Research Projects: Centre for Strategic Management
For complete details of the different research interests and the research projects underway within the Centre of Strategic Management, please see individual staff profiles and visit the page on Strategy as Practice. Some of the current research projects in which members of the Centre are involved include:
Strategy Development in Practice
Strategic Change and Renewal
Organizational Capabilities & Competitive Advantage
Business Models
Corporate Strategy
STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT IN PRACTICE
Strategy Workshops
Strategy workshops and away days are common occurrences in most public and private sector organisations. They are seen as an important component of the strategy development process. However we know very little about their effectiveness. For the last 3 years, this research project has sought to understand the relationship between the practices adopted in such workshops, how they contribute to managers’ thinking about the strategy of an organisation and the implications for the adoption of proposals arising from those workshops.
For more information contact Gerry Johnson
Strategic Planning
Strategic Planning has a variable reputation, with some attacking it as an annual ritual delivering little value and others arguing for the benefits it provides in terms of enabling strategic integration across business units, and the development of commitment of common strategic goals. Despite these disputes as to its value, and the difficulties in practice of achieving commitment to shared goals through communication and participation, organisations continue to invest considerable time and resources in strategic planning. Indeed it could be argued that as increasing numbers of organisations seek to gain advantage from integration across countries and regions, yet also simultaneously allow local market differentiation as appropriate, the potential benefits offered by strategic planning mechanisms may become more important. This research project explores how strategic planning can be implemented to overcome the obstacles to using it as a mechanism to deliver strategic integration.
For more information contact Julia Balogun.
Strategic Decision Making in Meetings
One of the most critical events within the overall organizational activity of strategizing is the process of strategic decision-making. This process is often unfolds within the context of meetings, and is often highly political rather than entirely rational. Actions taken at meetings can have significant consequences for an organization’s overall strategic direction and positioning. From experience we know that decision outcomes can be influenced by both the skill with which both sides of a decision are positioned and argued, as well as the relative power possessed by those making the decision. Yet we still know very little about how this dynamic plays out. This research project seeks to understand how the real-time dynamic interplay of various individuals’ discursive strategies can influence the outcome of the strategic decision-making process. The project draws on a study within a large multinational corporation and the boards of directors of two separate business units during their monthly strategy meetings over a six-month period.
For more information contact Winston Kwon
ORGANIZATION CAPABILITIES & COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Strategy, Capabilities and Knowledge
The major argument of the resource and capability based view of the firm is that long term competitive advantage rests on companies’ organizational capabilities and knowledge base. This perspective is widely accepted but, the processes which lead to the accumulation and development of capabilities, the relation between resources and capabilities, the learning, knowledge sharing and knowledge sourcing activities involved and the interplay of individual skills and organizational capabilities are not very well understood so far. In this respect this project covers two objectives. On the one hand a theoretical model of capability development is developed with a strong focus on the micro processes involved (communication processes, power, causal ambiguity, etc.) and the corresponding methodological implications. A second objective is to better understand (external) knowledge sourcing activities in the course of capability development. This is done using empirical data from Biotechnology Industry.
Replication of Capabilities and Routines in Franchise Organizations (RECARO)
Franchise organizations contributed £12.4bn to the UKs gross domestic product in 2008. The success of these organizations depends on the ability to replicate organizational routines and capabilities whilst maintaining the balance between standardisation and local adaptation. Although these routines and capabilities are based on proven business models, franchisees sometimes do not follow the standardised routines. Some studies suggest that this may be linked to franchisee failure.
To date there has been limited empirical research that has shed light on this area. The objective of this research project is to explore how organizational routines and capabilities are replicated by franchisees across franchise organizations and which factors support or tend to hinder successful replication.
For more information contact Martin Friesl
STRATEGIC CHANGE & RENEWAL
Avoiding “Strategic Drift”
Strategic drift (or inertia) is a major challenge facing strategists. There are numerous case histories demonstrating that successful organisations can become trapped in established ways of doing things that gradually become “core rigidities” rather than “core capabilities”. Further the evidence is that for most companies major strategic change only takes place after such drift and the consequent downturn in performance. This research project has sought to identify successful firms that have not only avoided such drift, but have made major strategic changes without the trigger of major downturn. This has led to an identification of the importance of simultaneously being able to manage the exploitation of strategic capabilities, together with a capacity for exploration and innovation - what has become known as “organisational ambidexterity”. The research seeks to understand the origins of such ambidextrous capacity and how it links to the avoidance of strategic drift.
For more information contact Gerry Johnson.
Delivering Strategic Renewal
This research explores the actions and activities senior managers engage in to deliver strategic renewal through a discourse perspective. Discourse and narrative approaches provide a fruitful yet under utilised avenue for studying mature corporations, and how new strategic intents take hold and spread (or don’t) in organisations, since these approaches emphasize the political, social and multi-vocal nature of complex organisations typically underemphasised in other approaches. The particular focus here is on how managers in MNCs are rebuilding their European organisations to remain competitive a) to deliver new strategic capabilities in integration of action, whilst still retaining capabilities in local responsiveness, and to b) to deliver a new managerial logic of action which doesn't prioritise local at the expense of regional or global.
An associated project is exploring issues connected with breaking out of strategic lock-in (what is described above as strategic drift). Many organisations never recover from the inertia embedded in historical core capabilities and the associated downward spiral of poor performance. Can, and how do, organisations facing declining performance and the increasing redundancy of existing core capabilities as their environment changes, break-out of this downward spiral?
This research also covers issues to do with radical organisational restructuring and strategic transformation more generally.
For more information contact Julia Balogun
Strategic Initiatives and Change
Much of the work exploring the role of strategic initiatives in delivering change has been focused on how strategic issues are raised and promoted on to the organizational agenda. There is relatively little understanding of what happens to strategic initiatives once they have been initiated and the factors that might influence their ultimate success or failure in creating strategic change. This research project explores strategic initiatives within the context of pluralistic organizations. The goal is to understand how change initiatives emerge, develop, are operationalised and eventually succeed or fail to affect strategic change. Of particular interest is the role of framing – how meanings are manipulated by the proponents and opponents of an initiative – over the life cycle of a strategic initiative.
For more information contact Winston Kwon
BUSINESS MODELS
Making Markets: The Practice of Business Models
The press is replete with stories suggesting that the way firms develop business models (that interact with and shape markets) is likely to affect their ability to compete internationally. Yet we know very little about the micro, firm-level practices that underpin business models. Government policy initiatives have done much to promote macro-economic management and provide a helpful regulatory environment for business to prosper. However, the key to improvements in firm productivity lies in understanding what goes on inside productivity processes and how this links to the external macro environment. That is, we need to understand more about the process of ‘translating’ a firm’s market vision and business strategy encapsulated in their business model into localised, contextualised and enacted market practices. The aim of this research is explore and identify promising practices that enable managers to make markets through the development and adaptation of business models.
For more information contact Katy Mason
CORPORATE STRATEGY
The Role of the Parent and Value Propositions
This research has been focused around Strategic Management in Multi-business firms. The academic basis for this work is Campbell and Goolds ‘parenting theory’; how the parent (the corporate center) creates additional value over and above the business units. Research indicates that many corporate parents actually destroy value and some business units would benefit more from being in other portfolios (a better parent). The research conducted with Michael and Andrew relates to the types of value propositions the parent might exploit to help business units and the implications on the parents role, shape and size. This clearly influences the relationships between the parent and the business units and the parents role in setting strategy and making and influencing strategic decisions. This research has led to a number of white papers and publications.
For more information contact David Pettifer
Corporate Response to Environmental Sustainability Pressures
The natural environment has traditionally not been recognised in definitions of ‘the environment’ in management and organisational research and practice. There is increasing pressure on both public and private sector organisations to attend to the environmental and broader sustainability implications of their activities. In research and public domains we hear positive stories that organisations are increasingly addressing environmental and sustainability issues, as well as critiques that progress is often piecemeal and rooted in standard business practices. There is said to be poor understanding of the importance of particular drivers of corporate environmental response, and of determinants of proactive environmental initiatives. Research in this area also often lacks attention to the local and practical activities and challenges in relation to how organisational actors understand and define environmental issues for attention, and how consensus (or otherwise) over appropriate actions is achieved. This research seeks to better understand both the content and process of corporate responses by examining the ways in which food manufacturers in the UK are engaging with and responding to environmental sustainability pressures.
For more information contact Kathryn Fahy
