Search results
1 – 10 of over 131000Violina P. Rindova and Antoaneta P. Petkova
Strategy scholars have theorized that a firm's strategic leaders play an important role in firm dynamic capabilities (DCs). However, little research to date has studied how…
Abstract
Strategy scholars have theorized that a firm's strategic leaders play an important role in firm dynamic capabilities (DCs). However, little research to date has studied how leaders shape the development of DCs. This inductive theory-building study sheds new light on the multilevel architecture of DCs by uncovering that the three core DCs – sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring – operate through distinct individual, group, and organizational processes. Further, the role of strategic leadership is critical as organizational processes create DCs only when they are purposefully designed by firms' strategic leaders to enable change and opportunity pursuit. Whether strategic leaders design processes for change and opportunity pursuit, in turn, reflects the extent to which they view change as positive and desirable. Our insights about the role of strategic leaders' positive attitude toward change as an important aspect of firm DCs uncover new interconnections between strategic leadership, organizational design, and the micro-foundations of DCs. Collectively our findings about the role of positive attitude toward change, the purposeful design of processes for change, and the varying manifestations of these processes at different levels of analysis reveal the coupling of strategic and organizational processes in enabling strategic dynamism and change.
Details
Keywords
Catherine P. Killen, Mike Walker and Robert A. Hunt
This paper outlines the use of quality function deployment (QFD) for strategic planning. QFD provides a comprehensive process for defining the issues facing an organisation in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper outlines the use of quality function deployment (QFD) for strategic planning. QFD provides a comprehensive process for defining the issues facing an organisation in terms of customer and stakeholder outcomes, natural segments and key strategic opportunities.
Design/methodology/approach
An explanation and overview of the two core stages of strategic planning using QFD are followed by three case examples.
Findings
Strategic QFD avoids complex matrix analysis and instead moves directly to concept generation and evaluation. One of the main benefits of strategic QFD is the level of commitment and support for the resulting strategy throughout the organisation. This paper also shows how strategic QFD can be used to identify and optimise internal capabilities and to find and address specific customer opportunities.
Practical implications
Strategic planners will find that QFD‐based philosophy and methods are useful tools for the creation of a customer‐driven strategy.
Originality/value
This paper provides insight for practitioners and academics into how strategic QFD systematically translates vision into action, targeting opportunities and creating innovative strategies that are stable even in fast‐changing environments.
Details
Keywords
This paper aims to build a new bridge between the literature in organizational behavior and the micro-foundations of strategy. The authors elaborate the concept of strategic…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to build a new bridge between the literature in organizational behavior and the micro-foundations of strategy. The authors elaborate the concept of strategic voice, studying the extent to which employees express their strategic recommendations.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors gathered data from employees and supervisors of three distinct organizations, measuring determinants and outcomes of strategic voice, as compared to promotive voice.
Findings
Strategic voice is empirically distinct from promotive voice and predicted by opportunity/threat recognition, perceived organizational support and strategic voice opportunity. It has, surprisingly, either positive or negative effects on performance, through the mediation of supervisors' perceptions of strategic voice and the moderation of employee satisfaction with pay and career.
Research limitations/implications
Unlike traditionally assumed by strategy research, employees at any level engage in strategic voice with considerable frequency. Yet, paradoxically, under certain conditions, strategic voice could harm individual performance, although potentially benefiting organizations. Managers could either value employees' strategic voice or perceive it negatively, raising the salience to fully comprehend this behavior.
Practical implications
Organizations should embrace practices that encourage employees to express their strategic opinions, give them access to resources to properly form their strategic opinions and ensure management considers employees' recommendations.
Originality/value
While scholars in the micro-foundations of strategy have theorized that strategy can emerge from the contribution of individuals, there has been no evidence, to date, on how each employee can contribute to strategy formulation. This paper is original as it fills this gap.
Details
Keywords
Elizabeth Maitland and André Sammartino
Using a managerial cognition lens, we investigate the organizational design issues facing multinational corporation (MNC) managers. We apply concepts hitherto untested in the…
Abstract
Using a managerial cognition lens, we investigate the organizational design issues facing multinational corporation (MNC) managers. We apply concepts hitherto untested in the international management (IM) literature to a longitudinal study of reconfiguration efforts within a large, Asian MNC. We focus on how organizational design outcomes can be affected through mental interventions that provoke changes in senior executives’ mental representations of what the MNC is and can be to achieve a strategic redirection and redesign. We draw on extensive interview and other qualitative data. Our study contributes to the literatures on MNC design and to our understanding of the important, but largely neglected, micro-foundational role of cognition in IM. This field research on executive judgment and decision-making in real time offers unique insights into the dynamics of MNC design.
Details
Keywords
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…
Abstract
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.
Details
Keywords
J. Douglas Bate and Robert E. Johnston
To encourage top management to recognize the need for adding new value to their organizations and commit to the creation of new internal capabilities for growth via the…
Abstract
Purpose
To encourage top management to recognize the need for adding new value to their organizations and commit to the creation of new internal capabilities for growth via the exploration of their company's strategic frontier.
Design/methodology/approach
Explains how the CEO can select a team and initiate a project to identify strategy frontier options.
Findings
The authors’ experience suggests that the team should first explore all areas of future growth potential in and adjacent to their industry, creating a long list of potential options. Identifying a breadth of strategic frontier options is more important than a depth of information on any one option.
Research limitations/implications
More case studies of strategy frontier projects in action, with quantitative results, would be valuable.
Practical implications
The goal of this frontier team is to identify a portfolio of innovative new business opportunities that exist on the strategic frontier. It will be the responsibility of another, more qualified group with quantitative skills (strategic planners, business development) to develop a detailed business design and determine its profitability and attractiveness to the company.
Originality/value
The article offers top management an innovative how‐to approach to finding truly new growth opportunities.
Details
Keywords
Anahita Baregheh, Thomas Carey and Gina O’Connor
As a sector, higher education is at the low end of innovation rankings. The challenges we face – demographic, technological, political, and pedagogical – will require sustained…
Abstract
As a sector, higher education is at the low end of innovation rankings. The challenges we face – demographic, technological, political, and pedagogical – will require sustained innovation at a strategic level. Recent research with mature companies has identified exemplars in strategic innovation (e.g., O’Connor, Corbett, & Peters, 2018). This work explores whether – and how – higher education institutions might adapt insights from the corporate sector for strategic innovation in teaching and learning.
The introductory section provides an overview of the nature of strategic innovation (and why it is hard to sustain), strategic issues facing higher education, and the status and challenges of sustaining strategic innovation for teaching. The next two sections describe insights from research with corporate exemplars of sustaining strategic innovation. Each section uses a scenario from higher education as a proof-of-concept test to explore the application of the corporate sector insights for strategic innovation in higher education teaching and learning.
The final section of the chapter discusses the planned next steps to prototype and test adaptation of these corporate sector insights with institutional innovation leaders in higher education, as well as additional potential sources of insights (from other research in the corporate sector and from strategic innovation in the public sector).
Details
Keywords
Fernando R. Chaddad and Jeffrey J. Reuer
This paper focuses on the potential advantages of strategic investment models in examining firm investment behavior. Strategic investment models are derived from rigorous modeling…
Abstract
This paper focuses on the potential advantages of strategic investment models in examining firm investment behavior. Strategic investment models are derived from rigorous modeling techniques grounded on formal analytical models, and they have been widely applied in corporate finance and economics to examine the problem of firm underinvestment. In this paper, we present an overview of strategic investment models, including empirical applications that highlight their methodological strengths. We conclude that the empirical application of such investment models in the context of strategic management research presents research opportunities in many new directions.
Maram Alagha, Azni Zarina Binti Taha and Mohd Nazari Bin Ismail
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of the external environment on the strategic thinking dimensions in Malaysia and Palestine on the banking sector.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of the external environment on the strategic thinking dimensions in Malaysia and Palestine on the banking sector.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper focuses on dynamism and complexity in political and economic external environments. This study uses qualitative methodology through a comparative case study method. Purposive sampling was used to collect data from in-depth semistructured interviews with 33 bank executives from Malaysia and 17 from Palestine.
Findings
The findings revealed that the banking sector in both Malaysia and Palestine shared five common strategic thinking dimensions, including vision, creativity, conceptual thinking, futurism and opportunity. However, a sixth dimension, intent-focused, was unique to Palestinian bank executives. This study indicates that Palestine’s financial strategic thinking environment is more dynamic and complex than Malaysia’s. Additionally, the study highlights the significant influence of both microenvironments (such as types of banks) and the macroenvironment (such as political and economic situations). These findings hold important implications for decision-makers in the banking sector of both countries.
Research limitations/implications
As with many studies, this study has some limitations. First, the analysis examines only the turbulent and stable environment in the two countries by using a qualitative approach which enables the analysis of thoughts and actions and exposes the beliefs, perceptions, mental maps and structures of belief in their perceptions (Cavana et al., 2001). As such, the results are limited to a particular time, date and geographical location; thus, opinions and perceptions might be altered due to changes in the external political and economic environment. The second limitation of this work is that the case study might not be appropriate for generalization (Stake, 1978). Finally, the limited number of female participants in Palestine shows a high level of inequality compared to Malaysian participants.
Practical implications
This study explores the implication of uncertain environments at the national level on executives’ cognition and actions, links the micro- and macro-environment of the banking industry to a theoretical perspective and develops a conceptual circular model to show the effect of macro environments on bank performance. The findings offer practical contributions to the current literature, providing insights for executives to navigate a dynamic and complex banking industry.
Originality/value
This study fills the literature gap by exploring how strategic thinking dimensions triggered by macro- and micro-environments impact banking sector performance in Malaysia and Palestine.
Details