Strategic Management Research Research Articles

Taking peers into account: Adoption and effects of high-investment human resource systems.

Strategic human resource management (HRM) research considers HRM systems a potential source of competitive advantage due to their positive effects on performance outcomes. However, previous research has not paid enough attention to how peer companies' use of HRM systems is associated with the adoption and the effects of HRM systems of a focal company. Specifically, drawing upon the institutional theory, we propose that a focal company's adoption of high-investment human resource systems (HIHRS) will be positively related to the level of HIHRS used in its peer companies. We also argue that the extent to which a focal company's HIHRS use is associated with organizational outcomes is contingent on the adoption of HIHRS in peer companies. Using a sample of 912 publicly traded companies in the U.S. stock market from 2002 to 2015, we found a positive relationship between the average HIHRS use of peer companies in the previous year and the change in focal company's HIHRS use. We also found that a focal company's HIHRS use is more likely to enhance financial performance (e.g., sales growth and profit growth) when the adoption of HIHRS is low in peer companies. However, HIHRS use is more positively related to employer certifications received by a focal company when the adoption of HIHRS is high in peer companies. These findings suggest that peer companies play an important role in understanding the adoption and the effects of HIHRS use of a focal company. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The Role of Strategic Management in Improving the Quality of Accounting Information Systems at Insurance Compenies in Indonesia

This study aims to test the role of strategic management in improving the quality of accounting information system. Subject of this research is an insurance company in Indonesia with the number of samples of 35 insurance companies. Sample is an insurance companies consisting of life insurance companies, general insurance companies and state-owned insurance companies in Indonesia are listed in Financial Services Authority The results of statistical tests show that the influence of strategic management on the quality of accounting information systems is significant. Thus it is concluded that the Strategic Management affect the quality of accounting information systems. Implementation of Strategic management in improving the quality of accounting information systems can be done by adopting changes in policies and rules both coming from internal and external environment. Furthermore, information systems can describe the mission and support the organization's goals to achieve competitive advantage The research of strategic management on accounting information systems in insurance companies has not been much studied and currently still requires in-depth study on the role of strategic management on the quality of accounting information systems. With different times and places make this research different research instruments with indicators that match the phenomenon that occurs today so that it can answer the problems that occur. Key words: Strategic Management, Quality of Accounting Information System, Value Added, Performance of the company

Small firms, owner managers and (strategic?) human resource management

AbstractThe focus of much strategic human resource management (SHRM) research has been on large firms and there are questions as to the applicability of the existing SHRM models in small firms that have different modes of operation, particularly where owner managers dominate and human resource (HR) specialists are largely absent. There is nevertheless growing evidence that SHRM can be effective in small firms. To develop understanding, this study uses qualitative data from a project that delivered HR support services to small firms to explore why HR practices exist and how they operate. Owner manager responses to cues prompted take up of HR support and developing their understanding and confidence led to the implementation of both routine and progressive HR practices. Owner managers engaged in sense making to navigate the associated dynamics of formality. We present a model of SHRM in the small firm context, incorporating HR support services as an important contribution.

How Do News Media Affect the Divestiture of Acquired Overseas Subunits

The media research in strategic management has uniformly presumed how the news media portrayed firm actions and environments affect constituents’ perceptions of firms, given constituents’ sense-making rely on the media processed information. Going to a step further, our paper suggests that not only constituents but also firms use media reports for making sense of the environment that they are embedded in. On the basis, the news media affect strategic decisions by shaping firms' perception of the environment. To examine how the media affect corporate strategies, we specifically focus on the divestiture of acquired overseas subunits, a context where the media play an especially important role of information intermediary due to firms’ lack of information about host countries. We hypothesize that the negativity of news sentiments regarding a host-country’s environmental, social, and governance issues increase the divestiture hazard. Furthermore, we incorporate a moderator of subunit power exemplified as corporate entrepreneurship activities carried out by the subunit. We argue that stronger subunit power weakens the positive effects of media negativity. This study advances the understanding of media's impact on firms' strategic decisions and contributes to divestiture literature and corporate entrepreneurship literature.

Geo-Political Instability and Global Strategy

The symposium features four presentations that examine the role of geo-political instability in international strategy research, as well as discussion from senior scholars. The presentations include a diverse set of business scholars with overlapping themes of political uncertainty at the country-level, and its role in shaping organization choices. The symposium is of interest to researchers in strategic management, international business, and organization and management theory. Bringing Nationalism into International Management Research Presenter: Ilya Cuypers; Singapore Management U. A Competition-Based Model of International Expansion and Geo-political Shocks Presenter: Roxanne Jaffe; U. of Maryland R.H. Smith School of Business Presenter: Siddharth Sharma; Indian School of Business Presenter: Wilbur Chung; U. of Maryland Danger from a Distance: Executives’ Social Distance & MNE Divestment Responses to Terrorist Attacks Presenter: Chang Liu; Rutgers Business School Presenter: Dan Li; Indiana U. Presenter: Lorraine Eden; Texas A&M U. Presenter: Marjorie A. Lyles; Florida International U. Many Are Better Than Few: Concentrated Foreign Relations and State-level Misconduct Presenter: Christopher B. Yenkey; Darla Moore School of Business, U. of South Carolina

A Process Theory of Organizational Adaptation: a Top Management Game Perspective

Strategy has overlooked how organizations adapt to their environments. To overcome this gap, this article builds on the punctuated equilibrium model and offers a theory that shows that organizations adapt through a top management game. Our theory models a process through which an organization changes/does not change its path following a signal of drift between the organization and its environment. During what we call the adaptation crisis process, coalitions within the top management group play a game to solve the strategic dilemma between keeping the current path (e.g., path reinforcement) or changing it (e.g., path transformation). They strategize and confront their own responses to the signal of drift based on their deciphering and strategic interests, the dominant coalition being more likely to follow the same path and dissident coalitions being more likely to change it. The solution to the dilemma, path reinforcement or transformation, depends on the winner of the game. However, if the drift is not bridged, the adaptation crisis continues, and new rounds of top management games occur until the death of the organization or its ability to reconnect with its environment. This process theory of organizational adaptation offers implications for both strategic management research and practice.

Temporal Reflexivity When Striving to Be a Strategic Actor

In this paper, we argue that temporal reflexivity is a key, but as of yet poorly understood, part of strategic actorhood and agency. We propose a view of strategic actorhood that acknowledges the key role of reflexivity in time and space when striving to be a strategic actor. By placing temporal reflexivity at the front and center of strategic agency, our analysis adds to a key component to recent discussions about actorhood and agency in strategic management research. In particular, we identify and elaborate on five key aspects of temporal reflexivity that each warrant attention and together for a framework for a better understanding of what temporal reflexivity means in practice. By so doing, our analysis also advances research on temporality in management and organization studies more generally.

The Application of the Difference-in-Differences Model in Strategic Management Research

Difference-in-differences (DD) models allow researchers to estimate changes between treatment and control groups after exogenous interventions or shocks. We reviewed research in strategic managemen...

Practicing strategic philanthropy: Notes from the field

Strategic philanthropy is a field that has yet to tangibly apply Porter and Kramer’s (2002; 1999) original concepts. In line with Kubickova’s (2018) review of the field, this short paper seeks to fill a gap on the ‘how’ of measuring impact and applying strategy frameworks and tools to better managerial decision making. Action research was applied to answering two questions, following a five-week retrospective on synthesizing a framework to do just this for a grantmaker in Singapore. Application always precedes measurement, but adaptation needs to be made to the frameworks and tools. A competitive position and capabilities for ‘outside-in’ strategy is operationalized through issue-based dynamic capabilities and investment, as well as ongoing boundary critique on focus issues (where meaning is transverse on multiple planes). By comparison, the value chain in ‘inside-out’ strategy requires a synthesis with process-based approach to horizontal flow (where analyses on demand and attribution are bi-directional due to the nature of public goods). Saliently, the measurement inherent in cost accounting has a unique function of recombining both ‘outside-in’ and ‘inside-out’ strategies for an integrated approach and a cogent framework to embed in organizations. Scholar-practitioners would well benefit from mining the under-researched links between strategic management, systems thinking, and action research, where there has been theoretical exploration in the past five years. This is especially so for a field where meaning, horizontals, and systems in value creation cannot be divorced from what Laudal (2019) terms the utility, supply, and conversion of public goods in his novel analysis.

Information Disclosure in Strategic Management

The information that managers voluntarily disclose to outsiders can have important performance implications for the firm. Information disclosure is therefore an important decision for managers and a growing area for strategic management research. In this symposium, we examine and discuss two major topics in voluntary disclosure research: (1) environmental disclosures that reveal the extent to which organizations are responsible members of society and (2) the information managers disclose in attempt to manage impressions. We focus not only on performance implications for the firm but also the important role of information disclosure on society. We discuss common themes, future directions, and collaborative opportunities.

Dark Side of a Bright Vision? An Integrated Vision-Action Model of CSR and Managerial Proactivity

Does it suffice to say your company is green, or must you also behave accordingly? Drawing from prior theories on the use of language and vision in strategic management, we address this well-known dilemma with a theoretical model in which corporate social responsibility (CSR) inspired vision statements and actions impart emotional (pride) and cognitive (goal clarity) effects and enhance managerial proactivity. Testing hypotheses on a large multi-year survey with 24,915 managers from 302 companies as well as an online experiment, we find robust results that pride and goal clarity significantly mediate the effect of CSR actions onto managerial proactivity, although these mediating effects are not found for CSR vision statements. To further ascertain if vision statements matter at all for managerial proactivity, we also build and test interaction hypotheses between CSR vision statements and actions, finding a positive effect via goal clarity, but not via pride. We draw implications for CSR-related strategic management research and managerial practice.

CEO Career Variety As Behavioral Antecedent Of Organizations' Strategic Alliance Portfolios

This study takes a behavioral perspective on the antecedents of strategic alliances. Considering the impact of CEOs on their organization’s strategic choices and behaviors, career variety and its motives pose a particularly influential and interesting executive characteristic. By analyzing a multiyear sample of the S&P 500 companies, this study offers two main contributions to management research: 1. The study connects TMT research with strategic management research to reveal a TMT-based antecedent of a firm’s composition of strategic alliance portfolios. 2. We introduce a novel concept to analyze and understand the influence of career variety as an observable characteristic. Results propose that while the alliance portfolio size increases with an increasing level of career variety of a CEO, mid-ranged executives are most capable of creating a balanced and ambidextrous strategic alliance portfolio as well as a healthy mix of competitive and non-competitive partnerships. These results contradict current market mechanisms revealed by previous studies, which point to an increasing market value of CEOs with greater career diversity.

The Balanced State of Application-oriented Public Research and Technology Organisations

Abstract Analytical tools that systematically take into account the contexts and complexities of innovations can provide valuable insights. Public research and technology organizations (PROs) are at the intersection of contextual complexities involving business, government, and academia. Hence, studying and strategically managing them call for specific methods. In the article, the Triple Helix (TH) viewpoints of business, government, and academia are used to study activities and processes of PROs. Building on theories of academic capitalism, resource dependency, and related strategic management research, a TH-specific analytical framework is proposed to assist in establishing a common language and structural construct for PRO strategic management. Using the framework, a secondary analysis of nineteen case studies from eleven European countries and Japan points to the main elements of the balanced TH regime PROs. In the case of these specific, historically embedded organizations and during their ‘endless transition’, attention is called to the strategic need for fit between the external environments and internal capabilities and the TH-related factors facilitating strategic congruence.

Entrepreneurship and Firm Strategy: Integrating Resources, Capabilities, and Judgment through an Austrian Framework

AbstractDespite numerous calls for integrating entrepreneurship research and firm theory, there has been relatively little work done in this direction. Likewise, despite many discussions, controversy continues to surround core theoretical frameworks in strategic management such as the resource-based view and capabilities theory. This paper uses insights from early research in Austrian economics to resolve both issues. We focus on Viktor Mataja, whose work provides an original, integrated framework for understanding the relationship between entrepreneurs and firms using the judgment-based approach to entrepreneurship, strategic use of resources in the firm, and dynamic capabilities. We show how this view answers various criticisms that have been raised against the resource- and capabilities-based views. This lays a foundation for a more thoroughgoing integration of research in entrepreneurship and strategic management.

The dissemination of corporate social responsibility into the intellectual structure of strategic management

This research explores corporate social responsibility's (CSR) dissemination into the intellectual structure of strategic management via employing a citation and co-citation analysis via network analysis. We collected data from the SCOPUS online database and selected 101 highly cited CSR articles for analysis. We identified four CSR clusters associated with strategic management research: ‘corporate environmental responsiveness,’ ‘corporate social responsibility and corporate performance,’ ‘environmental accounting and reporting,’ and ‘pollution and firm value.’ Our implications considered three pivotal stakeholders. For scholars, we suggest that CSR largely linked with the resource-based view of the firm and stakeholder theory, and we call for more attention to the significance of the triple bottom line. We suggest that private firms respond proactively to governmental regulations and distinguish between CSR and corporate sustainability. We outline research opportunities that explore essential dimensions of CSR related to strategic management but often overlooked.

CEO early‐life disaster experience and corporate social performance

AbstractResearch SummaryDespite an extensive upper echelons literature on how CEOs' prior experiences influence firm behavior, we know little about the influence of traumatic experiences early in CEOs' lives. Drawing on post‐traumatic growth theory, we describe how traumatic experiences early in CEOs' lives influence corporate social performance. Our theory points to the asymmetric impact of CEO early‐life trauma on responsible and irresponsible corporate social performance and to two boundary conditions: CEO age at the time of the traumatic event and the severity of the event. We develop and test our arguments in the context of large‐scale disasters experienced early in the CEO's life. Our findings advance strategic management research on the relationship between CEO experiences and firm outcomes.Managerial SummaryWe consider how traumatic experiences in childhood shape CEO cognition and values and, therefore, firm behavior. Our findings suggest that CEOs who have had to deal with traumatic early‐life events may gain psychological strength from such experiences and that their psychological growth informs firm conduct. Specifically, our findings indicate that experience of trauma early in the CEO's life is positively associated with corporate social performance. The implication is that boards aspiring to enhance this aspect of corporate performance may wish to consider the early‐life experiences of prospective CEOs. While early‐life experiences are unlikely to feature on a prospective CEO's résumé, the typical selection process for senior executive appointments is well placed to unearth executives' life histories.

Business strategy and environmental inefficiency

This study examines the relationship between firm-level business strategy and environmental inefficiency, measured by the total amount of chemical releases reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). Based on Miles and Snow’s (1978, 2003) organizational theory, we consider the environmental inefficiency of Prospector and Defender business strategy types. Using a large sample of U.S. data spanning the period 1990–2014, we find that prospector-type firms reduce their toxic chemicals, relative to defender-type strategy firms. Our findings remain robust to fixed effects regression, 2SLS analysis, and the Granger-Causality test. This study offers useful insights to environmentally concerned policymakers, regulators, and investment strategists. From a practical point of view, our results suggest that a firm’s business strategy could determine how it responds to the need for protecting the natural environment. By integrating strategic management and environmental sustainability research, we offer new insights into how business strategies shape firms’ responses to environmental efficiency.

Conceptual Framework for the Strategic Management

This study aims to reveal the development of strategy and strategic management thinking, which has become even more important in today's intensely competitive environment, and the direction of current research issues in strategic management issues. In this framework, a literature review has been made to make comments and reach new syntheses by examining the subject with a broad and deep perspective in our study. It has been ensured that the sources related to the subject of the article are reviewed, opinions, attitudes, and descriptions are found. In this article, the pioneers of strategic management thought and philosophy from the past to the present and the historical development process, the strategic management schools and research issues that have emerged until today, have been tried to be revealed through a literature review. In our study, the progress and developments provided by strategic management thinking have been examined.

Using social practice approaches for strategic management research in Africa: an example, design considerations and potential contributions

ABSTRACT African management theories and practices have received scant scholarly attention in organization and management literature. The recognition for vast opportunities for developing, adapting and extending management concepts, theories and practices in situ has become topical. Scholars have responded thus far, as a bourgeoning body of Africa-centric management and organization knowledge is gradually building as never before. The modest strides made to date covering research approaches are currently limited. By reference to an empirical study this paper explicates a more qualitative, nuanced, relational, and socialized strategy-as-practice research approach that is better attuned to examining strategy as a social practice in context. Extant studies have advanced arguments for the need and value in African-focused management research (the why), the current paper brings the salience of research approaches to the African-focused management scholarship agenda (the how) into sharper focus. The paper specifically, articulates a social practice-inspired research approach for theorizing strategic management in Africa.

The Resource-Based View and Its Use in Strategic Human Resource Management Research: The Elegant and Inglorious

Barney’s elaboration on the resource-based view had a major impact on research in strategic human resource management (SHRM) and beyond. In this article, I reflect on its influence and use in SHRM research and analyze the strengths and limitations of the original work. I also review various spinoffs and expansions of the original work as well as trends in empirical SHRM research.