Search results

As the role of senior school leaders has become more complex, the leadership of improvement, innovation and change has been distributed to middle leaders. However, middle leaders are often not prepared for the shift to strategic thinking and leading. This chapter provides an overview of what it means to think and lead strategically when leading from the middle. Then, the theory is translated into practical templates and tools that can be employed by a middle leader. The context of this chapter is leading a faculty in a secondary school; however, the ideas and examples provided are easily translated to any middle leading context.

This paper explains how a variety of business units within a listed corporation have tried to define their strategic capabilities, as part of a process of developing independent business strategies within the corporation's corporate strategy. This paper describes the processes by which strategic capabilities were identified in each unit, the differences and similarities between the capabilities identified at the business unit level, and their consistency (or otherwise) with an overall corporate strategic positioning.

This paper is based on the author's consulting experience with both the parent corporation and its individual business units over a period of 15 years, and most recently on an intensive relationship with one division of the corporation and its 13 business units began three years ago. An objective of these relationships has been clarifying each business unit's strategy and any basis for sustainable competitive advantage of its strategic capabilities. What emerged from this process is a set of definitions of business unit strategic capabilities which are both similar to, but in some cases different from, the corporate parent's perceptions of the strategic capabilities of its business units.

This paper describes the process by which a first representation of “strategic capabilities” emerged in each business unit. For each unit, the agreed descriptions of strategic capabilities helped guide strategic decision making and implementation and assisted each unit in clarifying its strategic positioning in its markets. However, considerable differences remain in the articulation of each unit's capabilities and in what capabilities are considered to exist in the business units.

This paper is designed to give practitioners and academics a case study through which to consider practicalities involved in articulating and operationalizing strategic capabilities in general and in defining corporate strategies in particular.

Much of the literature on strategic trade policy deals with industries and sectors characterized by international rivalry for market shares, and the struggle to capture “rents” over and above normal factor rewards. The present paper explores the validity and implications of strategic trade policy for small “states” and small firms that are not major players in international markets. The smallness of the firms may, in fact, be an advantage rather than a hindrance. The implications of smallness for strategic behavior are examined in the framework of a simple game-theoretic framework. These insights become sharper when extended to intra-industry trade in differentiated products. The desirable policy interventions for small countries and firms are quite different from those for large firms.

This paper seeks to explore the effect of performance duration (rather than intensity) on the subsequent initiation of strategic change by firms. Specifically, the effect of outperformance and underperformance duration on strategic change, as well as the moderating effect of environmental dynamism, is studied.

Using a fixed-effects model, analyzing a sample of 34,907 firm-year observations from 1980 to 2018 across 112 industries mostly supported proposed hypotheses.

Results revealed a U-shaped relationship between outperformance duration and strategic change and an inverted U-shaped relationship between underperformance duration and strategic change. The moderation role of environmental dynamism was only partially supported.

This study examines a new dimension of performance feedback, namely duration, rather than the widely used intensity of performance feedback, to enhance our understanding of the behavioral theory of the firm.

In this study, we applied the strategy-as-practice (SAP) framework to analyse strategic communication practices. SAP implies approaching strategy as something that organisational members do and is useful for understanding the tensions between emergence and formalisation and between planning and improvisation that characterise the everyday communication work of communication practitioners.

The paper is based on an ethnographic study of a record company and on qualitative interviews with various actors from the music industry.

Tensions exist between the emergence of inputs from active consumers that require flexibility and attempts to strategically formalise and continuously adapt plans and encourage consumers to act in anticipated ways. The findings revealed five strategic communication practices—meetings, working in the office, gathering and analysing consumer engagement and related data, collaboration and storytelling—that practitioners used to conduct strategic communication and navigate the tensions.

The study contributes to understanding the role of strategic communication practices in contemporary organisations and how practitioners manage the tensions within them. The study shows that an SAP approach can account for improvisation and emergence, as well as planning and formalisation. It also shows how SAP resonates with emergent and agile strategic communication frameworks.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how enterprises can effectively perceive and use the digital opportunities brought about by digital technologies and dynamic environments and how they can enhance their capabilities to realize digital transformation and adapt to the development of the digital economy era.

Based on the windows of opportunity theory and strategic cognition theory, this paper conducts an empirical analysis of the questionnaire data of 268 enterprises and discusses the influence of external windows of opportunity and internal windows of opportunity on the digital transformation of enterprises, as well as the action mechanism of strategic cognition and entrepreneurship.

The results show that both the external windows of opportunity and the internal windows of opportunity have significant positive effects on the digital transformation of enterprises. Strategic cognition plays a partial mediating role in the external windows of opportunity and the internal windows of opportunity influencing the enterprise digital transformation process. Entrepreneurship plays a positive regulatory role in the process of external windows of opportunity and internal windows of opportunity influencing strategic cognition.

This paper deepens the relationship between internal and external windows of opportunity and enterprise digital transformation and contributes a new theoretical cognition. This paper integrates the strategic cognition theory to clarify the complex process mechanism of digital transformation using external situational opportunities and internal capabilities. This paper introduces entrepreneurship into the path mechanism of digital transformation and expands the characteristics of the study of digital transformation antecedents to the individual level within the enterprise.

This research investigates the impact of strategic research and development (R&D) (one led by a firm’s innovation orientation) on stock market performance during the economic disruption caused by the 2016 demonetization of high-value currency notes in India. It shows how firms’ strategic focus on innovation and integrated R&D initiatives can help mitigate shareholders’ losses and protect market value during negative macroeconomic shocks.

We analyzed financial and administrative data from firms listed in the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 500 index and used the Fama French market model with appropriate instruments accounting for possible endogeneity to identify the impact. To ensure the reliability of our findings, we conducted robustness checks with alternate event windows, estimation methods, and variable measurements.

Strategic R&D plays a crucial role in building resilience against macroeconomic shocks. It effectively mitigated shareholders’ losses in the immediate aftermath of the shock, with an elasticity of abnormal returns of 7.65% on day zero, 13.1% during the first five days and 10.5% after the first fortnight. We also find that firms that are business-to-business (B2B), as well as those that are older and less leveraged, are better able to combat such a shock.

The study looked at one shock, namely demonetization. Future research is needed to demonstrate the generalizability of results during other macroeconomic shocks, like the COVID-19 pandemic. The study focuses on relatively near-term impacts, leaving the long-term value-creation effects of strategic R&D unexplored.

Innovation orientation acts as a structural enabler, allowing firms to make strategic R&D investments that mitigate losses during macroeconomic shocks. It explains that managers should avoid myopically managing R&D investments and align them with the firm’s innovation focus to enhance value creation.

While the currency demonetization was widely considered to be detrimental for firms as an unannounced negative monetary shock, our research shows that firms with high levels of strategic R&D were successfully able to counteract such a shock.

This is the first study to examine the short-term loss mitigation impact of firms’ focus on innovation and strategic R&D. It emphasizes the role of innovation-focused strategies during economic crises.

This paper aims to integrate insights from the behavioral theory of the firm and the dynamic capabilities perspective to explain how the historical and social attainment discrepancies motivate firms to change. Specifically, this paper proposes that a negative historical attainment discrepancy encourages the firm to engage in strategic change to solve its performance problems. In contrast, this paper advanced that a positive social attainment discrepancy motivates strategic change as a mechanism to bolster the firm’s position within the industry. Further, this paper integrated the moderating effects of industry dynamism and industry munificence.

This paper tests hypotheses using panel data on 2,435 US public firms over the years from 1996 to 2018. This paper uses a fixed-effects regression model to empirically test these hypotheses.

This paper finds empirical support for the effects of both the negative historical attainment discrepancy and the positive social attainment discrepancy on the firm’s tendency to engage in strategic change. As for the hypothesized moderating effects, this paper finds that industry munificence accentuated the effects of both attainment discrepancies on the firm’s tendency to engage in strategic change. However, the results do not support the hypothesized moderating effect of industry dynamism on either of these attainment discrepancies.

This paper contributes to the research on the separate effects of historical and social comparisons within the context of strategic change. Further, the paper bolsters our understanding of how performance feedback increases the firm’s tendency to change. Finally, the paper integrates theoretical views from the behavioral theory of the firm and the dynamic capabilities perspective on how socially high-performing firms may build and sustain their competitive advantage through organizational change.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the significance and impact of strategic knowledge management (SKM) practices and organisational change capacity (OCC) in improving strategic thinking and strategic orientation in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and their contribution in overall improvement of entrepreneurial performance.

Quantitative research methodology using partial least square structural equation modelling with data of 296 sample from the target group as managers and owners from various SMEs in the UK has been used in the study.

The findings suggest that SMEs that invest in SKM and OCC are more proficient at adjusting to fluctuations in the business landscape and develop effective strategies that lead to improved entrepreneurial performance. The study provides evidence that SKM encompasses more than just the acquisition and use of information. It also involves the establishment of a learning and innovation culture that facilitates strategic thinking and direction. Similarly, OCC is not just about implementing change but also about developing the agility and flexibility to adapt to market changes, consumer demands and technology.

According to the research, SMEs may boost their entrepreneurial performance and keep a competitive advantage in the modern, dynamic business environment by investing in SKM and OCC. The capacity of SMEs to implement SKM and organisational change should be encouraged and supported by policymakers and practitioners, who should also offer the necessary tools and assistance to do so.

This study offers a valuable addition to the previously published works on SKM and OCC within SMEs. It offers empirical data that highlights the significance of SKM and OCC in fostering strategic thinking, strategic orientation and ultimately, boosting entrepreneurial performance. The study also highlights the challenges faced by SMEs in implementing SKM and OCC and provides recommendations for overcoming these challenges.

Organizational technologies can be classified according to the roles they play as either commodity or strategic. Commodity technologies support common operations, while strategic technologies address perceived threats to competitiveness, often identified by strategic foresight. These must go through an adoption process before playing an effective role in strategy execution. The adoption process includes known activities, ranging from sourcing (itself from in-house development to turn-key acquisition) to operational integration. This paper aims to reveal strategic technology adoption risks that arise during strategy execution.

A gradually developed causal loop diagram model, supported by general literature, introduces three general classes of technology adoption risks: mismatched requirements, supplier dependence and unmanaged life cycles.

Rather than managed, these risks are incurred or avoided depending on decisions made during the adoption process.

Despite the scarce literature coverage for the approach, examples revealing the presence of adoption risks are nevertheless available in the well-documented history of enterprise resource planning (ERP).

Although ERP is presented as a general-purpose strategic technology, the unique business features of maritime container terminals pose serious challenges to its adoption, which provides additional support to the discussion and reinforces the conclusions.

The approach to identifying risks in strategic technology adoption departs from the current risk paradigm in two significant ways. First, it emphasizes policy decision-making rather than external events. Second, it views risks as systemic rather than occurring independently.