{"title":"Commitment, Capabilities, and Strategy: A Personal Essay in Honor of Pankaj Ghemawat","authors":"G. Pisano","doi":"10.1287/stsc.2022.0162","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1287/stsc.2022.0162","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45295,"journal":{"name":"Strategy Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47607187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The tentative pursuit of parallel projects in an innovation funnel helps firms improve selection under uncertainty. Yet a risk of premature project termination may make employees more hesitant to innovate. Rewards to innovation, if at risk, become less attractive. My laboratory experiment indeed shows that employees who believe they have low task efficacy and, thus, face a high risk of termination often forego innovation. But funnels also attract: employees with high efficacy beliefs choose innovation more often although they, too, face an additional, albeit smaller, termination risk. Their innovation choices reveal a preference for allocation regimes that are more likely to spot and reward the ultimately most deserving innovators. Such meritocracy increases alongside project-selection accuracy. The uncertainty of innovation, thus, proves a rare context in which employees view a lack of organizational commitment positively. The meritorious self-sorting I document has implications for motivating risk-taking and organizing innovation within firms.
{"title":"Motivating Innovation: Tunnels vs. Funnels","authors":"Ronald Klingebiel","doi":"10.1287/stsc.2022.0156","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1287/stsc.2022.0156","url":null,"abstract":"The tentative pursuit of parallel projects in an innovation funnel helps firms improve selection under uncertainty. Yet a risk of premature project termination may make employees more hesitant to innovate. Rewards to innovation, if at risk, become less attractive. My laboratory experiment indeed shows that employees who believe they have low task efficacy and, thus, face a high risk of termination often forego innovation. But funnels also attract: employees with high efficacy beliefs choose innovation more often although they, too, face an additional, albeit smaller, termination risk. Their innovation choices reveal a preference for allocation regimes that are more likely to spot and reward the ultimately most deserving innovators. Such meritocracy increases alongside project-selection accuracy. The uncertainty of innovation, thus, proves a rare context in which employees view a lack of organizational commitment positively. The meritorious self-sorting I document has implications for motivating risk-taking and organizing innovation within firms.","PeriodicalId":45295,"journal":{"name":"Strategy Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45300575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Many markets are characterized by the rapid coming and going of successive products, each lasting in the market for only a short period of time before it is replaced by another. Such markets confront firms with the strategic challenge of trying to enhance the success and longevity of their products. We develop a model to understand such time-based competition among products and how it is shaped by different organizational strategies. We estimate the model using data on Korean popular music. The results highlight the importance of social exposure to a transitory product’s chances of becoming and remaining popular. They also show that efforts by large organizations to manufacture popularity in that context have triggered a self-defeating dynamic. These efforts not only improve the competitiveness of songs trying to become popular but also increase competition from rival songs, thereby intensifying the brevity of success.
{"title":"Manufacturing Popularity: An Ecological Model of Time-Based Competition","authors":"W. P. Barnett, Mooweon Rhee, Elise Tak","doi":"10.1287/stsc.2022.0157","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1287/stsc.2022.0157","url":null,"abstract":"Many markets are characterized by the rapid coming and going of successive products, each lasting in the market for only a short period of time before it is replaced by another. Such markets confront firms with the strategic challenge of trying to enhance the success and longevity of their products. We develop a model to understand such time-based competition among products and how it is shaped by different organizational strategies. We estimate the model using data on Korean popular music. The results highlight the importance of social exposure to a transitory product’s chances of becoming and remaining popular. They also show that efforts by large organizations to manufacture popularity in that context have triggered a self-defeating dynamic. These efforts not only improve the competitiveness of songs trying to become popular but also increase competition from rival songs, thereby intensifying the brevity of success.","PeriodicalId":45295,"journal":{"name":"Strategy Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42139539","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
When formulating strategic problems, managers and executives routinely overlook relevant causes. This oversight, in turn, compromises the effectiveness of solutions and strategies. To illuminate the factors determining the success of problem formulation, we develop a model of the individual-level drivers of problem formulation comprehensiveness—the number of nonredundant and relevant causes to a problem that individuals identify. Specifically, we theorize that epistemic motivation—the desire to learn and hold well-informed views of the world—is an important driver of comprehensiveness. Furthermore, we suggest that high construal levels—an abstract thinking style—enhance the benefits of epistemic motivation because they direct individual information processing away from the symptoms of a problem toward its underlying causes. We test this interaction model in two experimental studies involving Chinese top executives and university students in the United States. The results of our two studies are consistent with our theoretical model. High construal levels strengthen the effect of epistemic motivation, resulting in greater comprehensiveness of problem formulation. We discuss the implications of our work for theory and practice.
{"title":"Getting to the Root of Things: The Role of Epistemic Motivation and Construal Levels in Strategic Problem Formulation","authors":"Chan Hyung Park, Markus Baer","doi":"10.1287/stsc.2022.0155","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1287/stsc.2022.0155","url":null,"abstract":"When formulating strategic problems, managers and executives routinely overlook relevant causes. This oversight, in turn, compromises the effectiveness of solutions and strategies. To illuminate the factors determining the success of problem formulation, we develop a model of the individual-level drivers of problem formulation comprehensiveness—the number of nonredundant and relevant causes to a problem that individuals identify. Specifically, we theorize that epistemic motivation—the desire to learn and hold well-informed views of the world—is an important driver of comprehensiveness. Furthermore, we suggest that high construal levels—an abstract thinking style—enhance the benefits of epistemic motivation because they direct individual information processing away from the symptoms of a problem toward its underlying causes. We test this interaction model in two experimental studies involving Chinese top executives and university students in the United States. The results of our two studies are consistent with our theoretical model. High construal levels strengthen the effect of epistemic motivation, resulting in greater comprehensiveness of problem formulation. We discuss the implications of our work for theory and practice.","PeriodicalId":45295,"journal":{"name":"Strategy Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47553463","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper asks what motivates new chief executive officers (CEOs) to engage in an acquisition spree despite the considerable risk it entails to themselves and their firms. Building on status theory and performance feedback theory, we theorized that status distance between new CEOs and their predecessors explains the empire-building behavior of new CEOs early in their tenure. Because of the uncertainty surrounding a CEO’s quality early in the individual’s tenure, status serves as a signal of quality for the new CEO. Hence, CEOs had to rely on status signals to maintain or close the status gap between them and their predecessors. Drawing on performance feedback theory, we theorized that new CEOs’ status contrast relative to their predecessor influences their acquisitive behavior. Our examination of the acquisition behavior of 429 new CEOs of S&P 500 firms in the United States revealed that relatively low-status CEOs engaged in risk-taking to improve their status, but relatively high-status new CEOs engaged in risk-taking to maintain their lead. It also revealed that new CEOs changed their risk-taking behavior when direct evidence of their quality or that of their predecessors deviated from the underlying quality expectations indicated by their relative status position.
{"title":"Stepping into Ill-Fitting Shoes: Local Status Contrasts and Acquisitiveness of New CEOs","authors":"Rajiv Krishnan Kozhikode, R. Krishnan","doi":"10.1287/stsc.2021.0150","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1287/stsc.2021.0150","url":null,"abstract":"This paper asks what motivates new chief executive officers (CEOs) to engage in an acquisition spree despite the considerable risk it entails to themselves and their firms. Building on status theory and performance feedback theory, we theorized that status distance between new CEOs and their predecessors explains the empire-building behavior of new CEOs early in their tenure. Because of the uncertainty surrounding a CEO’s quality early in the individual’s tenure, status serves as a signal of quality for the new CEO. Hence, CEOs had to rely on status signals to maintain or close the status gap between them and their predecessors. Drawing on performance feedback theory, we theorized that new CEOs’ status contrast relative to their predecessor influences their acquisitive behavior. Our examination of the acquisition behavior of 429 new CEOs of S&P 500 firms in the United States revealed that relatively low-status CEOs engaged in risk-taking to improve their status, but relatively high-status new CEOs engaged in risk-taking to maintain their lead. It also revealed that new CEOs changed their risk-taking behavior when direct evidence of their quality or that of their predecessors deviated from the underlying quality expectations indicated by their relative status position.","PeriodicalId":45295,"journal":{"name":"Strategy Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44517017","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
By analogy with portfolio diversification by stock market investors, managers and researchers have often expected that firms that spread operations across product or geographic markets reduce risk. However, numerous exploratory studies in corporate strategy and in international business have not been able to robustly confirm this expectation. This study develops a formal model to scrutinize implications of corporate diversification for corporate risk. The model incorporates the key distinction of corporate diversification, economies of scope, that qualifies the analogy between corporate and portfolio diversification. The presence of a particular type of economies of scope, resource redeployability, not only inherently increases risk but it can also raise risk over the level in undiversified firms. The model uses determinants of resource redeployability from previous research to derive conditions with which corporate diversification enhances risk. The developed elaborate operationalization of corporate risk should facilitate future research and help corporate managers.
{"title":"Corporate Diversification and Risk: Portfolio Effects and Resource Redeployability","authors":"Arkadiy V. Sakhartov","doi":"10.1287/stsc.2021.0154","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1287/stsc.2021.0154","url":null,"abstract":"By analogy with portfolio diversification by stock market investors, managers and researchers have often expected that firms that spread operations across product or geographic markets reduce risk. However, numerous exploratory studies in corporate strategy and in international business have not been able to robustly confirm this expectation. This study develops a formal model to scrutinize implications of corporate diversification for corporate risk. The model incorporates the key distinction of corporate diversification, economies of scope, that qualifies the analogy between corporate and portfolio diversification. The presence of a particular type of economies of scope, resource redeployability, not only inherently increases risk but it can also raise risk over the level in undiversified firms. The model uses determinants of resource redeployability from previous research to derive conditions with which corporate diversification enhances risk. The developed elaborate operationalization of corporate risk should facilitate future research and help corporate managers.","PeriodicalId":45295,"journal":{"name":"Strategy Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49625875","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A central strategic imperative for surviving technological change requires firms to attenuate the inertia and rigidity imposed by its legacy technology orientation (defined as the relative emphasis placed on technological knowledge and products aligned to an incumbent technology) and successfully transition to a new technology. We theorize that resource reconfiguration through corporate scope decisions—alliances, acquisitions, divestitures, and different postacquisition integration approaches—enables firms to achieve the twin requirements of attenuation and transition. Initially, a legacy technology orientation exerts inertia due to legacy reinforcement—decreasing the likelihood of firms making new technology acquisitions and legacy technology divestitures. New technology alliances mitigate this inertia via legacy attenuation—increasing the likelihood of acquisitions and legacy divestitures. Finally, when firms make new technology acquisitions, we theorize that acquirers choosing partial acquisition integration approaches (partial integration and partial autonomy) are more likely to achieve a successful transition to the new technology-legacy transition and, thus, more likely to survive technological change relative to firms choosing full integration or full autonomy. Using a sample of firms from the digital camera product market over 1991–2006, we found strong empirical support for our predictions. We contribute to research on technological change by demonstrating that firms may overcome the inertia of a legacy technology orientation and adapt to an emerging new technology by employing corporate scope decisions and postacquisition integration as resource reconfiguration mechanisms. Specifically, we advance the novel finding that postacquisition integration is an important survival-enhancing mechanism that facilitates adaptation to technological change.
{"title":"Resource Reconfiguration During Technological Change","authors":"Tuhin Chaturvedi, J. Prescott","doi":"10.1287/stsc.2021.0151","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1287/stsc.2021.0151","url":null,"abstract":"A central strategic imperative for surviving technological change requires firms to attenuate the inertia and rigidity imposed by its legacy technology orientation (defined as the relative emphasis placed on technological knowledge and products aligned to an incumbent technology) and successfully transition to a new technology. We theorize that resource reconfiguration through corporate scope decisions—alliances, acquisitions, divestitures, and different postacquisition integration approaches—enables firms to achieve the twin requirements of attenuation and transition. Initially, a legacy technology orientation exerts inertia due to legacy reinforcement—decreasing the likelihood of firms making new technology acquisitions and legacy technology divestitures. New technology alliances mitigate this inertia via legacy attenuation—increasing the likelihood of acquisitions and legacy divestitures. Finally, when firms make new technology acquisitions, we theorize that acquirers choosing partial acquisition integration approaches (partial integration and partial autonomy) are more likely to achieve a successful transition to the new technology-legacy transition and, thus, more likely to survive technological change relative to firms choosing full integration or full autonomy. Using a sample of firms from the digital camera product market over 1991–2006, we found strong empirical support for our predictions. We contribute to research on technological change by demonstrating that firms may overcome the inertia of a legacy technology orientation and adapt to an emerging new technology by employing corporate scope decisions and postacquisition integration as resource reconfiguration mechanisms. Specifically, we advance the novel finding that postacquisition integration is an important survival-enhancing mechanism that facilitates adaptation to technological change.","PeriodicalId":45295,"journal":{"name":"Strategy Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2021-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43302241","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We examine the progress of the evolutionary research on innovation, the firm, and the dynamics of industries in the last four decades. The paper acknowledges that the themes related to knowledge and technological regimes, the evolutionary processes leading to innovation, and the long-term dynamics of technologies have generated, and still remain, relevant research trajectories. The same can be said for the research trajectories on organizational and dynamic capabilities, evolutionary strategies, vertical integration, diversification, niche construction, and authority and power in organizations. Important progress has also been made in understanding the evolutionary trajectories of industries, the link between industry architecture and industry dynamics, the types of knowledge of entrants, the role of focal and vertical spinouts, the relevance of institutions and sectoral innovation systems in industry dynamics, and the catch-up process by firms from latecomer countries. We argue that future developments in the evolutionary camp should continue to be characterized by eclecticism and multidisciplinarity, as well as by the integration of different methodologies from cases to stylized facts, quantitative analyses, appreciative theorizing, and formal modelling. We conclude with an analysis of the main methodologies used by evolutionary scholars and a discussion of the road ahead.
{"title":"Evolutionary Approaches to Innovation, the Firm, and the Dynamics of Industries","authors":"G. Cattani, F. Malerba","doi":"10.1287/stsc.2021.0141","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1287/stsc.2021.0141","url":null,"abstract":"We examine the progress of the evolutionary research on innovation, the firm, and the dynamics of industries in the last four decades. The paper acknowledges that the themes related to knowledge and technological regimes, the evolutionary processes leading to innovation, and the long-term dynamics of technologies have generated, and still remain, relevant research trajectories. The same can be said for the research trajectories on organizational and dynamic capabilities, evolutionary strategies, vertical integration, diversification, niche construction, and authority and power in organizations. Important progress has also been made in understanding the evolutionary trajectories of industries, the link between industry architecture and industry dynamics, the types of knowledge of entrants, the role of focal and vertical spinouts, the relevance of institutions and sectoral innovation systems in industry dynamics, and the catch-up process by firms from latecomer countries. We argue that future developments in the evolutionary camp should continue to be characterized by eclecticism and multidisciplinarity, as well as by the integration of different methodologies from cases to stylized facts, quantitative analyses, appreciative theorizing, and formal modelling. We conclude with an analysis of the main methodologies used by evolutionary scholars and a discussion of the road ahead.","PeriodicalId":45295,"journal":{"name":"Strategy Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48935478","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction to the Strategy Science Special Issue on Evolutionary Approaches to Innovation, the Firm, and the Dynamics of Industries","authors":"G. Cattani, F. Malerba","doi":"10.1287/stsc.2021.0140","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1287/stsc.2021.0140","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45295,"journal":{"name":"Strategy Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45179380","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：