Journal of Strategy and Management

Radnejad, Amir Bahman; Osiyevskyy, Oleksiy; Vredenburg, Harrie

2020 Journal of Strategy and Management

doi: 10.1108/jsma-11-2019-0206

While a radical innovation can be embedded in new products or new processes, most studies to date have concentrated on barriers to radical product innovations, with little insights available about the challenges for implementation of radical process innovations.Design/methodology/approachWe theorize a set of barriers to radical process innovation based on a critical case study of an oil company. Our study employs data from 14 semi-structured interviews, one complete participant-observer in the process and access to all corporate documentation. The organization being studied was eventually unable to bring the new process technology to commercialization despite the technology having both technical feasibility and substantive cost savings potential.FindingsWe identify five groups of challenges that the company faced: (1) challenges in resource mobilization, (2) challenges in piloting strategy, (3) innovation leadership tensions, (4) tensions in managing shareholders' expectations and (5) product-process innovation tension (i.e. a unique situation when a company implementing a radical process innovation and simultaneously pursues the path to commercialize it as a product innovation).Practical implicationsSustainable development is one of the major challenges in our era. Process innovations are crucial for achieving sustainability without changing the final product. By providing a list of challenges that executives face in the process of commercializing a radical process innovation, we can help them to achieve sustainability more effectively.Originality/valueThe paper responds to the call to increase our understanding of radical process innovations by utilizing a unique ethnographic research methodology of active participant-observation complemented by independent third-party face-to-face interviews.

Nowak, Radoslaw

2020 Journal of Strategy and Management

doi: 10.1108/jsma-02-2020-0027

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether employees' understanding of their organization's strategic objectives could be used by business organizations to develop a desired type of organizational culture that will improve business performance.Design/methodology/approachStructural equation modeling (SEM) was conducted on the data collected in 2018 from professionals working in the healthcare industry in the USA.FindingsSEM revealed the positive effect of employee understanding of their organization's strategic objectives on the development of a serving culture, and the mediating effect of serving culture on the relationship between employee understanding of strategic objectives and performance.Research limitations/implicationsThis study emphasizes that having a well-defined mission and strategic goals may not be sufficient. Business organizations must also ensure that all employees clearly understand the meaning of such objectives. Employee understanding can become instrumental, as it could allow business organizations to develop a desired type of organizational culture that will support the implementation of the firm's strategic objectives.Originality/valueThe study is a valuable addition to past research. First, it advances the literature on strategy by exploring the critical role of employee understanding of their organization's strategic objectives in the context of culture and performance. Thus, it allows scholars to better explain how business organizations could more effectively utilize their process of strategic planning. In the domain of organizational culture, the paper contributes by identifying a new antecedent of serving culture. Furthermore, the paper also contributes to the literature on service management by identifying a mechanism that service organizations could use to increase their performance.

Wade, Michael; Bonnet, Didier C-L; Shan, Jialu

2020 Journal of Strategy and Management

doi: 10.1108/jsma-05-2020-0116

This paper provides evidence based quantification of both “actual” disruption of industries as well as a measure of disruption “hype”. The data cover a seven-year period from 2012 to 2018 across 12 industries. The authors’ complemented the research with a survey of 2000 business executives. Whereas there has been some measures of disruption in the past, no research to the authors’ knowledge has been conducted that measure both actual disruption and disruption hype.Design/methodology/approachThe current fascination with disruption hides an awkward truth, we assume it is happening, but do we really know for sure? Disruption is rarely defined and almost never measured. Equally, the influence of the hype around disruption is hard to gauge. The authors do not know to what extent hype is driving management action. This is worrisome as the disruption “noise level” can lead to unhealthy collective thinking and bad business decision-making. Some rigour is required. To craft winning strategies, executives should take a more evidence-based approach for managing disruption.FindingsThe authors’ failed to find evidence of any correlation between the hype around an industry disruption and actual disruption within that industry. So the important conclusion for executives is “do not believe the hype”. We found some surprising differences by industry between actual disruption and the hype by industry.Research limitations/implicationsDisruption is one of the most talked about subject in the field of strategy, yet there is little quantification. With this research, the authors’ aim is to advance the fact-based understanding of disruption. Disruption hype is never measured but has a strong influence on executives. The authors have quantified hype using online, search, social media and survey sources. Much more is needed to be able to measure hype more accurately.Practical implicationsThe authors’ recommend a set of practical guidelines for executives to support fact-based strategy formulation: analysis of actual disruption, scenario planning and strategic responses.Social implicationsThe “noise” around industry disruption is so high that it is assumed to happen. Much of what is written is quasi-fake news. The authors need to rebalance the debate with fact-based analysis.Originality/valueTo authors’ knowledge, there has never been any fact-based analysis of both actual and hype disruption levels.

Köseoğlu, Mehmet Ali; Parnell, John

2020 Journal of Strategy and Management

doi: 10.1108/jsma-05-2020-0102

The authors evaluate the evolution of the intellectual structure of strategic management (SM) by employing a document co-citation analysis through a network analysis for academic citations in articles published in the Strategic Management Journal (SMJ).Design/methodology/approachThe authors employed the co-citation analysis through the social network analysis.FindingsThe authors outlined the evolution of the academic foundations of the structure and emphasized several domains. The economic foundation of SM research with macro and micro perspectives has generated a solid knowledge stock in the literature. Industrial organization (IO) psychology has also been another dominant foundation. Its robust development and extension in the literature have focused on cognitive issues in actors' behaviors as a behavioral foundation of SM. Methodological issues in SM research have become dominant between 2004 and 2011, but their influence has been inconsistent. The authors concluded by recommending future directions to increase maturity in the SM research domain.Originality/valueThis is the first paper to elucidate the intellectual structure of SM by adopting the co-citation analysis through the social network analysis.

Chakrabarty, Subrata

2020 Journal of Strategy and Management

doi: 10.1108/jsma-04-2020-0084

Given that an industrial cluster contains a high concentration of numerous stakeholders, a firm in an industrial cluster often ends up forming relationships with many of the stakeholders. The research questions are as follows: Does stakeholder-based management always lead to greater value creation? What are the moderators in this association? This paper proposes that although relationships with stakeholders can act as a “catalyst” for value-creation, they can also act as a “retardant.” A combination of (1) the strategic nature of the relationships and (2) the policy environment determines whether the relationships with stakeholders act as catalysts or retardants.Design/methodology/approachUsing relationship-focused theory, a conceptual framework that adopts a relational view of stakeholder theory is developed. Given the high concentration of stakeholders in industrial clusters, the conceptual framework uses stakeholders in industrial clusters as a setting. A firm can form relationships with a variety of stakeholders in an industrial cluster. The strategic nature of a relationship with a stakeholder is assessed in terms of variations in strategic intent and intellectual spillover.FindingsThe key argument is the following: whether a relationship with a stakeholder becomes a catalyst or a retardant for value creation is contingent on the fit between the strategic nature of the relationship and the policy environment. For instance, in a probusiness policy environment, relying on relationships with stakeholders that maximize intellectual spillover can act as a catalyst for value creation. In contrast, in an antibusiness environment, not having to rely on intellectual spillover is a safer option.Originality/valueWhereas the literature implicitly assumes that stakeholder theory has relational essence, the conceptual framework developed in this paper adopts a relational view of stakeholder theory in a very explicit way. This paper applies relationship-focused theory by making explicit the different forms of stakeholder relationships. Such an explicitly relational approach in theorizing can help in more in-depth research on the link between stakeholder relationships and value creation. The conceptual framework will allow future research to analyze value creation in an industrial cluster, especially in terms of how stakeholder relationships can act as either catalysts or retardants.

Ato Sarsah, Sampson; Tian, Hongyun; Dogbe, Courage Simon Kofi; Bamfo, Bylon Abeeku; Pomegbe, Wisdom Wise Kwabla

2020 Journal of Strategy and Management

doi: 10.1108/jsma-03-2020-0053

The study explored the mediating role of potential and realized absorptive capacities in the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and radical innovation performance among manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).Design/methodology/approachEmpirical analysis was based on 357 manufacturing SMEs in Ghana. Various validity and reliability checks were conducted before the presentation of the actual analysis, which was conducted using ordinary least squares approach, run using SPSS (v. 20).FindingsFindings revealed that potential and realized absorptive capacities significantly mediated the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and radical innovation performance among manufacturing SMEs. Further, it was identified that ambidexterity in absorptive capacity also had a greater effect on radical innovation performance among manufacturing SMEs.Research limitations/implicationsSince the data used were cross-sectional, the relationships measured represent only a snapshot of time. Longitudinal studies could therefore be adopted in the future to complement the cross-sectional conducted.Practical implicationsWhile managers of manufacturing SMEs seek to achieve higher radical innovation performance through entrepreneurial orientation, it should also be noted that both potential and realized absorptive capacities have a significant role to play in this relationship. Managers must therefore also seek to invest time to build both potential and realized absorptive capacities, as they define greater innovation success.Originality/valueSome past studies have considered absorptive capacity as composite variable, therefore added both potential and realized absorptive capacities to form a single variable. Others also presented potential and realized absorptive capacities individually. This current study extends the body of knowledge by presenting an ambidexterity position between potential and realized absorptive capacities.