Journal of Strategy and Management

Christos Sigalas; Victoria Pekka Economou; Nikolaos B. Georgopoulos

2013 Journal of Strategy and Management

doi: 10.1108/JSMA-03-2013-0015

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to attempt to develop a measure of competitive advantage by identifying a stipulative definition, composing an operational definition and constructing a measurement variable. Design/methodology/approach – The paper undertakes critical literature review, cognitive interviews as well as a pilot and full study, which were carried out by applying a cross‐sectional, self‐administered e‐mail survey with questionnaire in a fillable text‐processing file, in order to develop a valid and reliable measure of competitive advantage. Findings – The results have led to the identification of a conceptually robust stipulative definition, the composition of a comprehensive operational definition and the construction of a qualified variable, making the development of a valid and reliable measure of competitive advantage possible. Research limitations/implications – The newly developed measure of competitive advantage, exempt from past conceptual problems, could be used for valid measurements in future empirical studies in the field of strategic management. At the same time, authors encourage future tests of the newly developed measure's reliability and validity. Practical implications – The provision of a conceptually clear stipulating definition and a comprehensive operational definition for competitive advantage could increase practicing managers’ awareness relating to the conceptual nature as well as the latent expressions of competitive advantage. Originality/value – The findings contribute to the evolution of the strategic management field by providing a valid and reliable measure of competitive advantage that is applicable under any leading theoretical perspective in strategic management and it could better serve the needs of both empirical research and management practice.

Michael Abebe; David Anthony Alvarado

2013 Journal of Strategy and Management

doi: 10.1108/JSMA-03-2013-0014

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the relationship between founder‐chief executive officers (CEOs) and firm performance. Specifically, the paper explores two opposing arguments on the performance implications of founder‐CEO leadership. The first theoretical perspective argues that founder‐CEOs positively contribute to firm performance since they bring passion, vision, and external legitimacy to the organization. The contrary resource‐based perspective, argues that while founder‐CEOs help in the early years of the firm, they become less effective as the firm evolves into a complex bureaucracy since they lack the necessary managerial skills. Design/methodology/approach – In order to test these perspectives, the paper develops a matched sample of 82 US manufacturing firms and compared their performance using both accounting and market‐based measures. Independent sample t ‐tests and analysis of variance were used to empirically test the opposing predictions. Data were obtained from the Mergent Online database as well as official proxy filings of sample firms. Findings – The results of the data analysis indicate that there is a statistically significant performance difference between founder‐led and non‐founder led firms. Such performance difference is especially evident when the paper focusses on accounting‐based firm performance measures such as return on assets and return on investment. Surprisingly, founder‐led firms performed worse than those led by non‐founder CEOs. The follow‐up analysis indicates a significant difference in age and size among sample firms led by founders and non‐founders such that founder‐led firms tend to be younger and smaller in size. Research limitations/implications – Unlike other studies in the literature that found a strong positive impact of founder‐CEOs, the findings of the study provided empirical support for the resource‐based explanation of founder‐CEO impact on firm performance. Specifically, the findings reported here contribute to understanding the role of founder‐CEOs in the context of executive succession, strategy selection as well as organizational evolution. Originality/value – This study makes original contribution to the on‐going research on strategic leadership by exploring the performance effect of founder‐CEOs and the corresponding alternative theoretical explanations. In addition, the inclusion of both accounting and market‐based (Tobin's Q ) dependent variables provide a broader measure of firm financial performance.

Michael Carriger

2013 Journal of Strategy and Management

doi: 10.1108/JSMA-01-2013-0002

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present empirical evidence for the use of narrative to deliver bad news within an organization, specifically bad news about layoffs. The attempt is to extend previous empirical work, using narrative by senior leadership to convey corporate strategy, to a different leadership challenge and further explicate a model for understanding the effectiveness of narrative as a leadership communication tool. Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents further original research on the effectiveness of narrative as a leadership tool. And theoretical implications for leaders seeking effective communication tools are explored. Findings – Data presented to substantiate that narrative use, as opposed to a PowerPoint style, bulleted list approach, for delivering bad news, an impending layoff, is not effective at producing a clear understanding of the reasons for the layoff, confidence in subjects understanding of these reasons, or the belief in the honesty and integrity of the leader delivering this narrative. However, narrative presentation of an impending layoff is more effective at limiting the negative behavior impact of the message, by decreasing the subjects’ reported likelihood that they would be seeking another job and increasing the subjects’ reported likelihood that they believe the company can be righted after the layoff. Originality/value – Compared to the limited previous research on the effectiveness of narrative as opposed to a traditional PowerPoint style, bulleted list, as a leadership communication tool, the present research indicates that narrative use may be more nuanced and complicated than previously thought. Implications for the practical use of narrative and PowerPoint style, bulleted lists of information as leadership communications tools are considered.

Craig E. Armstrong

2013 Journal of Strategy and Management

doi: 10.1108/JSMA-06-2012-0034

Purpose – Research in strategic management has provided a wealth of contributions to the study of competition between firms, yet most strategic management theories were developed and refined for large firm contexts. This suggests the assumed theoretical relationships between strategy preference and performance may break down in the small business setting. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a data set from the National Federation of Independent Businesses to test hypotheses relating the strategy preferences of 754 small firms with the performance outcomes of survival and expected growth. Findings – Small businesses can focus on both survival and growth when they pursue competency‐based strategies, but they risk their very survival when pursuing flexibility‐based strategies. Virtually all small firms pursue strategies to compete, but some of the strategies they follow to pursue growth endanger their survival. Research limitations/implications – Because of life‐cycle and resource endowment factors, researchers should carefully parse differences between large and small firms when studying the relationship between strategy preferences and organizational performance. Practical implications – Small business owners should be aware that their choices of strategies to pursue growth may lead to unintended consequences, such as the demise of their firms. Originality/value – The paper demonstrates to researchers and practitioners how strategic preferences that presumably allow larger firms both to survive and grow do not have the same effects for smaller firms. The paper establishes boundary conditions for the effectiveness of flexibility strategies on performance in terms of firm size.

Sudi Nangoli; Arthur Ahimbisibwe; Sheila Namagembe; Hassan Bashir

2013 Journal of Strategy and Management

doi: 10.1108/JSMA-02-2013-0012

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the human dimension of project management by establishing the extent to which social networks influence the commitment of project stakeholders. Up to date, project managers still identify inadequate stakeholder commitment to project undertakings as a key antecedent of project failure and so efforts aimed at addressing this challenge are highly valued. The paper therefore explores the use of social networks as one of the possible strategies to enhance project‐stakeholder commitment. Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts a quantitative, cross‐sectional study design. Based on responses from 172 project stakeholders who took part in a sample of 92 citizenship projects conducted by major commercial banks in Uganda, hierarchical regression was used to indicate what happens to a model as different predictor variables are introduced The use of specific type of projects minimizes bias in results due to the unique nature of specific projects hence enhances reliability of results. Findings – The results from statistical analysis reveal that social network elements (network transitivity and network degree) are significant predictors of project stakeholder commitment. The results also suggest that network transitivity is a better significant predictor of project‐stakeholder commitment than network degree Practical implications – Project‐stakeholder commitment has been widely studied in relation to project performance and the study makes a number of contributions to the theory and study of projects. First and foremost, the paper studied project social networks and project‐stakeholder commitment in citizenship projects in commercial banks in Uganda which is a developing country. The study therefore contributes to an understanding of project social networks and project‐stakeholder commitment in citizenship projects of commercial banks in a developing country. The implication of the findings is that it provides a different view point of understanding the aspects that affect project commitment. A lot of focus has been placed on improving project performance in Uganda, but none has specifically focussed on building project‐stakeholder commitment through the use of project social networks. Originality/value – Earlier attempts to investigate the impact of social networks on commitment in projects did not study commitment among individuals. Also, no previous empirical study in less developed countries has given special attention to the effect of social networks on project‐stakeholder commitment especially in the domain of citizenship projects which have gained a lot of momentum around the globe. The study results indicate that getting concerned with the nature of social networks the project creates and the means it uses to maintain such networks has implications for project‐stakeholder commitment.

Mark Kriger; Yuriy Zhovtobryukh

2013 Journal of Strategy and Management

doi: 10.1108/JSMA-09-2012-0051

Purpose – Most of the thousands of studies of leadership as well as strategic leadership in organizations choose as the unit of analysis the individual leader. This choice runs contrary to the often‐observed fact that organizations have numerous leaders at all levels of the organization – in other words, a network of leaders, which permeates the formal organizational structure. The purpose of this paper is to re‐conceptualize strategic leadership by advancing understanding of: the effects of variations in internal complexity and external turbulence and the effects of choices by the strategic leadership based on those variations. Design/methodology/approach – The paper advocates a network approach to strategic leadership where there is a set of highly dynamic role changes, based on both human and social capital. The typology and propositions in the paper emerged over a period of many years of observation of organizations (direct and indirect) as well as reflection of theories on how strategic leadership actually occurs in medium to large‐size profit‐oriented organizations. Findings – The paper proposes a model of strategic leadership based upon four modes of single actor and shared leadership (stars, clans, teams, and leadership networks). The paper sets forth propositions for the situational appropriateness of each of these four forms and identifies avenues for future research to advance the theory. Originality/value – The paper cross‐fertilizes extant research streams in leadership and strategic management to create a contingency theory of strategic leadership that is closer to what executives actually experience in the workplace.