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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between organizational performance and the pattern of strategic decisions formalized in the planning of a Brazilian heavy construction company between 2006 and 2014. In this period, the company experienced a recurrent pattern of maintaining strategic decisions, despite the systematic decrease in performance and investments in the formal strategic planning (SP) and monitoring of results. The research focus is on strategic inertia and the influence of social determinants on the relationship between performance and the strategic actions negotiated in formal planning.

This is a single-case study. The exploratory-descriptive research comprises data collection on performance and strategic decisions from the period between 2006 and 2014. The analysis was guided through documentary material and data collected from 16 interviews conducted with members of the middle to top management concerning performance, goals, and strategic initiatives. The interviewees’ statements were used to apprehend the interpreted dimension of SP expressed in the meanings attributed to this process. The analysis adopts a sociological base, and strategic inertia is the underlying phenomenon that guides this analysis.

The results show the interactive effect caused by political, cognitive, discursive, and ceremonial mechanisms obstruct the company’s strategic decisions. This case study illustrates that the conditions for the phenomenon of path dependence were created, reinforcing the strategic inertia observed in the maintenance of a reproduced pattern of strategic initiatives and goals, even though the performance was recurrently unsatisfactory. In this case, strategic inertia showed a complex relationship between the interpreted performance and strategic actions negotiated in formal planning, conditioned by mechanisms of trajectory reinforcement that interfered with the conditions for strategic change.

Strategic inertia demonstrates a complex relationship between the interpreted performance and strategic actions negotiated in formal planning, conditioned by mechanisms of trajectory reinforcement that interfere with the conditions for strategic change. Future research on social mechanisms from the perspective of strategy-as-practice could be developed to capture the tacit components, language, power games, and other relevant categories in the social interaction of strategy development at the organizational level. In addition, future research could focus on investigating the extent to which path dependence is contingent, assuming that it is a temporary and, therefore, reversible process.

This work contributes to the view of SP from the social perspective and shows that the relationship between performance and strategy has biases that can compromise performance. The work highlights implications for maintaining strategic initiative patterns, which shape a path whose function is less associated with its effects on performance and more associated with the commitment to instrumental results, due to the social nature of organizations.

This work deals with social mechanisms that influence strategic decisions. Since organizational performance depends on strategic decisions, the social nature of strategic inertia has causal implications to economic and social impact of organizations.

This work argues in favor of the influence of self-reinforcing mechanisms of path dependence in the relationship between performance and strategic decisions. The results extended the predominantly structural approach of path dependence by considering interpretive aspects related to the political, discursive, cognitive, and ceremonial dimensions of strategic inertia.

This paper aims to propose a conceptual framework for the assessment of Islamic financial products’ development.

A coordinate grid with two perpendicular axes (profitability and compliance to Shari’ah) is developed and used to produce a nine-zone matrix. The research design is further developed by using a linear, composite index to assess product development feasibility and specifications. Subsequently, three strategic paths are identified: profitability-led strategic path, compliance-led strategic path and intermediate strategic path.

The findings indicate that the ideal strategic behavior the Islamic financial institutions have to borrow corresponds to the intermediate strategic path because it optimizes the trade-off between the two attributes under consideration. A proper development strategy of Islamic financial products should not ignore the compliance to the substance of Shari’ah and combine it simultaneously with profitability.

The paper’s originality consists in the identification of the portfolio of Islamic financial products’ strategic positioning in the nine-zone matrix and the determination of the most suitable product development strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to offer an alternative framework and solution for balancing exploitation–exploration tensions and their management.

A case study method was adopted to uncover what underlies tensions and contradictions between exploitation–exploration that emerge for Chinese manufacturing companies due to the competitive global environment and their latecomer disadvantages when they source new technologies by cross-border mergers and acquisitions. The acquiring firm that acquires two companies is thus not a single but a cross-case study.

The authors present three contradictory points needing to be balanced and according to which three paradoxes emerge: exploitation from a similar knowledge base and innovation from a complementary knowledge base, efficiency and flexibility, as well as profit and breakthroughs. The authors theorize how paradoxical integration helps manage these interwoven tensions. Further, the assimilate-integration-apply (AIA) path suggests a new behavior logic and path choice for Chinese companies when they follow an ambidextrous strategy.

This paper has implications for future research and for companies’ everyday practice on ambidexterity in Chinese society.

The authors combine ambidexterity perspective and AIA path with linkage-leverage-learning (LLL) to offer an alternative framework and solution for balancing exploitation–exploration paradoxes in EE firms’ internationalization to increase LLL’s explanatory power.

Considering the significant contribution of service sector of the whole contribution of the economics, this study aims to investigate the impact of strategic performance measurement sytstem (SPMS) on sustainability strategic outcomes in the industry through organizational learning and service strategic alignment.

Using a survey study, 158 usable data were analysed using SmartPLS.

The results show that service strategic alignment and organizational learning mediate the relationship between SPMS and performance for product differentiation companies. For cost leadership companies, the results indicate that there is no mediation of service strategic alignment and organizational learning on the relationship between SPMS and performance.

This study first provides evidence that SPMS improves performance through service strategic alignment and organizational learning for product differentiation companies in which innovation is crucial to thrive and succeed. Second, it introduces to the literature the characteristics of SPMS.

New insights of implementation of SPMS in improving companies’ performance in Indonesian financial institutions are provided.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a new perspective for strategic foresight on the basis of nurture theory. Strategia Sapiens refers to the fact that strategic work needs to be foresight oriented, and foresight should be directly value driven.

The following areas of strategic foresight are offered for discussion: the content of a vision, its emergence process and the characteristics of strategic foresight in time and in space.

The interdisciplinary approach of this research creates a synthesis of and bases its findings on the empirical and theoretical findings of different scientific fields. The primary finding is that nurture theory offers new perspectives to refine and renew strategic foresight. One perspective is the existence of a value- and culture-driven way of life, and the other is the simultaneous self-realisation of individuals. The paper creates the following models on the basis of nurture theory: the system relations of strategic foresight, a complex model of development, the field and system of strategic foresight activities, the logistic life-cycle model and the field of force of social spaces.

This discussion and approach are highly useful for regional and national strategic practitioners, and they contribute to the discussion of the concept and measurement of development. The nurture theory approach strengthens the incorporation of cultural responsibility, as well as an intergenerational view of strategic foresight, which are both fundamental for a renewal of this field.

Knowledge-intensive entrepreneurial firms (KIE) strongly rely on scientific and strategic research and development (R&D) capabilities to achieve higher performance levels. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to disentangle the effects of scientific capabilities and strategic R&D on KIE performance; and how the constituent elements of these dimensions can be configured to generate conditions for high performance.

The authors’ empirical setting involves companies that submitted projects to the Innovative Research in Small Businesses (PIPE) program in Brazil. The authors then run partial least square structural equation modeling to verify how scientific and strategic R&D capabilities influence the performance construct. Second, the authors apply fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to identify configurations that are equifinal in terms of generating superior performance.

Findings indicate a strong association between scientific capabilities and KIE performance. The configurational approach outlines the existence of multiple paths to success, but human capital stands as a core condition throughout estimations.

The authors’ assessment has implications for how KIE firms are managed according to their organizational profiles and trajectories. Also, it advances the authors’ comprehension on how entrepreneurship policies can better target these distinct profiles.

The authors’ analysis provides new evidence on the inherent complexity behind the generation of high performance in KIE when addressing their portfolios of knowledge-related capabilities. More than that, the authors were able to identify the existence of heterogeneous profiles that can equally lead to higher levels of performance.

In late 2011, Jerry Bertram, vice president and general manager of the fire retardant additives business of Huber Engineered Materials (HEM), a division of family-owned J. M. Huber Corporation, was preparing to present the potential acquisition of the precipitated alumina trihydrate (PATH) business to the environment, health, and safety committee of Huber's corporate board. He had convinced HEM's leadership of PATH's strategic value to their business and the urgency of the acquisition based on PATH's parent company's movement into Chapter 11 bankruptcy and its plans to close the PATH plant.

Winning board approval posed a major challenge. It was unclear whether the plant would remain operational, because HEM would have to enter a shared-services arrangement with PATH's parent company, which continued to use the site. In addition, acquiring PATH would mean integrating its specialized, unionized labor force into Huber, which had very few union workers. Finally, early due diligence had revealed tens of millions of dollars of potential environmental risk on the site. The last issue was particularly critical, given Huber's generations-long history of respect for the environment, and its executives' and directors' reluctance to take on any business with excessive environmental risk.

This case illustrates in depth the family business values that can promote consideration of an ostensibly unconventional and risky strategic move, and enable executives to push for approval of the same, as backed by comprehensive risk assessment and mitigation plans.

The purpose of this paper is to explicate why and how modularization of business models can lead to path dependence or strategic flexibility, thus either inhibiting or favoring business model innovation.

Conceptual paper that depicts a model based on the extant literature. The derived implications for business model innovation are illustrated by several examples.

Modularity can be used as cognitive frame to explore issues of dynamics, evolution and transformation of business models. Thereby, the paper reveals drivers as well as barriers to business model innovation which sensitizes managers that modularity as a design principle is a two-edged sword: managers cannot simply rely on what they know about the benefits of modularity because this might lead to path dependence in the future.

The authors suggest that middle managers might best focus on managing modules and their direct relations. Senior management should put more emphasis on encouraging extra-modular thinking.

By outlining the concept of business model modularity, the authors add to the scarce literature that addresses modularity beyond the fields of products, production and organization design. The discussion also advances to the literature on drivers as well as barriers to managing business model innovation. While most of the extant literature has portrayed modularity as a means to increase flexibility, only a few studies have revealed the downside of modularity and explained how it gives rise to path dependence. In this respect, the authors highlight the relation between managerial action, self-reinforcing mechanisms and characteristics of the environment. Finally, the paper’s findings provide a lens to consider contradictory strategies simultaneously which is crucial for managing complex business models.

Strategic entrepreneurship rejuvenates firms to achieve a competitive advantage in current markets. It is effective in forming corporate entrepreneurship and involves the simultaneous opportunity-seeking and advantage-seeking behaviors of firms. The aim of this paper is to investigate the mediating effect of strategic entrepreneurship in the relationship between corporate entrepreneurship and firm performance through the resource-based view.

Adopting a quantitative research method and structural equation modeling technique, structural models were developed to test the research hypotheses. To this end, a questionnaire survey was conducted among 103 financial technology companies in Iran.

The results support the proposed hypotheses. The findings indicate that corporate entrepreneurship and strategic entrepreneurship are positively related to firm performance. They also reveal the mediating effect of strategic entrepreneurship in the relationship between corporate entrepreneurship and firm performance. In the developing context of Iran, financial technology companies are more likely to employ corporate entrepreneurship and strategic entrepreneurship to achieve firm performance.

The current study contributes to the literature on strategic entrepreneurship by employing a resource-based view and exploring the relationship between firm capabilities (i.e. strategic entrepreneurship) and firm performance. Applying a resource-based view leads to a better understanding of strategic entrepreneurship. Finally, this study singles out and discusses the various features that characterize the implementation of strategic entrepreneurship by Iranian financial technology companies to reach a competitive advantage.

Study on the internal legalization process of strategic change for a large number of ultra-large enterprises in China.

This paper takes formulation process of Suning Appliance Group’s 10-year strategy (2010–2020) as the research case, designs the research issues, propositions and analysis unit of the case study, and uses the data collection and analysis methods in the grounded theory to realize the theoretical development from data to viewpoint conceptualizing and to proposition categorizing.

There are four key concepts that affect the judgment of overall strategic legitimacy of super-large enterprises: Emerging-market opportunities and strategic operational positioning, legitimacy perspective mainly manifests as legitimacy judgment of strategic direction within organization. Positioning of core resources (including intangible resources) and their value identification methods or value evaluation criteria, the legitimacy perspective is mainly reflected in the organization's internal legitimacy judgment of functional planning, especially implementation path. The impact factors of the key performance of each SBU are positioned, and the legitimacy perspective is mainly reflected in the organization’s internal judgment on the legitimacy of strategic supporting measures, especially the resources needed for the implementation of the strategy and capacity development. The periodical strategic objectives and performance measurement indicators of each SBU are mainly reflected in the organization’s internal legitimacy judgment on strategic alignment and specific action plans for strategic operational units. The legitimacy of these four key concepts is strongly influenced by the rationality of these strategic concepts, which are closely related to their shaping patterns driven by right-brain and left-brain thinking modes.

This case is a longitudinal study of the strategic decision-making process, not a longitudinal follow-up of the actual implementation of the strategy. In addition, given that the case enterprise was facing the emerging market at that time and focused on pushing firms to seize opportunities, not much research has been done on the impact of external legitimacy on the strategic formulation process, a variable that is increasingly being focused on today.

This model has guidance significance and practical demonstration role for a large number of enterprises that are implementing the “+Internet” strategic change under traditional offline operation.

According to the summary of the connection between data and propositions in several rounds, this paper constructs a theoretical model of left and right brain thinking mode driving key concepts to achieve the internal legalization process of strategic changes.

In the analysis process, the legalization theory and the sense-making method are introduced into enterprises’ strategy making process. Based on this analysis framework, this paper analyzes in detail that the top decision-making level and the middle and high executive level form key strategic concepts to promote the internal legalization process of strategic decision-making driven by the right-brain intuitive thinking mode and the left-brain rational thinking mode, which greatly improves the quality of strategy formulation and the operability of strategy implementation.