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The paper describes six major approaches within strategic groups research: the industrial organization perspective (the IO-view), the strategic choice perspective, the strategy types perspective, the cognitive perspective, the customer perspective, and the business definition perspective. The two most promising perspectives to make real advances in the strategic management discipline seem to be the cognitive view and the business definition perspective. The purpose of a grouping based on business definitions is to provide an insight, as objective as possible, of the industry’s substructure which also corroborates with the cognitive maps of the industry which the CEOs have in mind. From a practical point of view, the classification of firms in groups based on commonality in business definition (buyer scope, product scope, geographical scope and degree of vertical integration), allows managers to compare their own firms with comparable firms (the firms within the same group). The research concerning strategic groups in the Belgian beer brewing sector and the Belgian electrical wholesale sector is presented. The major problems within the strategic groups research are discussed.

This paper aims to identify the differentiated paths followed by firms to innovate in business models, among four different strategic postures and also to determine the innovation interactions between business model components, among strategic postures. The authors intend to highlight the differentiated patterns of business model innovation (BMI) in each strategic posture and provide guidance to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) managers regarding the suitable alignments of business model components when they innovate in their business model.

The research model developed and tested in this work uses a composite model that borrows from the logic of Miles and Snow’s cycle of adaptive strategic choices as well as Demil and Lecocq’s perspective of permanent change within and between components of a business model. The authors’ model is designed first to encompass the differentiated patterns characterizing the relationships between the strategic posture of defender, prospector and analyzer profiles and the related innovation attributes of their business model components. The study was conducted with independent French manufacturing SMEs ranging from 10 to 250 employees in size and having revenues below €50m (European Commission, 2007). The analysed sample includes 169 firms from 14 sectors representative of French manufacturing SMEs.

Results confirm the differentiated propensity to adopt specific BMI behaviours among strategic postures. The authors also highlight the differentiated interactions between and within BMI components. These results suggest that SMEs tend to leverage specific BMI components related to their entrepreneurial, engineering and administrative choices. Thus, firms tend to evolve in a posture-specific, path-dependent dynamic consistency in which BMI attributes interact towards a limited set of alternatives, thus anchoring the new business model into strategic choices. It has been shown that the predictability of strategy–BMI alignment is contingent on the level of fit between empirically derived strategic profile attributes and Miles and Snow’s ideal profile attributes.

This paper investigates strategy–BMI alignments without addressing such alignments from the standpoint of firm performance. Still, performance from a BMI perspective lies in the ability of the firm to sustain the dynamic consistency of its business model components by identifying the effects of change in interactions between and within components on overall BM performance. Further studies should explore dynamic consistency as a means for firms to generate and maintain performance by innovating in their business model when facing specific contingencies. The conceptual framework designed for the present research seems appropriate for conducting such an investigation on the performance implications of strategy–BMI fit.

This research offers insights regarding manufacturing SMEs seeking guidance when changing business strategy. Indeed, by combining Miles and Snow’s configurational framework of strategic postures with Demil and Lecocq’s RCOV BM framework, the authors provide insights that can bridge the gap between intended strategy and realized strategy. The authors suggest that when realizing new strategic choices, SMEs should favour behaviours of BMI that are likely to fit the new intended strategic posture. Accordingly, the authors introduce a set of field-based BMI alignments specific to firms’ strategic posture to support the strategic management of innovation in SMEs.

By unravelling the alignments between strategic posture and business model innovation, this work contributes to enlightening the dynamics of Miles and Snow’s adaptive cycle. Indeed, viewing Miles and Snow’s typology from the configurational perspective of BMI provides a clearer picture of the adaptive cycle through which BMI reflects the path-dependent process of the formation of the firm’s strategic posture through the transformation of its business model.

Much of the extant management research implies that the existence of industries and organizations depends on variables and factors largely beyond their control, and survival is the result of a happy confluence of their origins, events, and growth rather than actions of conscious volition. The authors suggest that industry circumstances can be overcome. So, rather than studying rates of organization population change as effects of environmental change, the authors propose that some managerial actions can be taken that, in the aggregate, will affect the industry context. Changes in concentration should influence the environment in which industry members will compete later. Migration moves and rationalization of production facilities, along with organization population pressures, should exert strong influences on changes in the industry environments. Such findings suggest that some degree of strategic choice is at work and that firms have some discretionary choice in their industries.

This paper revisits the debate between environmental determinism and strategic choice. It compares the two theories on their philosophical underpinnings, their view of decision making, and the environment. Although we argue that the theory of strategic choice generally prevails, we recognize that there are factors that restrict the choice and discretion of managers. Here we look at three types of factors—industry related factors (extent of regulation and stage of life cycle), organization related factors (characteristics of top management and organization size), and time related factors and explain how each of these factors either inhibit or enhance managerial discretion. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

This study aims to examine the relationship between organizational capacity, slack resource, platform strategic choice and firm performance. It also tackles the endogenous issues regarding the strategic choice of platform types.

This study uses Heckman’s two-stage procedures to examine the relationship between the variables. The sample in this study comes from Compustat annual company and segment files. The sample used in the main analysis consists of 252 individual corporations globally and 3,528 firm-year observations from 2004–2017.

The empirical results suggest that: (1) firms are more likely to develop physical platforms than virtual platforms when they possess higher levels of available slack, potential slack, research and development (R&D) capacity and marketing capacity; (2) in general, firms developing physical platforms perform better than firms developing virtual platforms after the endogeneity bias are controlled; and (3) firms that choose to develop physical platforms perform better than if they had chosen to develop virtual platforms.

This study contributes to the platform research literature by proposing the endogenous role of platform type choice in firm performance in the context of the retail industry. Prior conceptual and theoretical platform studies have seldom focused on the retail industry through a strategic choice perspective. Furthermore, one of the contributions of this study is the derivation of empirical support for the research’s prediction using data from actual firms carried out by global physical and virtual platform companies. This study also presents many opportunities for further explorations on the relationship between firm strategic choice and firm performance in the context of platform retail industry.

The findings of this study suggest that firms must realize that their performance is not necessarily affected by these platform type choice determinants in terms of potential slack, available slack, R&D capacity and marketing capacity. By contrast, they should pay more attention to developing physical platforms if it is possible. The study findings indicate that although virtual platforms have grown rapidly because of the development of technology, firm performance is at all times superior when firms choose to develop physical platforms.

Prior platform studies have focused on the topic of network structure, platform architecture, pricing strategy, platform leadership and platform design and governance within the context of video game industry, software industry, hardware industry and telecommunications industry. Seldom of them focus on other industries through a strategic choice perspective. Furthermore, one of the contributions of this study is the derivation of empirical support for the research’s prediction using data from actual firms carried out by global physical and virtual platform companies.

Historically, Canada has always been a diverse nation made up of a wide variety of different peoples. However, the nature, causes and manifestations of diversity have been changing, along with the attitudes towards the treatment of diversity within the country's social, economic and political structures. For example, the dominant organisational culture in business and government has traditionally been created by white, able‐bodied, Canadian‐ born males with shared values and behaviours (McDonald, 1991). Other groups, described as non‐dominant or minority, were often excluded from full participation in the economic, social and political life of such organisations. Increasingly, however, non‐ dominant groups such as women, people of colour and persons with disabilities have been entering the workforce, creating the phenomenon known as workforce diversity.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a linkage between strategic alliance practice and managerial cognitive base with a view to understanding alliance dynamics better.

Brings together two streams of management literature (cognitive base and strategic alliances) in order to provide an alternative to understanding strategic alliances. The analysis found that ever since the work of Hambrick and Mason, Upper echelon (UE) linking managerial characteristics to strategic choice have persistently overlooked strategic alliances as strategic options worth consideration. While on the other hand only a handful of strategic alliance researchers have paid lip‐service to the UE perspective.

After presenting a strategic alliance model, the paper reviews analysis of reasons for alliance formation, choice of partners, alliance structure and scope and alliance performance. Literature on managerial characteristics is also explored with a view to provide an approach to researching strategic alliances.

The paper cannot claim to have evaluated all the literature on the subject. A claim regarding lack of linkages between the two streams of research is made only in the context of accessed publications.

The paper identifies opportunities for further research that links managerial cognitive base with diverse strategic alliance practices. Borrowing from the work of Carpenter et al. the paper further identify possibilities for further research that links top management teams characteristics to strategic alliance research which also has not been researched before.

The paper uses well‐established and researched management fields to identify gaps in the literature which could be further explored. To this end, the paper's originality and value is within identification of these gaps in the management literature.

The purpose of this paper is to address how firms adapt their product and geographic diversification as a response to foreign rivals penetrating their domestic market by adopting a behavioral perspective to understand firm-level strategic responses to foreign entry.

The study proposes that strategic responses to foreign entry selected by domestic incumbents have both a framing component and a related, strategic choice component, with the latter including changes in product and geographic market diversification (though other more business strategy-related responses are also possible, e.g. in product pricing and marketing). This study tests a set of hypotheses building on panel data of large US firms.

The study finds, in accordance with our predictions, that domestic incumbents reduce their product and geographic diversification when facing an increase in import penetration. However, when increased market penetration by foreign firms takes the form of FDI rather than imports, the corporate response appears to be an increase in product and geographic diversification, again in line with our predictions.

The study develops a new conceptual framework that is grounded in prospect theory, but builds on recent insights from mainstream international strategic management studies (Bowen and Wiersema, 2005; Wiersema and Bowen, 2008).

This paper focuses on the concept of fit as a topic of research. The concept of fit has been viewed as an internal consistency among key strategic decisions or the alignment between strategic choices and critical contingencies with the environment (external), organization (internal), or both (external and internal). A number of research perspectives or approaches related to fit are presented.Research design problems are discussed: definition of terms, theoretical issues, and empirical issues. Emphasis is on how key variables or dimensions of fit are defined and measured in research.

A six-celled matrix is proposed as a conceptual scheme to distinguish different perspectives of fit and to portray congruence relationships more accurately. The matrix includes three common dimensions: strategy, organization, and environment. The matrix also suggests two levels of strategy—corporate or business—and three domains of fit—external, internal, or integrated. These suggest different research perspectives for the study of fit. Examples from the literature are provided to illustrate and support this conceptual scheme. Finally, implications for management and furtherstudy are outlined.

The purpose of this paper is to delve into some of the key internal and external factors that led to the choice of specific strategies for union revitalization using the theoretical framework built upon framing perspectives, the strategic action field (SAF), and the strategic choice theory.

The authors used a stringent definition and corresponding operationalization of trade union revitalization. The present research has been carried out on a registered industrial union within the context of Global South, specifically in India.

Evidence was found for the trade union adopting a mix of strategies for revitalization, namely, union organizing, social movement unionism, and union restructuring. A mix of both internal and external factors identified informed the choice of revitalization strategies.

Specific limitations include the subjectivity of the inference in spite of taking due precautions, and lack of generalizability of the findings based on a single case study.

A strong identity, coupled with structural vitality and optimum use of resources enables trade unions to frame the need of a strategy for revival in order to counter the strategic action of employers resulting in union revitalization.

The theoretical novelty of this research stems from the amalgamation of collective action frames, SAF, and strategic choice framework to understand the union revitalization in the context of Global South.