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Strategic pivoting, the decision to invest in shifting the attention of an organization, is no longer limited to early-stage organizations and entrepreneurs but has, without a discussion of complications, been applied to large corporations and public agencies.

This conceptual paper defines strategic pivoting, highlights the centrality of pivoting in new and entrepreneurial organizations and critically examines its application as a strategy fostering organizational agility in corporations.

Pivoting in the corporate context complicates the ease of executing an attention shift by introducing a path-dependent momentum that requires modification of the time horizon, stakeholder strategy and the frequency of pivoting.

This comparative examination of pivoting highlights the importance of organizational size, complexity, degree of specialization and path-dependent history when deciding to pivot.

The present ease with which the strategic pivot is treated as an adaptive strategy to corporate leaders seeking greater flexibility overstates the ease of execution.

The purpose of this study is to develop a history-based framework of servitization and deservitization.

The study draws on three history-based management theories, i.e. industry lifecycle, strategic pivoting and strategy restoration, to develop a conceptual framework of how servitization and deservitization pivots influence firm performance in different stages of the industry lifecycle. A series of examples involving configurations and reconfigurations in production illustrate the theoretical propositions.

The proposed framework predicts that servitization pivots positively influence firm performance in the ferment phase, but this effect gradually diminishes as industries advance into transition and mature phases. In contrast, the framework predicts that deservitization pivots negatively influence firm performance in the ferment phase; this effect, too, becomes negligible in the transition phase but positive in the mature phase. Moreover, the proposed framework predicts that deservitization pivoting outperforms servitization pivoting in mature servitized industries to the extent that such pivots are restorative in nature, thereby suggesting that deservitization may represent a strategic opportunity for firms in mature industries.

This study highlights the role of history-based management theories in enhancing our understanding of servitization and deservitization.

The lean startup approach (LSA) is extensively utilized by early-stage entrepreneurs, with “pivot” serving as a key pillar. However, there is a research gap concerning the boundary conditions impacting LSA and pivot decisions, especially when addressing societal challenges, as in the context of transformational entrepreneurship. In this regard, the healthcare sector, further compounded by a lack of research on startups and scale-ups, presents an embraced opportunity to provide multiple contributions for both theory and practice.

The present investigation employs a grounded approach to explore the experiences of the co-founders of a fast-growing Italian e-health startup. A narrative strategy was employed to organize conditions and evolving strategic action/interactions into three different pivoting phases of the startup – before the pivot, its enactment and aftermath – with primary and secondary data collected over a period of one year.

Pivoting in digital healthcare unfolded as a liminal experience marked by factors such as high regulation, multiple stakeholders, technological and symbolic ambivalence, resource-intensive demands and institutional actors acting as pathway pioneers, leading to an information overload and unforeseeable uncertainty to manage. These factors challenge entrepreneurs' ability to attain optimal distinctiveness, presenting the paradoxical need for vertical flexibility for scaling up.

By uniquely illuminating the sector’s constraints on entrepreneurial phenomena, this study provides a valuable guide for entrepreneurs and institutional actors in addressing societal challenges.

This study introduces a process model of transformational information crafting when pivoting, highlighting the role of entrepreneurs' transformational stance and platform-mediated solutions as engines behind strategies involving information breaking and transition, preceding knowledge-driven integration strategies.

Entrepreneurs' pivot decisions are poorly understood. The purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature on pivot decisions to identify the different conceptualizations, research streams and main theoretical building blocks and to offer a baseline framework for future studies on this phenomenon.

A systematic literature review of 86 peer-reviewed papers published between January 2008 and October 2020, focusing on the pivot decision in startups, was performed through bibliometric, descriptive and content analyses.

The literature review identifies four research streams concerning the pivot concept – pivot design, cognitive, negotiation and environmental perspectives. Building on previous studies, this paper provides a refined definition of a pivot that bridges elements from the four research streams identified: a pivot comprises strategic decisions made after a failure (or in the face of potential failure) of the current business model and leads to changes in the firm's course of action, resource reconfiguration and possible modifications of one or more business model elements. This study proposes a framework that elaborates the pivot literature by identifying four stages of the pivot process addressed in the existing literature: recognition, generating options, seizing and testing and reconfiguration.

This study provides a comprehensive review, enabling researchers to establish a baseline for developing future pivot research. Furthermore, it improves the conceptualization of pivots by summarizing prior definitions and proposing a refined definition that places decision-making and judgment at its center. That introduces new contextual and behavioral elements, contributing to a better understanding of how entrepreneurs assess alternative courses of action and envision possible outcomes to redirect a venture after failure.

This paper aims to draw on the Dynamic Capabilities View to discuss how small and medium enterprises (SMEs) use digital technologies to develop digital capabilities that will enable them to change their current business model and trajectory, that is, to pivot-within turbulent environments, and subsequently to survive and grow.

The authors collected and analysed qualitative data from 26 SMEs in South-East England that have used digital technologies to pivot during the pandemic. The data was collected via in-depth semi-structured interviews. The authors analysed the data by creating first-order concepts, second-order themes, and aggregating dimensions.

The findings suggest that (1) digital technologies enable pivoting by facilitating the creation of the following digital capability types: “digital sensing”, “digital seizing” and “digital transforming”; (2) Each of these digital capability types is underpinned by micro-foundations (sub-capabilities) and shaped by the digital culture of the organisation. (3) these capabilities are triggered by the turbulent environment and the existing digital technologies, and are shaped by the digital culture.

The authors contribute to the literature of digital entrepreneurship as the authors illustrate (1) how the micro-foundations of digital capabilities, as facilitated by digital technologies, assist pivoting; and (2) the process from key activities during pivoting to second-order themes that represent micro-foundations to digital (dynamic) capabilities for pivoting in turbulent environments. The study highlights the importance of digital pivoting for businesses in the UK Southeast that have many aspirations for growth and innovation, whilst striving to address multiple challenges including digital divide and literacy, inflation and cost of living crisis, as well as supply chain issues.

As part of the entrepreneurial journey, high-tech entrepreneurs are faced with the need to develop a competitive value proposition and leverage emerging technology to strengthen the value proposition. Entrepreneurial pivoting can be adopted to address this requirement since it enables the startup to validate and refine the company’s strategy and business model. Therefore, this research study provides an empirical investigation of the pivoting concept explained in the context of the lean startup approach (LSA) and technology entrepreneurship to improve the understanding of the entrepreneurial journey for high-tech entrepreneurs.

A qualitative research method was conducted by interviewing 30 high-tech entrepreneurs across the United Kingdom to validate the theories behind the LSA and identify new insights on entrepreneurial pivoting.

The research study has validated the existing types of pivots and identified two new pivots (giving 16 in total). The study has validated the existing 11 factors that trigger a tech startup to change its direction and identified three new factors (giving 14 in total). The research study also determined that there can be a domino effect in pivoting and the value proposition can be created and sustained through pivoting.

This study provides empirical evidence on pivots and the factors associated with pivots. Furthermore, it helps in understanding the influence of the phases of technology entrepreneurship on pivoting. The study also discusses the challenges faced by tech startups while pursuing pivots, the domino effects in pivoting and has found evidence that pivoting eventually leads to achieving the desired results.

The purpose of this paper is to develop the hitherto unexplored concept of strategic discipline.

Three fairly iconic firms of the Germanic Mittelstand (ALDI, Stihl and Hipp) are examined. The meaning and relevance of strategic discipline is derived.

Intuitively, strategic discipline may seem like the antipode to the much-discussed concept of pivoting. In fact, strategic discipline is shown to be the natural corollary of strategic pivoting as a successive phase in a company’s development.

In fast-moving or fast-changing environments, strategic discipline may be inappropriate. Furthermore, the exercise of strategic discipline can restrain growth. Once firms have attained a certain size and saturation of the market, the desire for further growth may entail a willingness to loosen the hold of strategic discipline.

Strategic discipline can enable firms to avoid falling into common strategic pitfalls. From this paper, the authors distill three basic dimensions of strategic discipline: cultivating simplicity, resisting short-term temptations and focusing on implementability.

The success of firms depends as much on the strategic choices they make as upon the strategic choices they decide not to make. Most prior research has focused on the visible strategy choices companies have made a lot more than on the practically invisible history of strategic choices that firms have not made. This contribution does the opposite, filling an evident gap.

This study aims to present and test a model of small business owners’ adaptation during the COVID-19 pandemic, through the lenses of the resource-based view of the firm, upper echelon theory (UET) and positive psychology. Specifically, it examined the relationships between personal characteristics and strategic pivot behavior in a sample of small business owners during a peak period of the crisis in Israel.

A sample (N = 202) of small business owners provided information on their business and demographics, and responded to questionnaires assessing their personality (Big Five personality traits), emotional intelligence (EI) and reported the extent to which they implemented strategic changes during the pandemic. These changes were categorized as “positive” (e.g. shifting to new markets, adding partners or investors) or “negative’ (e.g. letting employees go).

The results partially support an association between personality traits and “positive” strategic change behavior, mediated by EI.

The results suggest that business owners' personality traits, and chief among them – EI may play a key role in enabling flexibility when dealing with a long-term crisis or threat. However, market and legislative differences between markets may limit the generalizability to other sectors or countries.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to address small businesses’ COVID-19-related challenges from a personal-resource perspective by applying a theoretical lens integrating the RBV of the firm, UET and positive psychology. The findings provide a better understanding of the ways in which business owners’ personal resources account for business pivot behavior in times of crisis.

We advance theory of how founder identity affects business model (BM) design during new venture creation and contribute to the cognitive perspective on BMs. We look at BM design as a longitudinal process involving a variety of cognitive work that is co-shaped by the founder identity work. Based on an in-depth nine-year process study of a single venture managed by three founders, we observed that a novelty-centered BM design resulted from cognitive work co-shaped by founder identity construction and verification processes. Yet, more remarkably, we noted that founder identity verification decreased over time and observed a process that we labeled “identity-business model decoupling.” It meant that the founders did not alter their founder identity but, over time, attentively grew self-aware and mindfully disengaged negative identity effects to design an effective BM. Our results provide a dynamic view on founder identity imprinting on ventures’ BMs and contribute to the identity, BM, and entrepreneurship literatures.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and understand the needed entrepreneurial actions required to attain sustainability during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social entrepreneurial sustainability is defined as the process of developing sustainable solutions for social, economic or environmental problems that are not being addressed by the market. This paper intends to get a clearer picture of how social entrepreneurial sustainability is affected by the exogenous shocks caused by the pandemic.

A qualitative exploratory approach using a case study design was used. Semi-structured interviews with five CEOs and founders of accredited social enterprises in Malaysia that have proven sustainable were conducted. Triangulation was applied in this study through three different data sources to confirm and validate the emerging findings.

The findings reveal various innovative revenue-generating activities and business processes taken by social entrepreneurs to be sustainable during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as pivoting and forging new partnerships. Themes such as technical innovation and social innovation are critical concepts that need to be differentiated and understood. The introduction of a new construct termed “mission agility” will be of significant interest to academicians studying social entrepreneurship and sustainability.

The practical implications of this study suggest that if social enterprises implement the recommended strategies, they may achieve both short-term and long-term social entrepreneurial sustainability during the pandemic crisis and progressively into the post-pandemic era.

This study is unique by using two methods of data collection. By providing vital empirical evidence through primary and secondary data, the paper will offer robust findings and proposes recommendations on entrepreneurial strategies to foster the recovery and sustainability of social enterprises during the COVID-19 pandemic.