Strategy Literature Research Articles

Capturing Value by Design

There is growing recognition that firms make design decisions during the innovation process that can isolate valuable knowledge from imitation. Our paper builds on this work using comparative case studies to abductively investigate how innovators strategically use design to capture value from innovation. Qualitative analysis is used to identify four distinct paths to rent generation via deterring, delaying, detecting and/or damaging a counterparty attempting imitation. By linking the impact of design decisions to imitation and then on to rent generation, we provide new evidence that design can operate as an isolating mechanism enabling value to be captured from innovation. This finding helps expand the strategy literature’s traditional focus on legal, economic, and social isolating mechanisms to encompass design and sheds light on new tools for innovation strategy.

Political Connections Formation as A Mixed Gamble: Evidence from Family Firms in China

The pursuit of potential benefits is an important motivation for firms to form connections with political actors, however, such connections may also create costs and risks for firms, dampening firms’ motivation in forming such connections. We extend the political strategy literature and conceptualize the formation of political connections as a mixed gamble wherein firms would selectively form political connections to pursue the potential gains while avoiding the potential losses to their endowment. We apply the mixed gamble model on family firms and propose that compared with their nonfamily peers, family firms will likely avoid connections that may result in a loss of their most important endowment (i.e., socioemotional wealth [SEW]) even if such connections may bring them potential financial gains. Instead, family firms are more likely to form the type of connections that are expected to bring future SEW gains despite limited potential financial gains from such connections. These relationships are amplified when family-based goals become more important for firms, and weakened if firms’ financial performance is threatened. Our analysis of listed non-state-owned firms in China between 2004 and 2016 lends support to our theory. This study extends research on political strategy and family business.

Tax Avoidance Culture and Employees' Behavior Affect Sustainable Business Performance: The Moderating Role of Corporate Social Responsibility

Employees' behavior and corporate social responsibility (CSR) can affect firms’ profitability and increase the corporate economic burden. This current research endeavors to explore how business firms navigate employees' technology-driven behavior and CSR sustainable practices for tax avoidance to affect firms’ performance. This study examines how CSR sustainable practices moderate the relationship between employees' behavior and tax avoidance to achieve sustainable business performance. The study incorporated the Maximum Likelihood Estimator (MLE) for the purpose of data analysis using the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique that is suitable for this sample size. The study’s target population is employees of small and medium enterprises located in Pakistan. The study has drawn a sample of employees and applied a convenience sampling technique. The findings show that tax avoidance, employee behavior, and corporate social responsibility positively affect business firms’ performance. The results further indicate that sustainable CSR practices significantly moderate tax avoidance’s effect on business firms’ performance. However, there is no condition to identify the relationship between employee behavior and firm performance. In theory, this research contributes to the corporate strategy literature by answering how corporate social responsibility sustainable practices mediate the relationship between tax avoidance, employees' behavior, and sustainable business performance. It shows that socially responsible organizations will engage less in tax avoidance behaviors. The results exhibit that the study provides a systematic, holistic framework to attain sustainable firms’ performance. The findings' generalizability offers future direction with helpful insights for business managers and policymakers.

An Examination of Organizational Crisis Communication Strategy

This paper examines Michigan State University’s (MSU) official communications related to the Nassar sexual assault case. Because of the public nature and media centric focus of the Nassar case, this set of communications offers a rare opportunity to investigate the role of a smoldering organizational crisis communication strategy. This study contributes to the crisis communication strategy literature by using directed content analysis. Unlike previous crisis communication research, the current study uses data posted over a four-year period. Results indicated that over time, in spite of a variety of strategic communication tactics that the number of university donors decreased while student applications remained relatively stable. Using the results, an extended model of strategic crisis communication is presented to guide future research.

MORAL VALUES AND INTRINSIC ELEMENTS IN CRAZY RICH ASIANS NOVEL

The main of this study was discovering intrinsic elements and moral values in Crazy Rich Asians Novel, besides the theoretical implications of ELT strategy. The qualitative study method was used in this study. The data were obtained from the novel's words, phrases, sentences, and utterances. Data were collected in three ways: documentation, interviews, and book reviews. Data analysis comprise specifying, reducing, itemizing, framing data and making conclusion. The novel's intrinsic elements included theme, characters, plot, setting, and subject matter; moral values in the novel included four aspects: commitment to something greater than oneself, respect for oneself, but with humility, self-control, acceptance of personal responsibility, respect for others and concern for their well-being, concern for other living things as well as the environment. The most dominant moral value was respect for others and concern for their well-being. This study was not previously conducted in other studies because it investigated more recent information about the exploration of moral values and intrinsic elements in Crazy Rich Asians Novel. This study encouraged English educators to use novels as a medium for learning literature in ELT strategy and the result of this study can be used as a resource for English educators and L2 students.

Agglomerations around natural resources in the hospitality industry: Balancing growth with the Sustainable Development Goals

Many tourism agglomerations are situated near natural resources, which implies a need to balance business growth with environmental preservation. Our analysis of the location decisions of 295 luxury beach hotels in Spain between 1960 and 2015 reveals two main findings. First, we confirm the positive relationship between the existence of demand-related urbanization services around natural resources and the attractiveness of agglomerations to new entrants. Second, we find that an agglomeration’s attractiveness negatively affects the density of firms in the agglomeration if that attractiveness hinders firms’ access to the same natural resources. Our results contribute to the strategy literature on agglomerations and provide a better understanding of how the tourism industry can work toward achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs). JEL CLASSIFICATION: L83, M13, M14, Q50, Q26, R30

Enhancing corporate sustainable development: Organizational learning, social ties, and environmental strategies

AbstractEnvironmental strategies—reactive environmental strategy (RES) and proactive environmental strategy (PES)—emerged as an effective tool for firms to respond to various stakeholders' pressures and mounting environmental issues. Despite their vital role, scant studies have examined how and why firms facing the same institutional environment adopt heterogonous, instead of homogeneous, strategies for achieving corporate sustainable development. To fill this research gap, this study anchored to resource dependence theory investigates how organizational learning (both exploitative and explorative) and social ties (both political and business) independently and interactively affect the adoption of environmental strategies. Using a sample of 272 Chinese firms, the data are analyzed through the SPSS 21, and the proposed hypotheses are tested through moderated hierarchical regression analyses. The findings reveal that firms that engage in exploitative learning tend to adopt RES rather than PES, whereas firms that engage in explorative learning are more likely to adopt PES as opposed to RES. Moreover, firms that are involved in exploitative learning benefit to a greater extent from political ties than from business ties as a means of adopting RES, whereas firms that engage in explorative learning benefit to a greater extent from business ties than from political ties to adopt RES. Our study adds value to the environmental management and strategy literature by clarifying the underlying mechanisms through which firms adopt distinct environmental strategies.

Post‐entry internationalization speed, learning speed, and performance: A meta‐analytic review and theory extension

AbstractResearch SummaryThe impact of post‐entry internationalization speed (PIS) on firm performance has become a central issue in global strategy research. This paper conducts a meta‐analysis concerning the relationships between two dimensions (i.e., international commitment speed and international scope speed) of PIS and performance, and the moderating effects of learning speed on these relationships among international firms. Empirical evidence from 60 independent samples reveals that international commitment speed positively influences performance, while international scope speed has an inverted U‐shaped impact on performance. Our results also indicate that learning speed negatively moderates the link between international commitment speed and performance, whereas it positively moderates the association between international scope speed and performance. Based on the findings, we discuss the contributions to the global strategy literature, organizational learning theory and time‐based competition view, and point at future research directions systematically.Managerial SummaryWe analyze the relationships between two types (i.e., international commitment speed and international scope speed) of post‐entry internationalization speed (PIS) and performance among international firms. We find that accelerating international commitment speed facilitates performance, while expediting international scope speed first facilitates and then inhibits performance. We also find that learning speed weakens the positive influence of international commitment speed on performance, whereas it strengthens the association between international scope speed and performance. These findings have important implications for managers in international firms seeking to achieve superior firm performance.

What can we learn from marketers? A bibliometric analysis of the marketing literature on business model research

Strategic management has extensively contributed to the development of business model research. Although marketing concepts (e.g., customers, value creation, delivery, and exchange) form an essential part of any business model description, from an academic standpoint, the strategy literature has been slow to incorporate contributions from the marketing literature on business model research. Drawing on mixed bibliometric techniques combining co-citation analysis (CCA) and bibliographic coupling analysis (BCA), we seek to fill this gap by exploring the origins and trends of business model research in marketing journals (285 articles published in 38 marketing journals). The CCA reveals three theoretical pillars labelled ‘business model rationale in marketing’, ‘business model conceptual origins’, and ‘business model literature developments’ that provide a consistent base for cross-fertilization. The BCA uncovers eight conversations organized into two research streams, namely ‘holistic perspective’ and ‘downstream perspective’. Considering these results, we discuss the partial appropriation of marketing issues by strategists and propose a three-pronged research agenda based on consumer data as a major source of competitive advantage.

Mechanism of ionized calcium (iCa) in odontogenesis stunting children: Review article including a new theory for future studies on eruption rate in stunting children

Introduction: The normal development of the craniofacial complex can be predicted by the eruption rate. Delayed eruption is a condition that is associated with stunting. Stunting is caused by a decrease in extracellular serum iCa levels due to Environmental Enteric Dysfunction (EED), inadequate nutrition, and hormonal dysfunction. Calcium is 99 % of hydroxyapatite's composition. Dental Pulp Cells stem cell (DPCs), osteoblasts, and osteoclasts are all highly affected by extracellular calcium (iCa) levels, because there was calcium channels and receptors are found in their membranic. The aim of the review is to discuss how iCa influences the odontogenic process and the eruption pattern in stunting children. Methodology: Literature review and theoretical approach using data from Sci-Direct, GoogleScholar, and PubMed, which have been extracted using the PRISMA technique for articles based on keywords. Result: The procedure of searching for data using an online data base resulting obtained a total of 295 articles found from 2002–2022. At the feasibility stage, 295 articles have been screened and reviewed according to the exclusion and inclusion criteria, which are related to the keyword study of the literature in the search strategy. 26 articles were finally chosen to be analyzed. Conclussion: iCa influences odontogenesis and eruption processes in Stunting Children. Serum iCa decreased in stunting children.

Digital governance mechanisms and principles that enable agile responses in dynamic competitive environments

ABSTRACT Being an agile company today is no longer just about timely recognition of early signs of change in order to defend an existing competitive position but rather being able to perpetually transition between a series of short-lived, temporary competitive advantages. While traditional IT governance approaches have lent themselves well to extracting value from a long-lasting competitive advantage, they can become a liability if agile companies need to continuously reinvent themselves in pursuit of a new, “transient” competitive advantage. To that end, a temporal dimension of IT governance (when and how fast to decide) becomes as important as its structural (who decides what) and procedural (how to decide) aspects. In this paper, we adopt a “ternary” view on governance and build on the extant literature in IS, strategy, and organisation design as well as exemplar case studies to explore how traditional approaches to IT governance structures, processes, and relational mechanisms are altered to improve sensing, deciding, and responding capabilities in turbulent business environments. These mechanisms are then summarised into four digital governance principles to guide future research and practice. Those principles are: 1) disciplined autonomy, 2) IS-Business convergence, 3) permeable boundaries, and 4) incremental financial commitment including fast experimentation.

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the hotel industry in Indonesia

The Hotel Industry has had numerous detrimental consequences from the worldwide crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic. This study aims to examine the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on hotel management and operations in Indonesia. A qualitative approach with semi-structured in-depth interviews was conducted with 13 managerial level participants in the hotel industry. This paper reveals that health protocols, pricing strategies, and cost-saving alter everyday management strategies. This study contributes to the management and operations strategies literature by untangling the dynamics of the pandemic situation. Furthermore, the suggested areas can help hotels recover from the Covid-19 pandemic by expanding the knowledge base. This study gives practical insight to support the hotel sector’s development and sustainability

Strategizing and economizing in global strategy

AbstractResearch summaryThe strategic management and international business fields have followed, in some respects, quite similar intellectual trajectories, as reflected in the push for a field of “global strategy.” However, a key distinction in the strategy literature—namely, Williamson's distinction between “strategizing” and “economizing”—has not been explicitly recognized in the international business/global strategy fields. We argue that progress can be made in global strategy by recognizing this distinction and exploring the interaction between “strategizing” and “economizing.” To lend credence to this claim, we offer a simple model of the entry decision which highlights both economizing and strategizing aspects of this decision. We also offer recommendations on economizing‐strategizing research in global strategy.Managerial summaryMultinational enterprises gain competitive advantage either by improving the efficiency with which they operate (by having unique resources, lowering costs, or improving managerial practices) or by exercising their market and bargaining power. Most research has emphasized the former source of competitive advantage. However, in actuality, the two sources are intertwined. We detail how they are intertwined by means of a simple numerical example of the entry decision facing a company that can choose between competing or collaborating with the local firm. We show that strategizing plays into the entry decision in this case.

The emergence of dominant design in the early automotive industry: an historical analysis of Ford’s technological experimentation from 1896 to 1906

ABSTRACT Technological discontinuities and dominant design models are among the most heavily researched topics in the strategy and innovation literature. In this paper, we attempt to illuminate the process of technological progress in the automotive industry, one of the most important contemporary industries. Drawing from a unique and archival database, we offer a comprehensive historical analysis of Ford from 1896 to 1906. Specifically, our study shows that an important catalyst for the emergence of internal combustion engine (ICE) technology as the dominant design in the early automobile industry was Ford’s technological experimentation. Accordingly, we provide theoretical contributions to the dominant design literature.

Does family matter? Ownership, motives and firms’ environmental strategy

Extant research has primarily focused on the economic drivers and outcomes of corporate environmental performance. This trajectory oversimplifies the motives for environmental strategies across all firm types and particularly overlooks how firm ownership presents other motives for environmental strategies. In this study, we leverage institutional theory to examine how family motives, underpinned by family members' desire to gain or preserve family legitimacy and socio-emotional wealth, affect ISO 14001 certification. Using firm-level data, we find that family ownership has a positive effect on ISO 14001 certification. This effect is stronger for firms whose names include the family name and also for firms located closer to large cities. Our study contributes to nonmarket strategy literature by showing that family motives underpin firms’ environmental initiatives. It also contributes to institutional theory by delineating the levels of legitimacy that spur nonmarket strategy in family firms.

Systematic literature review on entrepreneurial orientation in nonprofit organizations – Far more than business‐like behavior

AbstractWhile entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in nonprofit organizations (NPOs) is often considered as another business‐like behavior, the present systematic literature review changes this perspective by revealing that the construct refers to several specific third sector organizations' qualities and leverages financial and mission goals simultaneously. EO as a strategic posture of organizations is already well established in management and strategy literature whereas corresponding insights in NPOs are indeed expanded, but fragmented. To develop this research stream, a systematic literature review was conducted, that analyses the results of 76 studies about EO in NPOs. Besides describing current findings, this paper generates a comprehensive overview of applied constructs, drivers influencing EO, and goals promoted by this strategic posture. The context‐specific modification of the construct leads to the presumption that EO does not predominantly target business‐like initiatives, but holds a lot of potential meeting NPO's core challenges, such as the fulfillment of various stakeholders' expectations or diverse resources acquisition. The discussion elaborates to what extent EO serves as a viable alternative to highly discussed third sector developments of business approximation.

Overcoming political risk in developing economies through non-local debt

Infrastructure investments are essential in generating sustainable development but also involve extensive political risk and potentially unreliable local partners. We study how banks financing such investments use syndication with non-local partners to pool economic leverage from trade, investment, and FDI. Using 5928 of the world’s largest infrastructure and energy projects in 160 countries between 2000 and 2013, we show that banks pool economic leverage from banks with dominant economic ties to the host country and from supranational institutions. Our findings contribute three distinct elements to the nonmarket strategy literature. First, they highlight the strategic value of macro-economic dependencies in the management of political risk. Second, our study positions non-local alliances as an alternative to alliance partners in the host-country context. Third, our study is the first in IB to acknowledge the value of debt-side pooling of leverage. From a practical and policy point of view, our findings suggest that practitioners and policymakers should strive to improve the efficiency of debt syndication across borders as a means of mitigating political risk and encouraging infrastructure investment.

The neuroprotective effects of oxygen therapy in Alzheimer’s disease: a narrative review

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a degenerative neurological disease that primarily affects the elderly. Drug therapy is the main strategy for AD treatment, but current treatments suffer from poor efficacy and a number of side effects. Non-drug therapy is attracting more attention and may be a better strategy for treatment of AD. Hypoxia is one of the important factors that contribute to the pathogenesis of AD. Multiple cellular processes synergistically promote hypoxia, including aging, hypertension, diabetes, hypoxia/obstructive sleep apnea, obesity, and traumatic brain injury. Increasing evidence has shown that hypoxia may affect multiple pathological aspects of AD, such as amyloid-beta metabolism, tau phosphorylation, autophagy, neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, endoplasmic reticulum stress, and mitochondrial and synaptic dysfunction. Treatments targeting hypoxia may delay or mitigate the progression of AD. Numerous studies have shown that oxygen therapy could improve the risk factors and clinical symptoms of AD. Increasing evidence also suggests that oxygen therapy may improve many pathological aspects of AD including amyloid-beta metabolism, tau phosphorylation, neuroinflammation, neuronal apoptosis, oxidative stress, neurotrophic factors, mitochondrial function, cerebral blood volume, and protein synthesis. In this review, we summarized the effects of oxygen therapy on AD pathogenesis and the mechanisms underlying these alterations. We expect that this review can benefit future clinical applications and therapy strategies on oxygen therapy for AD.

Look at U: Technological scope of the acquirer, technological complementarity with the target, and post-acquisition R&D output

Different streams of literature in economics and strategy suggest that several characteristics of a firm's technological base such as diversity, breadth, depth, and R&D portfolio affect its R&D output. Separately, strategy literature on technological mergers and acquisitions (M&As) suggests that the relationship between technological knowledge bases of the acquirer and the target, such as their technological similarities and complementarities, also affects the post-acquisition R&D output. This paper integrates the knowledge from these streams to further our understanding of technological M&As by examining how the pre-acquisition technological scope of an acquirer, encompassing the diversity and breadth of its technological knowledge base, affects its post-acquisition R&D output. Our analysis of a panel of technological acquisitions suggests that the acquirer's technological scope has a U-shaped relationship with post-acquisition R&D output, measured in terms of patent filings. Moreover, technological complementarity between the acquirer's and target's knowledge bases positively moderates this relationship. Results show that acquirers have higher post-acquisition R&D output when their pre-acquisition technological scope is either narrow or broad rather than moderate. Besides, acquirers having a narrow technological scope benefit more from technological complementarities. Our findings have important implications for the effectiveness of corporate R&D strategy and M&A strategy in the hi-tech industries.

Definition, Operationalisation, and Measurement of Leadership Strategy: Application in the Banking Sector in Kenya

This paper aimed to define, operationalise, and generate measures of leadership strategy that can inform future empirical enquiry and analysis. In addition, the paper aimed to provide a conceptualisation of the notion of leadership strategy, situating the concept within the broader leadership strategy literature from which a working definition of leadership strategy is coined. From the definition, leadership strategy was then operationalised by developing a set of items that can be used to measure it. The items were subsequently subjected to empirical evaluation and testing within the context of the banking sector in Kenya. Using SmartPLS software, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were performed on questionnaire data collected online from 184 senior managers of 12 banks listed in the Nairobi Securities Exchange. The factors or indicators were validated with high scores of exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. All factors/indicators were validated and found to be consistently above theoretical thresholds. The study proposed an inventory for measuring leadership strategy using 24 Likert-scale items based on the empirical results. It is worth mentioning that while the items were validated in the banking sector context, each item is a generic measure of the corresponding factors and can be adapted for use in other research contexts. The paper established an empirical lead towards the proposition of an inventory for the construct of leadership strategy.