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Ethics of governance deficiencies including weak management of the principal-agent problem by the board of directors and conflict over the strategic intent of the organisation between groups of employees such as the board of directors, top management team, and the middle-line managers working in small teams are age old problems for stock exchange listed companies. These matters continue to cause shareholders of listed companies much concern, creating tense annual general meetings and robust community debate on how to reign in blatant moments of managerial hegemony (or dominance) with agents exploiting principals, at times at great financial cost to long suffering shareholders. The role of the chairperson and the board applying agency theory is to manage these conflicts on behalf of the shareholders; however, in many instances, company directors have failed in their duties and investors have been aggrieved – the result, war in organisations. The challenge for organisations is to avoid this source of tension and war caused by emergence of managerial hegemony over the organisation and to promote sound executive stewardship and effective social exchange among the board, executive team, and middle-line managers. These challenges are discussed and solutions are developed. The importance of strategic intent as a unifying rhetorical message as a key component of an ethics of governance regime that keeps the peace and prevents war in the organisation is explained.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether strategic intent influences developing intellectual capital (IC) and if IC affects performance measured in terms of product and service diversification within small and medium enterprises over time.

This study discusses if and how structural equation models can be located within the third stage of IC research, and subsequently presents an analysis developed using 1,392 questionnaire responses through a temporal lens.

Empirical results show how relational, human and structural capital strongly connects to support a firm’s performance measured in terms of product and service diversification. Additionally, IC and strategic intent influence each other creating a constraint effect on one side and an ambition effect on the other. Interestingly, the constraint effect is much higher than the ambition effect, and this falls in line with a contingency approach to strategic intent.

Several practical implications are developed. First, results show that high regulation where firms can offer mandatory product/services can limit IC development. Therefore the findings contribute to the dialogue between policy makers, managers and businesses. Second, business schools should consider how strategic intent contributes to developing IC in order to design future curricula for accounting and management studies. Third, firms that operate in similar contexts should pay attention to managerial myopia due to low competition where a significant part of firms’ revenues is from mandatory product/services.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by investigating how IC affects strategic intent and how strategic intent fosters IC development. Additionally, findings build on existing theory, helping to understand how IC affects performance measured in terms of portfolio diversification.

Over the past ten to 15 years, key account management (KAM) has established itself as an important and growing field of academic study and as a major issue for practitioners. Despite the use of strategic intent in conceptualizing KAM relationship types, the role of strategic intent has not previously been empirically tested. This paper aims to address this issue

This paper reports on inductive research that used a dyadic methodology and difference modelling to examine nine key account relationship dyads involving 18 companies. This is supplemented with 13 semi-structured interviews with key account managers from a further 13 companies, which provides additional depth of understanding of the drivers of KAM relationship type.

The research found a misalignment of strategic intent between supplier and customer, which suggested that strategic intent is unrelated to relationship type. In contrast, key buyer/supplier relationships were differentiated not by the level of strategic fit or intent, but by contact structure and differentiated service.

This research showed that there can be stable key account relationships even where there is an asymmetry of strategic interests. The findings also have practical implications relating to the selection and management of key accounts.

These results raise questions relating to conceptualizations of such relationships, both in the classroom and within businesses.

This study aims to investigate how natural resource-seeking as a type of strategic intent influences foreign direct investment (FDI) location choice. Grounded in the strategic intent approach and institution theory, the authors developed an interactive conceptual framework by integrating natural resource-seeking intent (NRI) with regulatory institutional factors.

The authors developed an interactive conceptual framework by integrating NRI at a firm level with regulatory factors of governmental support, political risk and economic freedom at country level. Using empirical data from a sample of 137 Chinese outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) projects in 19 Asian countries, statistical analysis was conducted using a conditional logistic regression technique.

Empirical findings from our study suggest that NRI has a strong influence on OFDI location choice of the Chinese firms. More importantly, the results demonstrate that influence of NRI on location choice is contingent on the regulatory forces both in the home and host countries settings. NRI is more likely to influence FDI location choice when government support from the home country is stronger and/or when political risk in a host country FDI is higher.

This is an empirical-based original study, and it contributes to the literature in several ways. First, the study enriches the strategic intent approach by demonstrating the contingency conditions from regulatory factors, especially home government support on a firm’s pursuit of NRI. Second, the study provides an explanation for the behaviour pattern of Chinese OFDI regarding their response to political risk in a host country. Third, the study demonstrates the influence of “institutional embededness” on the firm’s strategic intent. Managerial and policy implications are also discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to develop different kinds of organizational learning mechanisms based on various types of strategic intents (proactive- and reactive-orientation) and organizational environments (stable and unstable).

The authors utilized a grounded theory approach, and corroborated the results using multiple interviews and documents related to various cases. The authors determined the inter-judge agreement and performed a composite reliability analysis to ensure the robustness of the research.

Successful organization learning is contingent upon managerial strategic intent and the organizational environment in which the organization operates. Proactive strategic intent will cultivate a group-oriented learning system, whereas reactive strategic intent emphasizes the effectiveness of personal learning. Firms in an environment marked by radical change utilize experiential learning mechanisms (participation- and experience-orientation), whereas firms in a stable environment use a specialist-knowledge-oriented approach to learning (benchmarking- and specializing-orientation).

The authors offer a theoretical framework two-by-two matrix that has practical implications in providing managers with guidance in selecting the appropriate organizational learning mechanism to implement in their firms.

This paper aims to investigate the role of servitization intent in the servitization process, and specifically the role dissonance (at an organizational level) in servitization intent can play in creating barriers to the servitization effort. Servitization intent is defined as the desire to achieve a future state of increased servitization.

The research uses elite interviews and secondary data to explore servitization intent and its role during the servitization process. It examines the resistance to change resulting from a misalignment of the executive intent to servitize, and the organizational intent to retain the existing manufacturing business model. By encompassing data from companies representing a significant portion of the total industry (as measured by revenue), the study provides an industry level perspective of servitization intent and alignment.

Servitization intent and three key managerial challenges related to servitization intent that act as barriers to servitization were identified: lack of servitization intent, overcoming the manufacturing mindset associated with the organizational intent and the constraints resulting from managerial experience. Servitization intent and its associated managerial challenges were present at an industry level with consistent findings being shown across the major firms in the industry studied. A number of managerial strategies for overcoming these barriers were identified.

The research focuses on a single industry; the findings, potentially, have application across a broad range of industries.

A key management implication from these findings is the need for a clear understanding of the organizational intent in relation to servitization in addition to the need to bring this organizational intent in alignment with the executives’ servitization intent.

This research makes a contribution by identifying the misalignment between servitization intent in different levels of the organization during the servitization process and the mechanisms that can improve alignment and help effect servitization.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between strategic asset-seeking intent and firms’ entry strategies of foreign investment in the context of emerging market firms.

This study is based on survey data of 392 Chinese foreign direct investment projects. Structural equation modelling is used for data analysis.

With stronger strategic asset-seeking intent, emerging market multinational enterprises are likely to locate their subsidiaries in developed countries, use a wholly owned subsidiary mode and invest with greater intensity, while they do not have a clear preference in entry timing.

The strategic asset-seeking intent applies not only to emerging market firms but also to small and medium firms in general that have limited resources and a need to catch up with stronger competitors. This study therefore provides guidance to these firms.

This study contributes by investigating how the strategic asset-seeking intent affects firms’ strategies. The findings have practical implications for strategic managerial decisions that lead to sustained competitive advantage and improved firm performance.

This paper aims to build on current analytics and Big Data definitions and strategies from the literature to develop an overall strategic model connecting knowledge management strategy (KMS) for intellectual capital (IC) acquisition and business use. It also extends the IC research stages to a fifth stage of IC research including IC strategic intent.

A literature review highlights the connections among strategic intent, firm strategy, KMS and a data analytics strategy aligned with firm and KMS strategic intent. An extended model of the interrelationships is developed from the prior research.

A model framework was developed from the literature that connects Big Data to achieve the goals of a firm KMS and demonstrates how Big Data analytics (BDA) needs to shift from being a tactical tool to a strategic knowledge management tool directed by the overall strategy and strategic intent of the firm.

The model presented needs to be empirically tested over a sample of companies and periods to determine if performance improves using this model.

Use of this model proposes that strategic intent will be enhanced and improve the capture of intellectual property derived from advanced analytics and increase sustainable advantages at firm.

The social implications of lack of strong privacy laws coupled with the possible elimination of millions of knowledge worker jobs creates a pressing need for more research into and identification of firm’s and government’s Big Data strategic use for both good and perhaps evil.

The research in this paper extends current models of IC development and adds strategic intent and collective intelligence as the fifth stage of IC research and presents an overall KMS/BDA model.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the intricate ways in which accounting is implicated in the unfolding of strategizing in a pluralistic setting. The authors treat strategizing as a practical coping mechanism which begins in response to a problem and unfolds over time into an episode. This approach enables the authors to explore strategizing pathways and the ways they can mobilise accounting to advance from practical coping to explicit strategic intent.

The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with Clinical Directors, Business Managers and Finance personnel at three NHS hospitals. Documents were also collected, such as business cases and financial reports. The authors employed theories on strategizing agency, episodes and practical coping to select examples of strategizing and indicate how strategizing is constructed and performed. The authors present the results of this qualitative analysis in three strategizing narratives.

The analysis highlights how Clinical Directors’ strategizing with accounting, in response to their financial problems, can take on contesting, conforming and circumventing modes. As the strategizing pathway unfolds, accounting acts as an obligatory passage point through which Clinical Directors pursue their strategic intent. Along each pathway the authors identify, first, where practical coping takes on a clear strategic intent and, second, whether this emergent strategy proves efficacious.

The authors contribute to the nascent body of accounting and strategizing studies through seeing strategizing with accounting, not as the formulation of explicit organisational strategy as “done” in board rooms and strategy meetings, but as an impromptu response to a critical financial problem within a localised organisational setting. In response to a problem, actors may realise their immanent strategizing through their engagement with accounting practices.

While the significance of organizational resources and capabilities is widely discussed, little is known about their interrelationships as well as benefits for firms that are involved in coopetitive relationships. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance effects of entrepreneurial orientation, strategic intent and potential absorptive capacity as well as their complementarity effects on operational and innovation performance for firms involved in horizontal coopetitive relationships.

Drawing upon the resource-based-view, dynamic capabilities and the relational view theories, this study forwards numerous hypotheses between the constructs of interest. The proposed hypotheses are tested utilizing survey data collected from 313 horizontal coopetitive relationships.

The results clearly suggest that entrepreneurial orientation, strategic intent and potential absorptive capacity could positively impact innovation and operational performance outcomes independently. In addition, the authors also find strategic intent and potential absorptive capacity to have differential moderating effects on the relationships between entrepreneurial orientation and the performance outcomes.

The findings suggest that although strategic intent and potential absorptive capacity could lead to performance benefits independently, when it comes to coopetitive relationships, the use of both these capabilities may not substantially increase the positive impact of entrepreneurial orientation on performance outcomes. Specifically, given that these capabilities could intensify competitiveness as well as hostility between partners, they seem to affect the firm's performance differently.