A study note on knowledge-uncertainty-based learning regarding strategic management

A study note on knowledge-uncertainty-based learning regarding strategic management

Issues and related key words in Strategic Management research: a sample of academic articles, sorted in chronological order

Years of publication	Issues and knowledge gaps as recognized in strategic management academic articles: extracts from the Strategic Management Journal	Key words involved
Article 1 1998	“A ‘customer orientation’ has been criticized for contributing to many things including incremental and trivial product development efforts (Bennett and Cooper, 1979), myopic R&D programs (Frosch, 1996), confused business processes (Macdonald, 1995), and even a decline in America’s industrial competitiveness (Hayes and Wheelwright, 1984). Christensen and Bower (1996: 198) add their voices to this chorus in their analysis of the impact of disruptive technologies on industry evolution when they conclude that ‘firms lose their position of industry leadership % because they listen too carefully to their customers.’ However, these views are seemingly at odds with the marketing concept that is the foundation of modern marketing. The marketing concept says that an organization’s purpose is to discover needs and wants in its target markets and to satisfy those needs more effectively and efficiently than competitors”; STANLEY F. SLATER1* AND JOHN C. NARVER. 1998. “RESEARCH NOTES AND COMMUNICATIONS:  CUSTOMER-LED AND MARKET-ORIENTED: LET’S NOT CONFUSE THE TWO” Strat. Mgmt. J., 19: 1001–1006.	Customer orientation
Article 2 1998	“Diversification by firms into unfamiliar product– markets is typically achieved by internal development of a new business from ground up, by acquisition of an existing business in the destination industry, or by some combination of these two basic approaches. These different entry modes often pose radically different options for firms contemplating diversification (cf. Yip, 1982).1 Recognizing that how entry is made is an important consideration for diversifying firms, some researchers have examined the motivations for and tendency of firms to rely generally on either acquisitive or de novo mode (Amit, Livnat, and Zarowin, 1989; Lamont and Anderson, 1985), and some others have empirically tested the consequences of preferred mode for aggregate firm performance (Simmonds, 1990; Busija, O’Neill, and Zeithaml, 1997). In the main, concern in these studies has been with determining the characteristics of firms that are more likely to pursue one mode over the other. In addition, a few studies have also theorized about and empirically examined factors that may drive the choice of either mode when the circumstances surrounding individual entries are known (Chatterjee, 1990; Yip, 1982)”; ANURAG SHARMA. 1998. “MODE OF ENTRY AND EX-POST PERFORMANCE” Strat. Mgmt. J., 19, 879–900.
Article 3 1998	“Despite an unabated stream of research on strategic groups across a wide range of industries, there is still little agreement over the research findings. Critics question whether strategic groups exist and point to the absence of consistent links between strategic groups and profits.1 Others complain of limited theoretical development, the ad hoc nature of key concepts, poor model specification, and problems of measurement.2 Perhaps the most critical concern is whether the study of intraindustry groups provides any information that cannot be gleaned from the study of industries and individual firms”; DAVID DRANOVE1, MARGARET PETERAF2 and MARK SHANLEY. 1998. “DO STRATEGIC GROUPS EXIST? AN ECONOMIC FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS” Strat. Mgmt. J., 19: 1029–1044.
Article 4 2000	“Two broad classes of explanations have been offered to explain the formation of interfirm linkages or alliances between potential competitors.1 One set of explanations has focused on the strategic or resource needs of firms. According to this perspective firms form linkages to obtain access to needed assets (Hagedoorn and Schakenraad, 1990; Harrigan, 1988; Nohria and Garcia-Pont, 1991), learn new skills (Baum, Calabrese, and Silverman, 2000; Hennart, 1988; Kogut, 1988; Powell, Koput, and Smith-Doerr, 1996), manage their dependence upon other firms (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978), or maintain parity with competitors (Garcia-Pont and Nohria, 1999). Thus, linkage formation reflects firms’ inducements or incentives to collaborate. A second set of explanations of alliance formation behaviour has come from the structural sociological perspective and has argued that the patterns of observed interfirm linkages reflect the prior patterns of interfirm relationships (Gulati, 1995b, 1999; Gulati and Gargiulo, 1999; Walker, Kogut, and Shan, 1997). According to this view, a firm’s ability to form new relationships is determined by the set of opportunities provided by its position in the prior network structure. Although both perspectives provide insights into linkage formation behavior, neither approach provides a complete explanation. Researchers from the strategic needs or inducements perspective have often assumed, implicitly or explicitly, that the availability of opportunities is not a constraint and that the supply of linkage partners is infinitely elastic (Arora and Gambardella, 1990; Hagedoorn and Schakenraad, 1990). The validity of this assumption is debatable”; GAUTAM AHUJA. 2000. “THE DUALITY OF COLLABORATION: INDUCEMENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES IN THE FORMATION OF INTERFIRM LINKAGES” Strat. Mgmt. J., 21: 317–343.
Article 5 2001	“As joint ventures (JVs) have become more central to parent firms’ corporate and international strategies, managing JV dynamics has also increased in importance. How ventures evolve and ultimately terminate are relevant strategy concerns since they affect parent firms’ boundaries, resource allocation and development, and market commitments. However, little is known about the consequences of JV dynamics for collaborators, chiefly because of the literature’s historical focus on JV formation issues (e.g., Doz, 1996). The resulting gap in understanding about JVs is significant because the management of post-formation stages of collaboration may have an important bearing on the total value the firm derives or sacrifices from partnering (e.g., Doz and Hamel, 1998)”; JEFFREY J. REUER. 2001. “FROM HYBRIDS TO HIERARCHIES: SHAREHOLDER WEALTH EFFECTS OF JOINT VENTURE PARTNER BUYOUTS” Strat. Mgmt. J., 22: 27–44.
Article 6 2007	“Recent scholarship stresses that business enterprises consist of portfolios of idiosyncratic and difficult-to-trade assets and competencies (’resources’). 1 Within this framework, competitive advantage can flow at a point in time from the ownership of scarce but relevant and difficult-to-imitate assets, especially know-how. However, in fast-moving business environments open to global competition, and characterized by dispersion in the geographical and organizational sources of innovation and manufacturing, sustainable advantage requires more than the ownership of difficult-to-replicate (knowledge) assets. It also requires unique and difficult-to-replicate dynamic capabilities. These capabilities can be harnessed to continuously create, extend, upgrade, protect, and keep relevant the enterprise’s unique asset base”; DAVID J. TEECE. 2007. “EXPLICATING DYNAMIC CAPABILITIES: THE NATURE AND MICROFOUNDATIONS OF (SUSTAINABLE) ENTERPRISE PERFORMANCE” Strat. Mgmt. J., 28: 1319–1350.
Article 7 2009	“How are resources exchanged and status utilized between partners in strategic alliances? What are the performance implications of such exchange mechanisms for parent firms? The economic rationale for resource needs and the sociological justification for status seeking represent two major streams of research in strategic alliances, especially in the partner selection process. Researchers who subscribe to the resource-based view (RBV) argue that resources of particular interest in alliances include financial capital, technical capabilities, managerial capabilities, and other relevant assets (Hitt et al., 2000). Partners should be sufficiently differentiated to provide missing elements or new/complementary capabilities (Osborn and Hagedoorn, 1997). Firms search for alliance partners with resources that they can leverage and integrate to create synergy (Das, Sen, and Sengupta, 1998; Lin, Yang, and Demirkan, 2007). Researchers who rely on the institutional perspective instead argue for a normative rationality of partner selection, contending that alliances are formed for the conformity of social justification and social obligation (Zukin and Dimaggio, 1990)”; ZHIANG (JOHN) LIN,1* HAIBIN YANG,2 and BINDU ARYA. 2009. “ALLIANCE PARTNERS AND FIRM PERFORMANCE: RESOURCE COMPLEMENTARITY AND STATUS ASSOCIATION” Strat. Mgmt. J., 30: 921–940.
Article 8 2009	“As interest in alliance capability has grown, we see two streams of research emerge over time that address different, but equally important, issues related to this subject. The first research stream focuses on how alliance capability develops in firms and investigates mechanisms that explain or lead to it (Anand and Khanna, 2000; Kale, Dyer, and Singh, 2002; Kale and Singh, 2007). A second research stream investigates what elements constitute a firm’s alliance capability (Gulati, 1998), rather than study how it develops in firms. Within this stream, the constituent elements of alliance capability are being studied at two different levels: One set of scholars is focusing on a firm and its entire portfolio of alliances, and examining skills that comprise a firm’s capability to manage such a portfolio of alliances— they refer to it as alliance portfolio capability (Hoffmann, 2007). On the other hand, a second set of scholars is focusing on individual alliances in firms and trying to understand elements that comprise its capability to handle or manage any individual alliance (Doz, 1996; Dyer and Singh, 1998)”; MELANIE SCHREINER,1 PRASHANT KALE,2* and DANIEL CORSTEN. 2009. “WHAT REALLY IS ALLIANCE MANAGEMENT CAPABILITY AND HOW DOES IT IMPACT ALLIANCE OUTCOMES AND SUCCESS?” Strat. Mgmt. J., 30: 1395–1419.
Article 9 2010	“A hypercompetitive industry is ‘characterized by intense and rapid competitive moves, in which competitors must move quickly to build advantage and erode the advantage of their rivals’ (D’Aveni and Gunther, 1994: 217–218). Frequent, bold, and aggressive competitive moves of rivals create a condition of constant disequilibrium and change (D’Aveni and Gunther, 1994). In the battle for king of the hill, challengers quickly climb performance peaks to dethrone the leaders (Ferrier, Smith, and Grimm, 1999; Smith, Ferrier, and Grimm, 2001), only to find out in a few years that they are dethroned by new challengers. Performance rank orders of firms change frequently (McAfee and Brynjolfsson, 2008). Proponents argue that a wide range of industries has exhibited hypercompetition in recent decades (Thomas, 1996; Wiggins and Ruefli, 2005). Skeptics argue that ‘hypercompetition is a self-inflicted wound, not the inevitable outcome of a changing paradigm of competition’ (Porter, 1996: 61). Some studies do not find empirical evidence supporting broad-based, long-term increases in hypercompetition (Castrogiovanni, 2002; McNamara, Vaaler, and Devers, 2003). They argue that hypercompetition may be limited to a subset of high-technology industries”; CHI-HYON LEE,1* N. VENKATRAMAN,2 HU¨ SEYIN TANRIVERDI,3 and BALA IYER. 2010. “COMPLEMENTARITY-BASED HYPERCOMPETITION IN THE SOFTWARE INDUSTRY: THEORY AND EMPIRICAL TEST, 1990–2002” Strat. Mgmt. J., 31: 1431–1456.
Article 10 2011	“This study analyzes differences in the innovativeness of subsidiaries of foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) in comparison to domestic companies competing in the same country. There appear to be two conflicting views. On the one hand, some research has argued that subsidiaries of foreign MNEs (henceforth, ‘subsidiaries’) are at a disadvantage in comparison to domestic firms because they suffer from a cost of doing business abroad (Hymer, 1976) or a liability of foreignness (Zaheer, 1995). On the other hand, other studies assume that subsidiaries have a technological advantage over domestic firms because the former receive knowledge and technology from the MNE (e.g., Buckley and Casson, 1976; Vernon, 1966). Unfortunately, no studies have compared their innovativeness and, thus, we still debate about whether they differ and why, and we are unable to provide managers with proper guidance”; C. ANNIQUE UN. 2011. “RESEARCH NOTES AND COMMENTARIES THE ADVANTAGE OF FOREIGNNESS IN INNOVATION” Strat. Mgmt. J., 32: 1232–1242.
Article 11 2013	“Firm performance hinges on the efficient and effective management of productive resources using knowledge-based routines. Do these resource management capabilities interact positively with resource quality and, thus, synergistically determine performance? A common perception is that there must be complementarities to be harnessed among resources and that by identifying and exploiting these, managers can add value to the firm. There is, however, no strong theoretical basis for this view. Indeed, while the independent effects of resources and resource management might be positive, there may be no synergies, or worse, such interactions might be negative”; MARCO D. HUESCH. 2013. “ARE THERE ALWAYS SYNERGIES BETWEEN PRODUCTIVE RESOURCES AND RESOURCE DEPLOYMENT CAPABILITIES?” Strat. Mgmt. J., 34: 1288–1313.
Article 12 2013	“How does deregulation affect strategic choice? Regulation puts restrictions on firm behavior. Economic regulation, for example, puts restrictions on firm decisions over price, quantity, entry, and exit (Smith and Grimm, 1987). Accordingly, one would naturally expect deregulation to open up previously untapped opportunities with few or no regulatory constraints. For instance, regulation might stifle incentives to innovate and differentiate, with deregulation opening up a new horizon in these directions. Despite the increasing deregulation of formerly regulated industries, such as telephone, natural gas, railroad, and electric power, relatively little attention has been paid to this subject in the strategic management literature (Delmas, Russo, and Montes-Sancho, 2007; Haveman, 1993; Reger, Duhaime, and Stimpert, 1992; Russo, 1992; Silverman, Nickerson, and Freeman, 1997; Smith and Grimm, 1987; Walker, Madsen, and Carini, 2002; Zajac and Shortell, 1989)”; EUN-HEE KIM. 2013. “DEREGULATION AND DIFFERENTIATION: INCUMBENT INVESTMENT IN GREEN TECHNOLOGIES” Strat. Mgmt. J., 34: 1162–1185.