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There are few concepts in the modern business lexicon where people feel as strongly confident in their understanding of its meaning – while there is simultaneously such profound disagreement in how people actually define the term – than the concept of “strategy.” After decades of research and publications trying to correct this situation, the problem remains. It is difficult to advance the field, teach the field, or even effectively put it into practice if you cannot define what “it” is in a clear, concise, and meaningful way. This paper offers updated definitions of key strategic management concepts.

A large academic and practitioner literature review was added to the author’s personal experience as a Fortune 500 chief strategy officer and university professor to identify five separate concepts at the heart of current colloquial uses of the term “strategy.” These concepts were then clarified and defined with implications summarized.

The generic term “strategy” is frequently used in place of multiple other very distinct concepts. This problem of concept ambiguity can be greatly reduced by understanding and emphasizing the definitions and usage of five other, already existing, business terms – “Strategic Management,” “Strategic Planning Process,” “Strategic Plan,” “Realized Strategy,” and “Business Model.”

This paper identifies the negative effects of the misuse of the term strategy and offers clear, concise remedies. Resolving the definition problems is a necessary precursor to the advancement, education, and practice of the field.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the successful implementation of digitalization by exploring what characterizes strategy work undertaken by companies that have achieved digital transformation. Based on empirical data, the authors delineate five essential strategic actions that are prerequisites for digital transformation: discuss and communicate the vision and strategy; align resources and activities with the strategy; ensure a continuous focus on operational improvements and efficiency; create an orientation toward customer or user needs and expectations; and develop the competencies of top managers, middle managers and employees.

Between January 2021 and February 2022, the authors conducted a survey on strategy work in Danish organizations with 2,251 respondents. The respondents encompass top managers, middle managers and employees representing 1,164 organizations.

The authors identify five strategic actions that positively influence whether organizations incorporate digitalization into their strategy work. These strategic actions can support organizations in their strategy work regarding digital transformation and offer valuable insights and inspiration for leaders currently undertaking the journey of digital transformation.

Based on the empirical data, it is not possible to deem one action as more important than another in the context of digital transformation, as each action contributes significantly to facilitating the process. Given the nature of empirical data, the strategic actions reflect correlation rather than causation.

The empirical insights provide valuable practical guidance for leaders in managing digital transformation as a part of strategy work, which is typically discussed in a more conceptual manner. In addition, the authors identify new areas for further in-depth exploration in practice.

The purpose of this study is to determine the strategy adopted by small- and medium-scale enterprise (SME) owners in setting up internal control systems, examine the relationship between the numbers of employees’ fraud and strategy adopted in setting up internal control and evaluate the difference between proactive and reactive strategies in employee’s fraud prevention among SMEs.

A survey research approach was adopted to determine whether proactive or reactive strategies were adopted by the SME owners. Specifically, a survey questionnaire was used to gather primary data from selected respondents in Lagos and Oyo States. Descriptive statistics, Spearman correlation and the Mann–Whitney test were used to analyse the primary data.

The study found that most of the SME owners used reactive internal control strategies in setting up their internal control systems after they suffered financial losses occasioned by employees’ fraud. Also, the study found a positive relationship between the number of employees’ fraud and reactive strategy. Finally, the study found a significant difference in the number of employees’ fraud occurrences between proactive and reactive internal control strategies in SMEs.

The study provides further confirmation that where internal control is properly set up and strengthened, a lower number of employee frauds will occur. Thus, giving credence to the fraud theory. The study was, however, conducted in six selected local government areas in two states.

The study provides recommendations on the adoption of a proactive strategy for curbing employees’ fraud at the onset of business operations and not until devastating events of employees’ fraud become a reality.

The study is original, as it focuses on the strategy adopted by SME owners in setting up internal control systems, which is rare in fraud empirical studies, particularly for studies conducted in emerging markets like Nigeria. It provides the need for the sustainability of SMEs as engine of growth and employment through the adoption of appropriate strategies in setting up internal control systems.

Recycling is associated with positive social and environmental impact, but previous studies have overlooked the cost of recycling operations. Based on the dynamic capability view, the purpose of this study was to identify and evaluate risk factors and resilience strategies within the recycling industry, prioritize these factors and identify the optimal combination of resilience strategies and risk factors to improve market performance.

The research questions were addressed in three subsequent studies. In Study 1, qualitative interviews were conducted to identify risk factors and strategies to mitigate those risks. In Study 2, quality function deployment methodologies were implemented via case studies derived from three different companies. Based on the results of Studies 1 and 2, in addition to the use of fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis, Study 3 aimed to determine the optimal combination of risk factors and strategies impacting market performance.

The results across the three studies revealed a number of risk factors as well as which risk factors and resilience strategies have the greatest impact on market performance. Specifically, it was found that higher levels of readiness, response and recovery strategies lead to greater market performance, whereas weak readiness, response and recovery strategies, along with low societal, environmental and health and safety risk factors, significantly inhibit performance.

This research extends current understandings of market performance in relation to recycling industry management and offers insight for decision-makers toward combating significant risk factors in business-to-business settings.

The dynamic and evolving nature of the market calls for attention to digital platform firms' survival strategies, building agility for persistence in a continuously changing business environment. In India, the government’s adoption of the Digital Policy is one such change in the business environment for the firms that impact almost all sectors. Such policies cause a disruption wherein digital platform firms must be agile and create a strategic response that will endure any changes. The present study attempts to gain insight into the competitive strategies adopted by the digital platform firms of the consumer durables industry in India, which are implemented to facilitate their growth.

The entire study is conducted in two phases. Phase one includes identifying strategies sampled digital platform firms adopted in response to the digitalization policy, and the second phase evaluates the significance of the adopted plans to persist.

While clubbing the 42 strategic responses to a few aggregate dimensions, the study found four types of responses adopted by the digital platform firms in the consumer durable industry to persist in the market. Using a two-step system, the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) approach, the study found that all four dimensions are statistically significant, positively impacting these firms' profitability.

The study contributes to the knowledge base of strategic responses to persist for the incumbent platform firms in a dynamic business environment.

The study answers the pertinent research question of how such strategic decisions may be informed in favor of profitability.

It is only logical that a firm aims to make a profit after entering the market. However, some firms enter the market with the goal of market expansion and even burn money to pursue market share, which is counterintuitive in practice. To explore the theoretical foundations behind this rare phenomenon, this paper focuses on discussing the impact of the market expansion entry strategy on the entrant firm and the incumbent firm.

Using a game theory model of a supply chain with an incumbent and an entrant, this paper explores the mathematical conditions for the entrant to adopt either the traditional or the market expansion entry strategy and investigates the incumbent’s benefits and losses under different entry strategies.

The results show that when the market-expansion effect and the selling price ceiling are moderate, the entrant firm always adopts the market expansion entry strategy, and the incumbent firm obtains a free ride from the entrant firm and benefits from it. The entire industry profits and the industry consumer surplus are increased. In particular, we further investigate the cases in which the incumbent firm has a first-mover advantage or there is a troublesome cost, and the results confirm the aforementioned conclusions.

By considering market share as the entrant’s goal, this paper contributes to the dual-purpose literature. Moreover, based on the model’s mathematical results, this paper offers relevant management insights for the entrant and its stakeholders in the e-commerce platform.

The success of public–private partnership (PPP) projects is highly correlated to the successful management of risks encountered during the operation phase. PPP projects are especially exposed to risk due to the long operation period over which revenues need to be generated to recoup substantial initial investment and operational running costs. Despite the critical impact of risk exposure, limited research has been specifically undertaken on the matter of operational risk management. This study seeks to address this oversight by identifying and evaluating operational risk management strategies for PPPs.

Vulnerability theory is the theoretical lens used, with context drawn from Chinese PPP projects. Based on the data collected from expert interviews and questionnaires, 28 operational risk management strategies are identified. A fuzzy synthetic method is employed to analyze the effectiveness of the 28 strategies.

The findings reveal that providing an exit mechanism clause into the contract, establishing a comprehensive performance evaluation mechanism and developing a clear compensation mechanism are the top three effective strategies. This study also reveals that risk mitigation approaches that reduce vulnerability prove more effective than attempts to reduce external threats. Specifically, strategies aimed at managing contract, political, technical and financial risk are the most effective.

The findings of this study extend current knowledge regarding the risk management of PPP projects. They also offer a reference by which practitioners may select effective operational risk management pathways and thereby, galvanize the sustainable development of PPPs.

This paper aims to capture the complex interdependences between supply chain disruptions (SCDs), SC risk mitigation strategies and firm performance in the context of disruptive events to enhance resilience for medium-sized and large firms coping with complex supply chain networks. The roles of digitalization, insurance and government support have also been addressed as potential strategies to counteract the impacts of disruptions on supply chains.

This study is based on an empirical investigation in an FMCG company – using a hybrid causal mapping technique based on the frameworks of interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and Bayesian networks (BN) – of 11 levels of relationships between SCDs (in supply, production, logistics, demand and finance), SC risk mitigation strategies (flexibility, efficiency, agility and responsiveness), insurance, government support, information and knowledge sharing, digitalization and finally the key firm performance measures (continuity, quality and financial performance).

The results of the empirical investigation reveal and describe: (1) the nature and probabilistic quantification of the lower-level relationships among the four SCDs, among the mitigation strategies and the three firm performance measures; (2) the nature and probabilistic quantification of the higher-level relationships among the impacts of SCDs, SC risk mitigation strategies and firm performance and (3) how to model and quantify the complex interdependences in single firms and their supply chains.

Our results can support managers in developing more effective decision-making models to assess and manage unfavorable events and cascade effects among different functions and processes in the context of risks and disruptions.

This research paper aims to identify and provide insights into rejuvenation strategies in Kaş as a microtourism destination based on the views of stakeholders.

The research utilizes a single-case design, applying an inductive approach to analyze data collected from semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis was employed to analyze the data.

The inductive thematic analysis yields nine different main themes: product transformation, integrated sustainable development strategies, cooperation, promotion through the right channels, stable tourism policy, selective tourism strategy, tourism awareness, access to tourist movements and management and tools for monitoring the quality and sustainability of tourism.

This research offers practical recommendations for regional authorities, residents and business stakeholders to foster sustainable tourism development by addressing resource utilization and existing challenges in the rejuvenation of Kaş.

This research contributes to theory by addressing the lack of applied research on the rejuvenation process in micro-tourism destinations, using Kaş (Turkey) as a case study. It identifies and emphasizes the unique challenges in microdestinations, enhancing our understanding and filling a critical knowledge gap. The identified rejuvenation strategies in Kaş are positioned to serve as a model for similar destinations, emphasizing their distinctive characteristics and challenges.

Disruptions at ports may destroy the planned ship schedules profoundly, which is an imperative operation problem that shipping companies need to overcome. This paper attempts to help shipping companies cope with port disruptions through recovery scheduling.

This paper studies the ship coping strategies for the port disruptions caused by severe weather. A novel mixed-integer nonlinear programming model is proposed to solve the ship schedule recovery problem (SSRP). A distributionally robust mean conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) optimization model was constructed to handle the SSRP with port disruption uncertainties, for which we derive tractable counterparts under the polyhedral ambiguity sets.

The results show that the size of ambiguity set, confidence level and risk-aversion parameter can significantly affect the optimal values, decision-makers should choose a reasonable parameter combination. Besides, sailing speed adjustment and handling rate adjustment are effective strategies in SSRP but may not be sufficient to recover the schedule; therefore, port skipping and swapping are necessary when multiple or longer disruptions occur at ports.

Since the port disruption is difficult to forecast, we attempt to take the uncertainties into account to achieve more meaningful results. To the best of our knowledge, there is barely a research study focusing on the uncertain port disruptions in the SSRP. Moreover, this is the first paper that applies distributionally robust optimization (DRO) to deal with uncertain port disruptions through the equivalent counterpart of DRO with polyhedral ambiguity set, in which a robust mean-CVaR optimization formulation is adopted as the objective function for a trade-off between the expected total costs and the risk.