and value creation within the unitary process of firm development. In addition, the use of the Austrian approach as an interpretative lens enables an evolution and extension of the resource-based theory that consents it, not only to grasp the mechanisms behind value appropriation, but also to suggest new ways of viewing post-industrial firm behavior that help to interpret its dynamic and proactive role in the value creation process.

Companies in all industries are searching for new sources of competitive advantage since the competition in their marketplace is becoming increasingly intensive. The resource-based view of the firm explains the sources of sustainable competitive advantages. From a resource-based view perspective, relational based assets (i.e., the assets resulting from firm contacts in the marketplace) enable competitive advantage. The relational based assets examined in this work are brand image and corporate reputation, as components of brand equity, and customer value. This paper explores how they create value. Despite the relatively large amount of literature describing the benefits of firms in having strong brand equity and delivering customer value, no research validated the linkage of brand equity components, brand image, and corporate reputation, simultaneously in the customer value–customer loyalty chain. This work presents a model of testing these relationships in consumer goods, in a business-to-business context. The results demonstrate the differential roles of brand image and corporate reputation on perceived quality, customer value, and customer loyalty. Brand image influences the perception of quality of the products and the additional services, whereas corporate reputation actions beyond brand image, estimating the customer value and customer loyalty. The effects of corporate reputation are also validated on different samples. The results demonstrate the importance of managing brand equity facets, brand image, and corporate reputation since their differential impacts on perceived quality, customer value, and customer loyalty. The results also demonstrate that companies should not limit to invest only in brand image. Maintaining and enhancing corporate reputation can have a stronger impact on customer value and customer loyalty, and can create differential competitive advantage.

Firms operate in a market for their corporate assets, wherein important assets being bought and sold are business units. This market is therefore a primary mechanism for firm reconfiguration, and offers the opportunity for firms to gain performance advantage as they prepare for and engage in their boundary-changing moves. This paper focuses on resource reconfiguration between firms, and examines internally and externally driven sources of performance heterogeneity in firms’ use of the market for firm reconfiguration. Viewing between-firm resource reconfiguration through three theoretical lenses surfaces several potential avenues for firm differentiation. For one, the necessity of firms’ possessing capabilities to execute both sides of the external resource reconfiguration transaction – acquisition and divestiture capabilities – is revealed. For another, the institutional prerequisites that are needed in the operating environment for a firm to build a sustainable resource reconfiguration strategy are brought to the fore, and are well illustrated by the private equity industry. Lastly, the potential benefits of using the transactional view of firm scope to animate the study of external resource reconfiguration are raised. Taken together, these elements lead to a research agenda around resource reconfiguration across firm boundaries.

Under currently uncertain and fast-changing environments, it is important for firms to supplement their main strategy with alternative ones so that they can quickly change courses of actions. Strategic flexibility is thus an important factor for the viability and success of firms. Although previous research has emphasized the need for strategic flexibility, some firms are reluctant to do so since it requires high investments. Existing studies on strategic flexibility have emerged from various disciplines and drawn on diverse theoretical perspectives. Due to the increasing importance of strategic flexibility, this chapter reviews and summarizes existing studies on strategic flexibility based on the applications of strategic flexibility in various business disciplines, including management and strategy, business entrepreneurship, and marketing. The authors also summarize different theoretical perspectives, including upper echelons theory, resource-based view theory, and dynamic capabilities theory, as well as their limitations.

To explain the origin of novel strategies I elaborate the managerial judgment perspective as an alternative to the serendipity and managerial foresight views on the origin of novel strategies proposed in the earlier literature. The managerial judgment perspective closely integrates resource-based theories and theories of managerial cognition. It builds centrally on the construct of “management’s theory of success” as a representation of managers’ beliefs and expectations concerning the factors that lead to desired outcomes in the light of Knightean uncertainty and that is formed through learning from small samples over time. The managerial judgment perspective may be seen as a theory that explains the formation of strategies independently from their eventual performance, but may also shed light on the cognitive antecedents of superior performance. It also argues for a conception of strategic agency in terms of ecological rationality.

The provision of value, as a marketing issue, is receiving increasing attention from managers and scholars. This attention, in combination with strong calls for better quantification and stronger measures in marketing, has lead to increased interest in the assessment, quantified where possible, of the provision of value through buyer–seller relationships. This paper identifies dimensions of value provision through relationships in business markets with specific emphasis on the intangible aspects of value, which are important to long-term competitive advantage. The provision of value to the seller is the prime focus in this paper. The paper discusses the meaning of both tangible and intangible relationship value and the interplay between them and notes the importance of assessing the intangible part of the value, particularly the part which derives from the human aspects of the relationship. Despite their importance, the human aspects of relationships and their contribution to value is a sparse topic among researchers. The paper compares and evaluates potentially useful relationship and value conceptualizations. The paper discusses studies of relationship value and then outlines the results of a recent line of empirical research into the provision of value by a buyer to a seller that utilizes a framework synthesized from the intellectual capital literature. This recent research conceptualizes the potential for a seller's relationship with a buyer to provide intangible value to the seller in terms of, first, the resources available in the buyer and second, the capabilities of the buyer's boundary personnel to aid in facilitating the flow of those resources to the seller. The paper also includes the softer human aspects in the dimensions of value. These latter aspects are important to a full assessment of value. The paper concludes with a discussion of aspects of intangible relationship value that need further elucidation and will thus provide opportunities for future research.

Strategy researchers have become fascinated with the possibilities for developing theoretical perspectives rooted in knowledge and intellectual assets as drivers of superior performance. However, there have been many different schools of thought, each with its own conceptualization lenses and operationalization approaches. In this chapter, we focus on three schools of thought: (1) knowledge as stocks; (2) knowledge as flow; and (3) knowledge as a driver of an organizational capability. We use them to: (a) lay out the distinct approaches to conceptualization and operationalization of strategy-related concepts; and (b) identify specific ways to enhance theory-method correspondence. We believe that considerable progress could be made towards developing a knowledge-based view of strategy but only when accompanied by serious attention to measurement and methodological issues.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework which sheds new light on how sustainability control systems (SCS) can be used in proactive strategic responses to corporate sustainability pressures.

Design/Methodology/Approach – Corporate sustainability pressures are identified using insights from institutional theory and the resource-based view of the firm.

Findings – The paper presents an integrated framework showing the corporate sustainability pressures, proactive strategic responses to these pressures, and how organizations might use SCS in their responses to the corporate sustainability pressures they face.

Practical Implications – The proposed framework shows how organizations can use SCS in proactive strategic responses to corporate sustainability pressures.

Originality/Value – The paper suggests that instead of using traditional financial-oriented management control systems, organizations need more focus on emerging SCS as a means of achieving sustainability objectives. In particular, the paper proposes different SCS tools that can be used in proactive strategic responses to sustainability pressures in terms of (i) specifying and communicating sustainability objectives, (ii) monitoring sustainability performance, and (iii) providing motivation by linking sustainability rewards to performance.