Crossing the great divide of strategic entrepreneurship: Transitioning between exploration and exploitation

Managing uncertainty effectively is perhaps one of the most significant challenges a firm's decision makers face today. Strategic entrepreneurship—defined as exploration for future sources of competitive advantage, combined with exploitation of current sources of competitive advantage—has been proposed as a means via which decision makers can manage uncertainty. In this article, we discuss the transition between exploration and exploitation activities within organizations as a vital part of strategic entrepreneurship; this transition process can involve various types of internal firm challenges. Additionally, we highlight various sources for these internal challenges and mechanisms through which firms can overcome them.     

Strategic initiative portfolios: How to manage strategic challenges better than one at a time

In many firms, strategic initiatives lead to frustration rather than performance improvements and strategic renewal. One frequently overlooked key to driving value through strategic initiatives lies in shifting the focus from launching disconnected individual strategic initiatives to managing an integrated portfolio of initiatives. This article identifies five key management practices that allow firms to address obstacles to effective initiative management and to enhance value creation through the deliberate management of initiative portfolios.     

Strategic partnerships and the internationalisation process of software SMEs

This research investigates the nature of strategic partnering activities of software SMEs (small-to-medium-sized enterprises), their motivations to engage in strategic partnerships as part of the internationalisation process, the key benefits achieved and the main challenges encountered. It explores managers’ perceptions of partnership activities through a qualitative research methodology focussing on Irish indigenous firms. Findings suggest that strategic partnerships were initiated to take advantage of firm synergy, reputation and credibility advantages. Partnerships also served as an important foreign market entry mechanism allowing firms to accelerate sales cycles and reduce risk in overseas markets. Challenges facing firms included partner selection and issues of control. Directions for further research are highlighted.     

Training strategic thinking: Experimental evidence

Strategic behavior is crucial for strong firm performance, especially in competitive environments. Thus, designing a good strategy is a key issue for firms. Designing a strategy requires a combination of strategic thinking—which involves analyzing a firm's strategic environment, defining a vision of its future, and devising new ideas to out-think competitors – and strategic planning – which implies using these ideas to formulate a business plan. Although many firms excel at strategic planning, few devote enough resources to strategic thinking, which results in strategic insanity (i.e., firms repeatedly applying the same strategies with the expectation of different outcomes). To foster a strategic environment within a firm, firm managers and other workers must show willingness for active involvement in a firm's strategic decisions. Nevertheless, not everybody has the skills to do so, as many firms lack work force training programs. This study shows, experimentally, how training affects firms' strategic behavior. The starting point is two groups of individuals with initially equal qualifications who play in a sequential game whose rules hinder the calculation of equilibria. The members of only one of the groups previously receive a treatment entailing a process of training and learning that aims at fostering strategic thinking. The results point to a significant increase in the number of strategic decisions in the treatment group in sharp contrast to the control group, confirming the initial hypothesis (i.e., the positive impact of training).     

我国企业环境变迁与企业战略模式选择

本文对我国企业内外部环境变迁进行了分析,指出企业除对传统的环境因素进行分析外,还应关注最新动态.在动态环境下,我国企业应考虑选择建立战略柔性体系和战略联盟等以应对环境的不确定性.作者还提出了可指导企业在环境变迁条件下进行战略选择的新模式.     

Mitigate,tolerate or relocate? Offshoring challenges,strategic imperatives and resource constraints

This paper examines key firm-level factors influencing initial strategic responses to offshoring implementation challenges. Comparative case findings indicate that firms are likely to try to mitigate challenges if they perceive to have control over their cause; if strategic objectives are diverse; and if firms have abundant resources available. By comparison, firms tolerate challenges if cost is a strategic imperative, or if resource endowments are limited. Firms relocate operations temporarily or permanently in particular if challenges are externally caused, whereby temporary relocation requires investments into flexible global infrastructures. Findings reveal critical contingencies of capability development and learning in offshoring and beyond.     

How to create a realistic customer journey map

Although many articles discuss customer journey mapping (CJM), both academics and practitioners still question the best ways to model the consumer decision journey. We contend that most customer journey maps are critically flawed. They assume all customers of a particular organization experience the same organizational touchpoints and view these touchpoints as equally important. Furthermore, management lacks an understanding of how to use CJM as a cross-functional, strategic tool that promotes service innovation. This article proposes a solution to the unwieldy complexity of CJM by linking customer research to the CJM process and by showing managers how to develop a customer journey map that improves a customer's experience at each touchpoint. Using the case of an actual retail mall, we show that common CJM assumptions about the equal importance of all touchpoints are fundamentally wrong, and how easy it is for retail managers and strategic planners to make incorrect judgements about customer experience. This article demonstrates through a case study how customer research helped a mall's strategic management team understand which touchpoints were more or less critical to customer experience. It also shows key strategic initiatives at each touchpoint, resulting in cross-functional input aimed to advance service innovation at the mall.     

Strategic orientation of high-technology firms in a transitional economy

Strategic orientation is a critical factor for a firm's competitiveness in a transitional economy context but it is understudied in the current literature. This article examines the antecedents of strategic orientation from both the socio-cognitive and resource-based view perspectives. The study posits that the strategic orientations of firms in a transitional economy context are influenced by the top managers’ cognitions and organizational resources. Based on a national survey of high-technology firms in China, the study finds that a stronger market-focused strategic orientation was facilitated by managerial cognitions about the future of the industry and current operation and performance of the firm, as well as organizational resources including an R&D infrastructure, technological alliance, and top managers' foreign experience. The study confirms that strategic orientations should be examined from multiple theoretical perspectives.     

Strategic reference points in family firms

Family firms are classically seen as risk averse organizations, and this is evident in their generally lower R&D investments compared to non-family firms. Recent research, however, challenges this predominant view and suggests that family firms can embrace higher strategic risk when faced with threats to their family-centered goals. Still, the internal and external conditions that drive variations in the strategic risk taking behaviors of family firms are little known and understood. This article adds to this literature by developing and testing a conceptual model of strategic risk taking that incorporates behavioral theory, family business literature, and the logic of the strategic reference point theory. With recognition that the interplay between family and economic goals determines heterogeneity in strategic actions of family firms, this model suggests that family managers respond differentially to the feedback information regarding internal and external reference points, and consequently identifies key drivers of variation in the R&D investment behavior of family firms. By examining the pattern in R&D investments of 437 Spanish private manufacturing firms from 2000 to 2006, this study shows how strategic inputs, strategic outputs, and external benchmarks produce variations in strategic decisions about R&D investments in family and non-family firms. The findings offer insights into how internal and external reference points are considered in family firms’ decision making, thereby contributing a deeper understanding into the circumstances under which family goals cope or collide with the economic goals of the firm, and how this influences strategic risk decisions in family firms.     

Global talent management and global talent challenges: Strategic opportunities for IHRM

The need for multinational firms to be as competitive in the global marketplace as possible has increased dramatically over the past twenty years. For international human resource management this has meant many strategic opportunities to international human resource management. An excellent example of such an opportunity is that which exists regarding the management of talent. This opportunity began to develop in the late 1990s with the advent of the challenge of “global talent management.” During the past few years this opportunity has expanded to include challenges dealing with talent shortages, talent surpluses, locating and relocating talent, and compensation levels of talent. Together, these conditions are all “global talent challenges”. In this article we describe these several global talent challenges and the strategic opportunities they present to firms and propose the implications of these for firms and for the field of international human resource management.     

Toward Dynamic Corporate Stakeholder Responsibility

Today, sustainable relations with a broad range of key stakeholders are not only important from a normative business ethics perspective, but also from an entrepreneurial viewpoint to allow and support the long-term survival of a firm. We will argue that the traditional conception of a firm’s corporate social responsibility does not reflect this view and that a comprehensive and dynamic conception of a firm’s responsibilities is necessary to map the reality of business practice and to manage the challenges implied by sustainability. We think that distributive justice, that is the way in which firms involve their stakeholders in their wealth creation and dissemination processes, provides a comprehensive understanding of corporate responsibilities. Concerning procedural justice, we will discuss how firms involve stakeholders in their strategic processes according to their contribution to wealth creation. In the course of the article, we will propose a framework along with three design principles that can be used for shaping dynamic and comprehensive corporate responsibilities, and which thereby allow a sustainable procedure for changing business and non-business environments.     

The customisation framework for roadmapping product-service integration

Product-service integration is becoming a dominant contemporary trend, motivated by how technology can shape areas of potential product/service interactivity and triggers interactions. Since the role of technology differs from case to case, the strategic planning of product-service integration should focus on accommodating the real-life business situation. In response, this paper suggests a customisation framework for product-service roadmapping according to the technological interface involved, and provides practical guidance in its implementation. This framework consists of five steps in three main stages. The first deals with the structural determination of roadmapping, planning ??what to plan??, determining the role of technology and the roadmapping format. The second phase plans the functional determination, dealing the issue of ??how to plan??, including deciding on the relevant roadmapping procedures and methodology. Finally, the roadmap for product-service integration is developed. To illustrate the workings of proposed approach, six case examples are provided for different modes of integration, providing a practical illustration for product-service integration.     

Strategic responses to extreme institutional challenges: An MNE case study in the Palestinian mobile phone sector

Besides firm-level resources and industrial influences, firms’ strategies have been related to their institutional contexts. Empirical studies have investigated survival strategies in international environments where institutional voids, barriers and violence have had independent influences.This study is the first to analyse strategies in circumstances that combine all these negative challenges. In the Palestinian mobile phone industry, a surviving MNE has faced not only violence, voids and institutional barriers imposed by three different governments, but also the liability of foreignness and its associated uncertainties.In a highly uncertain environment, it is found that being a MNE brings benefits as well as liabilities of foreignness. Furthermore, this MNE discloses many strategic responses to institutional challenges that are associated with positive outcomes, even in a most extreme Palestinian environment that produces the most propitious circumstances for negative responses and outcomes.     

Foreign acquisitions by Chinese firms: A strategic intent perspective

This article presents a strategic intent perspective (SIP) to analyze the foreign acquisitions made by Chinese firms. It suggests that Chinese firms strategically use cross-border acquisitions to achieve goals, such as acquiring strategic capabilities to offset their competitive disadvantages and leveraging their unique ownership advantages, while making use of institutional incentives and minimizing institutional constraints. The SIP is supported by the evidence from three firms that we studied, where dozens of interviews were conducted, including the one with the founder of Lenovo. This study contributes to extant international business theories by incorporating the SIP to examine internationalization strategies of firms from developing countries.     

The influence of social capital on strategic choice: An examination of the effects of external and internal network relationships on strategic complexity

In this research we investigated the direct contributions of social capital via network involvement to the strategic complexity of firms. Specifically, we looked at three network types - trade associations, external personal networks, and internal personal networks - to assess their individual and collective effects on strategic complexity. We empirically tested the relationships in the rural telecommunications industry using a mailed survey to this population's CEOs. We obtained 203 responses (30% response rate). Using Poisson regression, we found that all three network types were positively associated with strategic complexity, which was measured as product portfolio breadth. We also discovered that initial conditions affected strategic outcomes, with larger firms and cooperative ownership associated with greater strategic complexity.     

The logic behind foreign market selection: Objective distance dimensions vs. strategic objectives and psychic distance

The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of the firm’s strategic objectives regarding the choice of countries for foreign expansion, complementing the existing literature on the internationalisation process. Through a multiple case study methodology, we conduct a comparative analysis of three Brazilian ventures that have internationalised in Italy, and three Italian firms that have internationalised in Brazil, seeking to investigate the firms’ decisions on the selection of foreign markets. We consider jointly the objective aspects of distance, the overall perceptions of the decision-makers in relation to the differences between the domestic and (potential) host countries, and the firm’s strategic objectives. This research contributes to International Business studies by revealing the role of firm-specific strategic objectives as determinants of foreign market selection, in addition to, or even on top of, the dimensions of objective distance and psychic distance.     

Human resource management: Challenges for graduate education

Despite a recent paradigm shift in many firms from an employee advocate model to a strategic business partner model, human resource (HR) management is still seen by some as not adding value to organizations. This article briefly summarizes a few of the challenges for HR graduate education at both the master's and doctoral degree levels. Emphasis is placed on the ever-increasing need to produce human resource professionals and managers, in general, who recognize and appreciate the value and relevance of HR's contributions to the attainment of strategic organizational outcomes as a strategic business contributor.     

Chinese Investment in Advanced Economies: Opportunities and Challenges

With an increasing importance of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) by multinationals (MNCs) from China in advanced economies, there is a need for deepening our knowledge of these Chinese MNCs not simply regarding their benefits and concerns, but more importantly regarding their dynamic and complex contexts. In this article, we investigate challenges that Chinese investors face in managing multiple embeddedness across heterogeneous contexts and why this multiple contextual embeddedness is particularly evident when Chinese firms acquire Western firms for competitive catch‐up. We contend that the interaction of Chinese investors with various local contexts depends on the extent to which these contexts are not only interrelated, but also overlain by temporal and spatial dimensions of context. Accordingly, contextualizing globalization of Chinese companies temporally and spatially will allow us to better understand their international expansion. More generally, we stress the need to place Chinese OFDI research in its broader context, temporally and spatially, and go beyond the mere institutional or cultural distance variables. Finally, we outline the key contributions from the six articles in this special issue and discuss the future research agenda stimulated by the issues raised in these articles. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Strategic entry or strategic exit? International presence by emerging economy enterprises

By proposing an integrated strategic choice framework, we theorize the distinctive dynamics of international expansion by emerging economy enterprises. Specifically, we explicate how these firms build international presence based on combined strategic entry (i.e., prompted by internal capabilities such as innovation and diversification) and strategic exit (i.e., pushed out by external handicaps at home such as institutional obstacles and market competition). Further, a firm’s cooperative ties with foreign multinationals in the former’s home country fortify the strategic entry intent, while ties with home government institutions weaken the strategic exit intent. We also demonstrate that building international presence helps bolster firm performance, highlighting the economic catch-up consequence of international expansion. Analyses of a two-year imbalanced panel data of 2136 firms statistically support our hypotheses.     

Understanding the antecedents of collateral learning in new product alliances

Recognizing that strategic alliances represent an important means for developing knowledge in critical arenas such as new product development, the authors advance the notion of collateral learning that assesses knowledge acquisition internal to a firm in the alliance. To examine its antecedents, the authors build on the behavioral theory of the firm and propose strategic importance and performance vulnerability as the motivational components and organizational similarity and alliance experience as the awareness components advocated in the theory. Results from 133 alliance firms suggest that both the motivational and awareness components are important in influencing collateral learning in new product alliances. Specifically, to develop collateral learning, firms should have extensive alliance experience and an acknowledged stake in their alliance partners. The results also support the theorized U-shaped relationship between organizational similarity of the alliance partners and collateral learning. Thus, collateral learning is facilitated when organizations are either similar or dissimilar, while medium levels of organizational similarity facilitate collateral learning to a relatively lower extent. Although performance vulnerability is found to be associated negatively with collateral learning, extensive alliance experience can attenuate this negative effect.