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Implementing a new organizational strategy effectively nowadays is said to require open strategizing practices. The purpose of this paper is to examine the adoption of three intertwined open strategizing practices in conjunction with a transformational leadership style towards effective strategy implementation.

The study was conducted within 37 geographically dispersed locations of a Dutch governmental organization. The top managers and senior managers were surveyed at two points in time (n T1 = 548; n T2 = 414) and group interviewed at T2. Exploratory factor and linear regression analyses were performed. The qualitative data pertaining to the specific way in which leaders can impact the relationship between open strategizing practices and strategy implementation was analyzed using the Gioia methodology.

As hypothesized, transformational leadership moderates the positive relationship between open strategizing practices and effective strategy implementation. This moderating effect was corroborated through the interview data in which the managers stressed the need for “intrinsically motivated” and “empowering” leaders to effectively support the adoption of their own locally-developed location strategy, as part of the overall strategy.

Despite the timely focus on the three intertwined open strategizing practices, the findings are only based on the perceptions of the various top and senior managers employed by one Western public sector organization.

Top and senior managers who need to improve their organization's strategy implementation can apply the here tested three open strategizing practices. They should also be aware of the key role of transformational leadership.

The authors contribute to the “open” strategy-as-practice domain by showing how top and senior managers' transformational leadership style supports the beneficial effects of adopting the three practices.

This paper expands theory on strategists by investigating how non-executive strategy professionals in multi-business firms strategize. In focus is the strategizing of two groups of non-executive strategy professionals: a corporate strategy team and eleven business strategists employed in each of the incorporated units.

A case study design was employed to explore privileged accessed data to gain first-hand in-depth qualities of strategists' work. The design was characterized by phenomenon driven immersed participatory insider research with retrospective reflection and theorizing. Data includes strategies, interview data, calendars, meeting minutes, workshop material and observational field notes.

Non-executive strategy professionals in multi-business firms are either employed at the corporate center or in the peripheral businesses. Based on this location and their individual experiences they assume an exclusive content or an inclusive process strategizing orientation. In practice, the groups strategize tightly together.

Case studies are useful in explorative research providing thick descriptions. While empirically rich, the results of this study are limited by the context of one single case. Future research is encouraged to confirm, contradict and refine the results presented.

The insights from this study can help organizations regarding how to employ strategy professionals in multi-business firms.

This paper contributes to a recognized need to explore strategists' work. In contrary to the majority of existing research, focusing on senior management and/or strategy formulation, this paper highlighted non-executive strategy professionals' strategizing.

This study draws on technological frames to provide an understanding of organizational processes of strategizing by exploring how strategizing organizational capabilities for industrial digitalization could be understood through managers' perceptions of digital technology applications. This study complements earlier research focused on industry outcomes by addressing technological frames to understand how strategizing organizational capabilities within industrial digitalization may provide insight into socio-cognitive aspects which may affect technology-induced organizational change.

The single case study uses 14 in-depth interviews collected over two years (October 2020 to February 2022). The study follows an interpretative research design exploring managers' perceptions of industrial digitalization through a digitalization project.

The case study contributes to research by emphasizing socio-cognitive aspects through technological frames exploring how and why managers' perceptions of industrial digitalization affect strategizing organizational capabilities. The study contributes to practice by bringing attention to the disparate views of industrial digitalization. By illustrating how socio-cognitive aspects shape organizational capabilities, this study offers managers valuable insight into the relationship between an organization's capabilities, the individual and the shared structures affecting a digitalization project.

The case study is limited to Swedish manufacturing industries and is not aiming to be transferred or generalized to other industrial contexts or countries.

This study recognizes that strategizing organizational capabilities depends on managers' ability to illuminate the socio-cognitive aspects. Hence, the study contributes to practice by bringing attention to the disparate views among managers on the enhancement efforts made using digital technologies.

The literature on the past triggering learning in strategy practice is scant. To fill this gap, this study aims to examine the meaning of the past to learning in strategy practice and expands on the strategy-as-practice (SAP) literature. Understanding the relationship between the past and learning in strategy practice is important because learning is what keeps strategy practice in motion and remains in place, even if organizations and strategy practitioners change.

The authors used a longitudinal case study design combined with historical methods to examine how the past is embedded in present strategy practice. To capture learning in strategy practice over time, the authors applied a four-stage methodology in our analysis of document and interview data.

The authors identified four dimensions of the past embedded in the present strategy practice. These dimensions emerged from the analysis of the interviews and document data. The study’s results showed that the past appears in structures and routines, materiality, positioning and reflecting over repeated rounds of strategic planning. According to the study’s results, reflecting on strategy practice draws on past structures and routines, positioning and materiality. The past facilitates reflecting and reflecting on the past enables learning in strategy practice.

The authors constructed a conceptual model and showed that in strategy practice, reflection triggers learning. The authors contributed to theory development by demonstrating how the past is embedded in present strategy practice and is available for use by strategy practitioners. The authors showed that strategy practice is a continuous learning process.

The authors’ contention in this paper is that the expression of subsidiary strategy in IB literature has become fragmented and incomplete. Therefore, this study aims to propose a rethink on how IB scholarship approaches the important issue of subsidiary strategy by holistically examining the discrete and integrated set of activities, choices and decisions that constitute the subsidiary strategy process for, in this context, assuming a competence-creating role within the multinational enterprise (MNE).

A conceptual model is designed to illustrate the holistic process of subsidiary strategy from assigned to assumed role and how a subsidiary can navigate a pathway to elevated performance and survival.

The paper identifies the key integrated elements that constitute a holistic strategic process that can enhance a subsidiary’s standing within the MNE and maximise its survival prospects.

Particular focus is placed on subsidiaries that strategise to advance their internal corporate role to competence creator via upgraded knowledge capabilities.

This paper offers a roadmap for IB scholars to contribute to a future discourse around the subsidiary strategy process for assuming a competence-creating role.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that Strategic Enterprise Management (SEM) and Business Intelligence (BI) have the potential to integrate management decisions vertically through an organization’s hierarchy. This study also aims to present a design theory framework and build a model dimension using eight principles serving as mid-range theories.

This study uses a design science perspective to posit how organizations can successfully implement SEMBI (a union of SEM and BI). This study then completes the design theory by building the method dimension using two principles. Finally, the study presents testable hypotheses for the theory and an evaluation using stakeholder attitudes and judgments as proxies for objective measures.

In the search for a prescription for SEMBI success, this study finds that the notion of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is a good artifact with which to organize the principles the authors are seeking. CMM has since been adapted to suit different contexts by incorporating relevant principles from those domains. Hereafter, this study refers to SEMBI–CMM as the adapted solution for SEMBI's success.

This study coins and uses the term SEMBI to represent the union of SEM and BI. This term retains its distinct identities and principles and forms a holistic and integrated view of SEM and BI implementation strategies. In an effort to advance this line of research, this study employs a design science perspective to address the question of how an organization can successfully implement SEMBI.

Future is rarely explicitly addressed or problematized in business network research. This study aims to examine the possibilities of developing a business actor’s future orientation to network studies and imports ideas and concepts from futures research to support the development.

The study is conceptual and interdisciplinary. The authors critically analyze how extant studies grounded in the sensemaking view and process research approach integrate future time and how theoretical myopia hinders the adoption of a future orientation.

The prevailing future perspective is restricted to managers’ perceptions and actions at present, ignoring the anticipation and exploration of alternative longer-term futures. Future time is generally conceived as embedded in managers’ cognitive processes or is seen as part of the ongoing interaction, where the time horizon to the future is not noticed or is at best short.

To enable a forward-looking perspective, researchers should move the focus from expectation building in business interaction to purposeful preparation of alternative future(s) and from the view of seeing future as enacted in the present to envisioning of both near-term and more distant futures.

This study addresses the growing need of business actors to anticipate future developments in the rapidly changing market conditions and to innovate and change business practices to save the planet for future generations.

This study elaborates on actors’ future orientation to business markets and networks, proposes the integration of network research concepts with concepts from futures studies and poses new types of research questions for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore interactional and procedural practices in managing tensions of coopetition (simultaneous collaboration and competition between firms).

Through an in-depth literature review of prior research within coopetition and strategy-as-practice fields, and by using two illustrative empirical examples, the authors develop a framework for preventing and managing coopetitive tensions through combinations of procedural and interactional practices.

The authors identify tensions related to strategizing, task and resource allocation, as well as knowledge sharing. Furthermore, they demonstrate potential ways of how these tensions can be prevented, resolved and managed.

The findings show that the analysis of tensions in coopetition would benefit from a holistic, multilevel approach that recognizes practices that are interactional (i.e. face-to-face interactions) as well as procedural (i.e. organizational routines). Coopetitive tensions and their resolution are related to the use or neglect of both types of practices. Furthermore, interactional and procedural practices are mutually interdependent and can complement each other in tension management in various ways.

The findings of this study shed light on the roles and activities of actual practitioners involved in coopetition, and shows how their work and practices in-use contribute to coopetition, related tensions and their resolution.

By adopting the strategy-as-practice approach, this study generates valuable insights into the practices and tensions in coopetition, as well as illuminates the roles of the practitioners involved in managing coopetition relationships.

In light of the recent dynamics, this paper aims to explore the last mile (LM) of e-commerce retailers. Two research questions are developed (1) What firm characteristics are critical in LM practices? and (2) How do LM practices differ based on the identified critical firm characteristics?

Data were collected via 10 interviews with e-commerce executives, as well as a survey on 200 e-commerce firms in different retail sectors in Sweden.

“Firm Size” and “Sales Channel-Mix” appear to be the top critical firm characteristics in LM practices. While last mile delivery (LMDe) was found to vary more based on sales channel mix than firm size, the opposite occurs for last mile back-end fulfilment (LMBF). Moreover, last mile consumer steering (LMCS) was found to vary only with sales channel-mix. Unexpectedly, primarily store-based retailers capitalize on their stores while offering competitive remote services; they hence compete indirectly with their existing store network.

While most prior work has focused on LMBF and LMDe for strategizing, the consumer-steering aspect seems to have been a missing link. This study develops an integrated framework for LM strategy planning, incorporating LMCS, LMBF and LMDe. New aspects such as the environment, specialization and inventory management are included. The findings provide insights for executives when strategizing, undertaking competition analysis and positioning the firm.

The purpose of this paper is to achieve a collective understanding of the capabilities required for digital procurement transformation (DPT).

The authors contextualize theory about dynamic capabilities (DCs) to integrate the fragmented body of literature on procurement digitalization by means of a systematic literature review (SLR). By extracting and clustering capabilities, as well as proven performance outcomes from existing literature in the field, the authors develop a conceptual model of the DCs required for DPT.

The authors first introduce and define DPT and the corresponding motivations that trigger firms to invest in advanced digital technologies. Second, by adopting the DC lens, the authors provide an overview of nine microfoundations required for DPT and highlight the strategic options procurement leaders can use when strategizing about adopting combinations of digital technologies. Third, the authors present a future research agenda on DCs for DPT.

The developed conceptual model must be verified and enhanced through further empirical research.

The conceptual model can be used by procurement leaders as a starting point and framework when strategizing about digitally transforming the procurement organization.

The study is the first to synthesize previous research findings on procurement digitalization through an SLR in order to develop a fine-grained conceptual model that supports practitioners and researchers alike in better understanding the capabilities required for and potential performance outcomes of DPT.