Strategic Schemas Research Articles

The Match Between Structural Attributes and Content-Based Orientation of Managerial Cognition: An Exploratory fsQCA Study of ‘Hidden Champions’

ABSTRACTStrategic decision makers interpret information and translate it into organizational action through the lens of strategic schemas. How should firms realize high performance with various strategic schemas? Cognitive content and structure have been shown to underlie strategic schemas, but few studies have considered them together. This study employs aggregation analysis to clarify the interaction between cognitive content (technology orientation, market orientation) and structure (complexity, centrality) in affecting the firm performance (FP) of ‘hidden champion’ companies, identified by the Economy and Information Technology Department of Zhejiang Province, China. The empirical method applies fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to generate strategic schema profiles for high FP. This exploratory study fills a gap in the literature on managerial cognition and provides key lessons from ‘hidden champion’ companies in China and their paths for small- and medium-sized enterprises to grow.

Extension of the strategic renewal journey framework: The changing role of middle management

This paper presents the findings of a longitudinal study of a large corporation's journey towards becoming an ambidextrous organisation in the face of emerging technology. By investigating the interplay between the top and middle management, the results show that business intelligence systems allowed the firm to pursue a controlled renewal journey that was data-driven, automated, and supported fast organisational learning. This substituted for active frontline and middle managers. The change in organisational direction was driven by a small and powerful strategic top management group, even though this was a multi-unit firm with more than 100,000 employees. The main advantage of this type of journey is that the organisation can fully realize the advantage of highly centralised formal planning and control while becoming resilient and ambidextrous. A well-functioning decision support system, organisational policies and communication strategy can substitute for collective sense-making and shared strategic schemas. The results also suggest that management control systems can have a profound impact on developing organisational ambidexterity. The article also provides further details on the nature and implications of the rhetorical tactics used by the top management team to focus on organisational attention and action.

Overcoming uncertainty in cyberspace: strategic culture and cognitive schemas

ABSTRACT An understanding of strategic behavior in cyberspace is often premised on the uncertainty inherent in the domain. However, little is said regarding the exact nature of this uncertainty and the underlying motivations that direct attempts at overcoming it. In response, this article advances a cognitive-cultural explanation of strategic behavior in cyberspace and argues that behavioral preferences arise from the schematic use of strategic culture as a remedy for uncertainty. However, the suitability of these preferences is moderated by the presence of accuracy goals. These accuracy goals must, in turn, dictate the extent to which these are deemed suitable. While two decades of cybersecurity research hints at the presence and significance of these mechanisms, little effort has gone into advancing this line of inquiry. Consequently, the article consolidates these findings into a robust analytical framework to explain strategic behavior in cyberspace.

Thinking like a specialist or a generalist? Evidence from hidden champions in China

Hidden champions are companies whose market dominance belies their low profiles. Experts believe that “the single-minded specialist usually beats the generalist,” reflecting the importance of managerial cognition in hidden champions’ development. Given varying levels in firm growth of hidden champions, a two-phase multi-method approach was adopted. In the first phase, a longitudinal case is analyzed for exploring the effects of different cognitive structural attributes in the growth of hidden champion; in the second phase, this article presents a panel data analysis of Chinese hidden champions to identify the structural attributes of strategic schema for their growth and determine how the regional environment and industrial structure moderate these relations. This study complements the view only emphasizing the positive role of complex cognitive structure in organizational adaptation by exploring the role of centrality in developing ‘focus and depth’ strategy. Additionally, this study also highlights the adaptive view of managerial cognition given the various developing stages of firms and the external dynamic context, offering an expanded perspective in the literature on managerial cognition.

Different Yet The Same: The Evolution of Disclosed Strategic Schemas on Sustainability

Different Yet The Same: The Evolution of Disclosed Strategic Schemas on Sustainability

Variations on Uzbek Identity: Strategic Choices, Cognitive Schemas and Political Constraints in Identification Processes by Peter Finke New York: Berghahn, 2014. 288 pp.

Variations on Uzbek Identity: Strategic Choices, Cognitive Schemas and Political Constraints in Identification Processes by Peter Finke New York: Berghahn, 2014. 288 pp.

Finke, Peter: Variations on Uzbek Identity. Strategic Choices, Cognitive Schemas, and Political Constraints in Identification Processes

Finke, Peter: Variations on Uzbek Identity. Strategic Choices, Cognitive Schemas, and Political Constraints in Identification Processes

Entrepreneurial decision-making, external social networks and strategic flexibility: The role of CEOs' cognition

This study presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of how CEOs' external social networks impact on cognitive factors (strategic schemas and self-efficacy in opportunity recognition – SOR) to affect strategic flexibility and organisational performance. The research question was addressed using LISREL analysis, and the model was tested using data obtained from 203 Spanish organisations. We show that large but not strong networks impact positively on strategic flexibility. However, both types of network significantly influence CEO cognition (strategic schemas and SOR), which in turn encourages strategic flexibility. Moreover, the influence of strategic schemas on SOR is quite high. These considerations of how external social networks impact on strategic flexibility through the mediator role of CEO cognition extend previous research in this field. We derive inductively a model of entrepreneurial decision-making, explaining how external social networks may make a positive impact on strategic flexibility and performance, depending on their composition and CEO-specific social and cognitive factors. Our evidence reveals the combined nature of decision-making modes to respond flexibly to their evolving environments.

The forgotten middle: Cognitive firm capabilities and the multinationality performance relationship

This conceptual paper, which offers an examination of the role of strategic schemas in the multinationality performance relationship, adds to the literature in three important ways. First, by drawi...

Strategic schema for the adaptive management of wild deer

Strategic schema for the adaptive management of wild deer

Mobile robot navigation using motor schema and fuzzy context dependent behavior modulation

This paper presents a novel technique to autonomously select different motor schemas using fuzzy context dependant blending of robot behaviors for navigation. First, a set of motor schemas is formed as behaviors. Both strategic and reactive type schemas have been employed in order to facilitate both the aspects of global and local motion planning. While strategic schemas are formed using the prior knowledge of the environment, the reactive schemas are activated using current sensory data of the robot. For global path planning, a safe path is first created using a Voronoi diagram. For local planning, the Voronoi vertices are treated as immediate subgoals and are used to form schemas leading to achieve optimized traveled distance and goal oriented robot navigation. Two motor schemas are formed as reactive behaviors for obstacle avoidance. The unknown obstacles are modeled using the sensory data. The coordinated behavior is achieved while employing weighed vector summation of the schemas. The adaptation of weights are achieved through a fuzzy inference system where fuzzy rules are used to dynamically generate the weights during navigation. A novel approach is proposed for fuzzy context-dependent blending of schemas. Fuzzy rules are formed using two main criteria into account: the first criterion reasons out the context dependent activity of a schema for achieving goal and the second criterion reasons out cooperative activity of strategic schemas with high priority reactive schemas. Comprehensive results validate that the proposed technique eliminates the existing drawbacks of motor schema approaches available in literature and provides collision free goal oriented robot navigation.

Strategic schemas, strategic flexibility, and firm performance: the moderating role of industry clockspeed

AbstractWe examine the moderating effect of industry clockspeed on the relationship between strategic schemas, strategic flexibility and firm performance. We employ two key properties of strategic schemas: complexity and focus. Using a sample of 225 firms from 14 industries, we show that the pattern of relationships among the theoretical constructs is different in fast‐ and slow‐clockspeed industries. The results suggest that complexity of strategic schemas promotes strategic flexibility and success in fast clockspeed industries, whereas focus of strategic schemas fosters strategic persistence, which is effective in slow‐clockspeed industries. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Principle explanation and strategic schema abstraction in problem solving.

This study was undertaken to examine the effects of strategic schema-acquisition tasks (problem comparison or problem construction) and the method of principle explanation (abstract or embedded principle method) on schema acquisition. Ninety-eight subjects studied a set of problems in probability, presented according to either method of principle explanation. Half the subjects in each principle-explanation group were then asked to compare analogous problems, and the rest constructed new analogous problems. To determine whether subjects generalized problem schemas, they were given new analogous problems to solve. The results showed that when the abstract principle method was used, schema acquisition was better in problem comparison; but with the embedded principle method, schema acquisition was better in problem construction. Results were discussed in relation to the importance of some fit between the presentation of problem information and the processes that will draw from or build on this information in tasks designed to allow novice problem solvers to acquire advanced problem representations.

Using schemas for diagnosis

Medical diagnosis can be considered a planning task: actions are decided on, then executed. However, unlike traditional planning tasks, new information can arise any time, changing the situation and invalidating the plan. In order to cope with this, the reasoner must be able to interleave planning with plan execution. Our approach to this problem is called schema-based reasoning. In this approach, the reasoner's procedural knowledge is represented as schemas, small packets of procedural knowledge which can be used to achieve a goal. When a new goal arises, the reasoner uses the goal and the features of the current consultation to retrieve an appropriate schema from memory; the schema is then applied to achieve the goal. If several schemas are active, the reasoner chooses between them using information about the current situation and information from strategic schemas. Our approach is implemented in MEDIC, a schema-based diagnostic reasoner whose domain is pulmonology.

235 cases of excessive daytime sleepiness: Diagnosis and tentative classification

A series of 235 consecutive patients referred to the Stanford University Sleep Disorders Clinic with the complaint of excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) were investigated extensively. A satisfactory final diagnosis involving a consistent syndrome or pathogenic process was made in all but 7 patients. In the course of this work a variety of tests, including prolonged polygraphic monitoring of multiple variables and CSF measurements before and after probenecid ingestion, were utilized. Different syndromes were confirmed (harmonious hypersomnia, subwakefulness syndrome); the definitions of others were clarified and extended (narcolepsy, drug dependency, periodic hypersomnia associated with menstruation, upper airway sleep apnea in children). Two new entities were tentatively identified (narcolepsy with sleep apnea, the neutral state syndrome). Narcolepsy and upper airway sleep apnea accounted for the majority of the cases (199). A strategic schema utilizing specific categories and frequency of occurrence in the case series is presented to improve the diagnosis of the complaint of excessive daytime sleepiness by the practicing physician. This case series was analysed in order to develop tentatively a meaninfgful nosology.