Strategic Management Research: Focusing on the Determinants of Performance

Abstract

Since the publication of Strategic Management: A New View of Business Policy and Planning” in 1979, it has been some 40 years for the research conducted in the field now known as Strategic Management, with great scholarly accomplishments achieved and major challenges lying ahead. As this milestone year also represents the 40th anniversary of this journal, a major outlet for Strategic Management research in China, it will be fitting to provide a more systematic and up-to-date review of the critical literature and conjecture on the future advancement of this field. This paper will offer such a review building on one central premise, which is the fundamental question regarding the most central and critical dependent variable of strategy research, i.e., what factors determine firm performance?We subsequently review in turn the various categories of determinants of firm performance as featured in the literature, ranging from the Environment, the Firm, to the CEO and the Top Management Team（TMT）, as well as the Strategy Process and Strategy Content. The examination of the effect of environment on firm performance includes the characteristics of the task environment, the structure of the industry, and its trend of changes and patterns of turbulences. The review of the Firm effect concerns the basic attributes of the firm, its resource endowment and capability repertoire, as well as its organizational system that includes organizational structure, control, and culture, as well as power and politics. The review of CEO/TMT centers on the attributes of the CEO and TMT members, the composition, dynamics, and the succession of the TMT, and the managerial discretion of the CEO/TMT.Then we focus on how the different factors collectively and individually affect firm performance. We first review the line of research under the broad concern How much does industry differ?” and systematically compare and contrast extant results regarding the effects, respectively, of industry, strategic group, corporate parent, and business unit. We also review research studies on the dichotomy of economic determinants of firm performance and organizational determinants, and further examine the fit between firm factors and environmental factors. Next, we examine studies on the effects of strategic decision-making process, e.g., the comprehensiveness of the strategy-making process, and effects of strategic change, on firm performance. For the effects of strategy content on firm performance, we differentiate between market strategy and nonmarket strategy that includes corporate political strategy and corporate social responsibility. For the market strategy, we examine both corporate strategy and business strategy, and both competitive strategy and cooperative strategy, including strategic alliance and coopetition, as well as new concepts and phenomena such as business model innovation, ecosystem strategy, and platform strategy.Finally, we summarize the different theoretical perspectives as well as the host of research methodologies used in strategy research that originate from economics, psychology, sociology, and other areas of the management discipline, and conjecture the future development of the field with its further differentiation and integration regarding its research topics and methodologies.