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The dual importance of centrally induced strategic intent and the ability to engage in autonomous strategic initiatives has been demonstrated in both qualitative and quantitative empirical studies over the past decades. However, the particular mechanisms required to facilitate the interaction between these strategy-making approaches and achieve better corporate performance are less clear. The authors argue that the commonly conceived but rarely examined role of the strategic control process is essential to the implied adaptive performance dynamic. Although the strategic control typically is conceived as the diagnostic monitoring of outcomes, the authors contend that an interactive control (IC) mechanism is conducive to superior performance outcomes. To examine this, the authors use the extant strategy literature to generate the basic hypothesized relationships and conduct an empirical study based on a large corporate sample to uncover the intricate strategy-making model. The analyses show that adherence to ICs is an essential mediator for the positive combined effects of strategic planning and autonomous strategy-making processes.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

This chapter contends that the international business (IB) and strategic management (SM) fields have many commonalities that should be considered in a turbulent globalized business context. IB studies refer to the need for local integration and local adaptation whereas empirics in SM pinpoint the complementary effects of central planning and decentralized decision-making. We present and synthesize these rather field specific perspectives and try to synthesize insights from both fields in an adaptive strategy-making model including the effects of autonomous subsidiary initiatives and intended mandates from corporate headquarters. The model considers local subsidiary actions of both operational and strategic nature and we argue that it may be futile to distinguish between these effects as incremental operational responses can cumulate into more substantial changes over time with dimensions of strategic adaptation. The model provides a foundation for further considerations about how to combine central intent and direction with decentralization and autonomous initiatives in the multinational corporation.

The combined roles of strategic planning and decentralized strategy-making remain an essential issue in strategy research and its resolution has implications for management practice. To this end the current study considers the added effects of adopted leadership style and use of interactive controls and thereby uncovers new interesting insights about the combined strategy-making process. The authors use structural equation analyses to investigate these more fine-grained relationships based on an updated cross-sectional dataset from among the largest companies in Denmark. The analyses find that a participative leadership style drives the application of interactive controls, which in turn has a positive interaction effect on the relationship between strategic planning and corporate performance. A participative leadership style also exerts positive influence on autonomous strategic actions, which in turn has a negative direct relationship to performance, but a positive interaction effect on performance together with use of interactive controls. The authors discuss the theoretical foundation for these intricate relationships and consider opportunities to extract further research insights.

The study here responds to the view that the crucial problem in strategic management (research) is firm heterogeneity – why firms adopt different strategies and structures, why heterogeneity persists, and why competitors perform differently. The present study applies complexity theory tenets and a “neo-configurational perspective” of Misangyi et al. (2016) in proposing complex antecedent conditions affecting complex outcome conditions. Rather than examining variable directional relationships using null hypotheses statistical tests, the study examines case-based conditions using somewhat precise outcome tests (SPOT). The complex outcome conditions include firms with high financial performances in declining markets and firms with low financial performances in growing markets – the study focuses on seemingly paradoxical outcomes. The study here examines firm strategies and outcomes for separate samples of cross-sectional data of manufacturing firms with headquarters in one of two nations: Finland (n = 820) and Hungary (n = 300). The study includes examining the predictive validities of the models. The study contributes conceptual advances of complex firm orientation configurations and complex firm performance capabilities configurations as mediating conditions between firmographics, firm resources, and the two final complex outcome conditions (high performance in declining markets and low performance in growing markets). The study contributes by showing how fuzzy-logic computing with words (Zadeh, 1966) advances strategic management research toward achieving requisite variety to overcome the theory-analytic mismatch pervasive currently in the discipline (Fiss, 2007, 2011) – thus, this study is a useful step toward solving the crucial problem of how to explain firm heterogeneity.

This study of a market-leader in a turbulent hostile telecommunications market uncovers how the competitive context influences strategy-making and cultivates central control that opposes autonomous initiatives. It shows how a highly competitive industry context reduces organizational slack that inhibits autonomy and drives central actions. Strategic initiatives primarily arise as deliberate actions induced by top management. This creates an information gap between ongoing experiences gained by employees operating in the periphery of the organization and the perceptions of decision-makers at the corporate center. In this organizational setting, the authors observe maverick behavior among entrepreneurial individuals that deliberately circumvent the formal rules to turn autonomous initiatives into viable strategic ventures in the best interest of the firm. Where conventional views presume that power delegation and organizational slack are necessary for autonomous strategic initiatives to emerge, the authors find that central control can provoke autonomous rule-breaking maverick behavior among resource-deprived entrepreneurial individuals inside the organization.

Strategic adaptation in complex environments with frequent changes must balance the search for innovative opportunistic ventures and conscious pursuit to achieve established goals and outcomes. This creates a tension between attempted efficiency gains from tight strategic controls that avoid diversion of corporate resources and the facilitation of dispersed initiatives in search for business opportunities. To assess this conundrum, the authors present an interactive strategic control model that combines planning and participative strategy-making with interactive control processes. This combination of management practices arguably creates an adaptive system that drives the upside performance outcomes from a guided adaptation of opportunistic insights. Various hypotheses are developed and tested based on survey data from among the 500 largest firms in Denmark. The results suggest a direct relationship between interactive controls, strategic planning, and participative leadership on upside performance outcomes. Moreover, the positive effect from interactive controls on the upside potential is enhanced by participative decisions.

In this paper, we investigate how digital technology disruptors and the incumbents who stand to be disrupted by them frame their arguments to transform or sustain existing institutional frameworks to enable or deter the market entry of these technologies. Using a longitudinal, comparative case analysis of three digital technologies – namely, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), cloud antenna, and over-the-top (OTT) technologies – we explore how stakeholders use public interest frames for this purpose. We find that entrepreneurs use three specific frames to drive institutional change for the successful adoption of digital technologies in the presence of established incumbents and powerful regulators: frames that emphasize the broad public appeal of the new digital technology; frames that emphasize efficiency, democracy, and technological advancement; and frames that emphasize present as well as future benefits to the public. We find that constructing interpretations of what serves the public interest is the primary tactic used by disruptors to gain market entry, and an equally popular weapon for incumbents to block the entry of new digital technologies. These interpretations lead to a framing contest aimed at influencing regulators and obtaining a more favorable institutional environment. Our empirical findings illustrate that new digital technologies themselves are not the sole contributors to institutional change. Rather, institutional outcomes associated with the introduction of new digital technologies are shaped by how disruptors and incumbents use public interest frames and how regulators react to these frames.

The chapter presents a theoretical framework that deals with the basic question of how networks and industries coevolve. We draw upon the structural and relational perspectives of networks to theorize about changes occurring in interfirm networks over time and the coevolutionary linkage of these changes to the industry life cycle. We further extend the widely accepted industry life cycle model by claiming that industry-specific evolutionary patterns impact the structure of the network’s relations, which in turn lead to diversification in the sources of innovation and to variation in the patterns of industrial evolution.

Strategy and marketing scholars look at strategic issues from different points of view and attempt to explain strategic choice and performance from their unique perspectives. This paper combines these perspectives in the context of international ventures and develops a conceptual framework integrating international marketing strategy decisions with entry mode decisions. The resulting contingency framework extends the hierarchical entry‐mode decision model and allows for a better specification of the strategy‐performance relationship in international business.