Journal of Strategy and Management

Arias-Pérez, José; Coronado-Medina, Alejandro; Perdomo-Charry, Geovanny

2022 Journal of Strategy and Management

doi: 10.1108/jsma-09-2020-0262

Big data analytics capability (BDAC) is the ability of a firm to capture and analyze big data toward the generation of insights. The literature has mainly focused on analyzing the direct effects of BDAC on different aspects related to firm performance such as finances and innovation. However, the lack of works analyzing the intermediation role BDAC could play is noticeable, particularly in organizational situations that pose great challenges in terms of data processing. Thus, the aim of this paper is to analyze BDAC mediation in the relationship between open innovation (OI), particularly customer involvement, and firm performance (financial and non-financial).Design/methodology/approachStructural equation modeling was used to test the proposed model with survey data from a sample of 112 firms.FindingsThe results show that BDAC has a partial mediating effect on the relationship between OI and financial performance, and between OI and non-financial performance. Nevertheless, this mediation is greater in the first relationship.Originality/valueThe main contribution of the study is to offer a broader research perspective regarding the role of BDAC in the relationship between OI and firm performance. This study ultimately questions that research tradition in which this role has been reduced to that of a simple application of data analytics techniques. Instead, the results show BDAC is primarily an organizational skill that should be articulated with key processes, such as customer involvement, to maximize the financial and non-financial use of the large flow of data coming from the main OI activity of low and medium-technology companies.

Wadström, Pontus

2022 Journal of Strategy and Management

doi: 10.1108/jsma-11-2019-0202

This paper expands theory on strategists by investigating how non-executive strategy professionals in multi-business firms strategize. In focus is the strategizing of two groups of non-executive strategy professionals: a corporate strategy team and eleven business strategists employed in each of the incorporated units.Design/methodology/approachA case study design was employed to explore privileged accessed data to gain first-hand in-depth qualities of strategists' work. The design was characterized by phenomenon driven immersed participatory insider research with retrospective reflection and theorizing. Data includes strategies, interview data, calendars, meeting minutes, workshop material and observational field notes.FindingsNon-executive strategy professionals in multi-business firms are either employed at the corporate center or in the peripheral businesses. Based on this location and their individual experiences they assume an exclusive content or an inclusive process strategizing orientation. In practice, the groups strategize tightly together.Research limitations/implicationsCase studies are useful in explorative research providing thick descriptions. While empirically rich, the results of this study are limited by the context of one single case. Future research is encouraged to confirm, contradict and refine the results presented.Practical implicationsThe insights from this study can help organizations regarding how to employ strategy professionals in multi-business firms.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to a recognized need to explore strategists' work. In contrary to the majority of existing research, focusing on senior management and/or strategy formulation, this paper highlighted non-executive strategy professionals' strategizing.

Bauer, Florian; Friesl, Martin; Dao, Mai Anh

2022 Journal of Strategy and Management

doi: 10.1108/jsma-02-2021-0046

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are an important strategic tool for continuous adaptation, sustainable corporate development and external growth. At the same time, M&As involve high levels of risk with mixed performance results even under normal circumstances. Even though the M&A market was continuously growing for the last decade, it was abruptly ended by the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic as executives were more concerned about liquidity than with long-term growth strategies. This raises the question how M&A behaviour is affected by the economic fall-out of the COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThe mixed method research design was employed in this study.FindingsThe authors particularly investigate how target selection as well as synergy management are affected by the pandemic. The study analysis reveals four archetypical responses to the COVID-19 crisis. The authors describe those responses in detail and analyse antecedents that seem to influence firms' acquisition behaviour during the pandemic.Originality/valueThe paper draws on survey and interview data of M&A practitioners.

Doeleman, Henk J.; van Dun, Desirée H.; Wilderom, Celeste P.M.

2022 Journal of Strategy and Management

doi: 10.1108/jsma-09-2020-0253

Implementing a new organizational strategy effectively nowadays is said to require open strategizing practices. The purpose of this paper is to examine the adoption of three intertwined open strategizing practices in conjunction with a transformational leadership style towards effective strategy implementation.Design/methodology/approachThe study was conducted within 37 geographically dispersed locations of a Dutch governmental organization. The top managers and senior managers were surveyed at two points in time (n T1 = 548; n T2 = 414) and group interviewed at T2. Exploratory factor and linear regression analyses were performed. The qualitative data pertaining to the specific way in which leaders can impact the relationship between open strategizing practices and strategy implementation was analyzed using the Gioia methodology.FindingsAs hypothesized, transformational leadership moderates the positive relationship between open strategizing practices and effective strategy implementation. This moderating effect was corroborated through the interview data in which the managers stressed the need for “intrinsically motivated” and “empowering” leaders to effectively support the adoption of their own locally-developed location strategy, as part of the overall strategy.Research limitations/implicationsDespite the timely focus on the three intertwined open strategizing practices, the findings are only based on the perceptions of the various top and senior managers employed by one Western public sector organization.Practical implicationsTop and senior managers who need to improve their organization's strategy implementation can apply the here tested three open strategizing practices. They should also be aware of the key role of transformational leadership.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to the “open” strategy-as-practice domain by showing how top and senior managers' transformational leadership style supports the beneficial effects of adopting the three practices.

Lichtenthaler, Ulrich

2022 Journal of Strategy and Management

doi: 10.1108/jsma-06-2021-0126

This paper is a step toward a sustainability-based view of firm performance, which focuses on how companies may achieve and maintain a competitive advantage in a circular economy that is increasingly dominated by sustainability.Design/methodology/approachThis is a conceptual research paper, which provides a coherent basis for the diverse literature about sustainability, corporate social responsibility, creating shared value, shared value innovation, sustainable design and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.FindingsThe paper complements extant reviews and dynamic frameworks, such as the natural resource-based view and the innovation-based approach, to understand how firms may profit from sustainability in their business ecosystems with multiple stakeholders concerning the triple bottom line beyond financial performance. A firm’s sustainability architecture at multiple organizational levels includes interdependent components reflecting environmental, social and economic sustainability, which enable firms to achieve more value and/or do less harm. The intertemporal renewal of this architecture and its interdependencies with non-sustainability components highlight the dynamics of sustainability transformations for understanding the sustainability–performance relationship.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to sustainability research by developing a conceptual framework, which may be a basis for integrating the variety of management-related sustainability research. It further adds to research into competitive advantage by clarifying how firms may profit from sustainability. Moreover, the conceptual framework contributes to business ecosystem research because it considers internal factors in an organization as well as external factors in a firm’s environment. Finally, this paper offers new insights into strategy dynamics because the intertemporal perspective of changing a firm’s sustainability architecture underscores the need for continuous sustainability transformations.

Arun, Korhan; Yildirim Ozmutlu, Saniye

2022 Journal of Strategy and Management

doi: 10.1108/jsma-01-2021-0019

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the mediating effect of strategic management impacts the relationship between dynamic capabilities and firm performance concerning environmental munificence in 3rd party logistics (3PL) firms operating in Turkey.Design/methodology/approachVariance-based structural equation modeling algorithm and correlation analysis were applied to survey data obtained from (n = 482) a top manager from 3PL companies.FindingsResults revealed that dynamic capabilities were a strong predictor for organizational performance, environmental munificence also emerges as a key predictor for dynamic capabilities and strategic management, and strategic management fully mediates the link between dynamic capabilities and organizational performance, suggesting that they function as substitutes in affecting performance outcomes.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper provides empirical evidence of the relationship between the dynamic capability adaptation, strategic management, environment and performance of 3PL firms. As a limitation, the results are based on survey research with a limited sample size.Practical implicationsOrganizations should manage not only dynamism but also the scarcity of environmental resources found to be significant on both dynamic capabilities and strategic management. Additionally, in the logistics sector, managers should focus on the big picture while they empower and lead capable followers to transform this strategic view into operational-level changes.Originality/valueDepending on the relationships between constructs, studying environmental munificence is a different topic than the dynamic environment concept in the effectiveness of dynamic capabilities of 3PL firms. As well as dynamic capabilities at the level of individual and strategic management relationship on organization performance are confirmed.

Shin, Ho Wook; Kim, Jinsil; Lee, Seung-hyun

2022 Journal of Strategy and Management

doi: 10.1108/jsma-11-2020-0330

In fragile institutional environments, firms often have no choice but bribery as the means to access the services monopolized by the government. Corrupt government officials whose resources are valuable to many different firms can easily find other firms willing to offer bribes. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and how this imbalanced interdependence exposes the bribing firm to the hazard of opportunism from the bribed officials.Design/methodology/approachThis study draws on World Business Environment Survey (WBES) data and the instrumental variable (IV) Probit estimator with Heckman correction for the potential selection bias.FindingsThe authors find that the more firms depend on bribery to acquire governmental resources, the severer the level of opportunism they encounter from the government officials. In addition, the authors find that although the presence of a legal alternative to bribery reduces the level of a corrupt government official's opportunism that a bribing firm experiences, the more firms depend on bribery despite the presence of a legal alternative, the higher the level of the corrupt official's opportunism that the firm will experience. Finally, the authors find that establishing a relational contract with government officials reduces the hazard of opportunism.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the resource dependence literature by finding that a greater imbalance in the interdependence between two parties in bribery exposes the more dependent party to a larger hazard of opportunism. The finding that an ineffective alternative to a current resource provider would not strengthen but weaken a resource seeker's bargaining power expands the literature. The authors also contribute to the corruption research by showing the significant strategic, not legal, risk to bribing firms of engaging in bribery, which to date has not been sufficiently discussed.

Anwar, Jamil; Bibi, Aqsa; Ahmad, Nisar

2022 Journal of Strategy and Management

doi: 10.1108/jsma-01-2021-0002

This paper presents a comprehensive review of academic research dedicated to the field of Behavioral Strategy. Based on a series of Bibliometric and network analyses, the paper identifies the prominent trend and growth patterns pertaining to the evolution of this important strategic management subfield; it documents which particular journals, articles and authors have most influenced its development, and it maps the intellectual structure and network of authors, publications and countries. Finally, the paper considers the substantive research themes emerging from the analyses reported, in terms of their implications for future work.Design/methodology/approachThe authors undertook a series of Bibliometric and network analyses of 217 relevant articles, published between 1975 and 2020, in journals listed in the Scopus database, using R-studio and VOSviewer. Articles incorporated in the study were selected based on relevant key terms searched from the title, abstract and list of keywords associated with each publication.FindingsThe results demonstrate that behavioral strategy has enjoyed robust and sustained growth, with widespread impact across many areas of the heterogeneous business and management field as a whole. Three distinct periods are identified: an infancy stage (prior to 1999); a steady growth stage (1999–2010); and a take-off stage (2011 onwards). The top three journals in terms of content coverage, based on the number of relevant articles published in relation to behavioral strategy, are Strategic Management Journal, Advances in Strategic Management (AiSM) and the Journal of Management, while the top three most influential journals, in terms of citations pertaining to Behavioral Strategy, based on an analysis of citations in the Scopus database, are Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Perspectives and Journal of Management Studies. Gerard P. Hodgkinson and Thomas C. Powell are the most prolific authors. The emerging themes based on intellectual structures have been identified as Behavioral Strategy, Behavioral Theory of Firm; Strategic Leadership and Dynamic Capabilities; and Strategic Cognition and Decision Making.Practical implicationsThe study contributes to knowledge advancement concerning Behavioral Strategy by opening new possibilities to discover important research areas.Originality/valueThe study is the first of its kind on Behavioral Strategy providing a comprehensive systematic literature review.