Project Hindsight: Exploring Necessity and Possibility in Cycles of Structuration and Co-Evolution

The successful management of strategic change requires an understanding of which moves are possible in specific contexts, and thus of how specific contexts variously require, forbid, or permit certain organizational or policy actions. Appreciation of such modal issues of necessity and possibility thus becomes essential in understanding organizational and technological dynamics. This paper introduces the concept of modal narratives: forms of analytically structured narrative that explore questions of necessity, possibility and contingency. After a brief review of two common types of modal narrative—counterfactuals and scenarios— the potential of a third form is suggested: the superfactual. An extended example of a superfactual is provided in the Project Hindsight case, and the implications for strategic action are discussed.     

保障性视角下制造企业服务化战略组织影响因素探索

实施服务化战略已成为制造企业获取并维持竞争优势的重要途径。基于企业组织及战略管理理论,从保障性视角出发,探讨组织内部影响制造企业服务化战略顺利实施的主要因素。在文献分析的基础上,依次采用深度访谈、问卷调查及主成分分析法,对来自246家制造企业的问卷数据进行统计分析。研究结果表明：服务导向的组织文化、组织结构、组织能力与人员配置、产品服务流程与考评设计是组织内部影响服务化战略顺利实施的关键因素。该研究能够为中国制造企业顺利实施服务化战略提供理论指导与实践参考。     

中国制造企业创新战略变革模式选择——基于战略三角框架的模糊集定性比较分析

数字经济时代数字技术与实体经济深度融合,中国制造企业面临通过战略变革实现创新发展的机遇和挑战。囿于理论视角和研究方法,现有研究难以指导管理者实现有效的战略变革。鉴于此,立足战略三角框架,运用模糊集定性比较分析方法（fsQCA）,基于2018年中国A股上市制造企业样本数据,检验政府效率、创新创业活跃度、过往绩效、控股股东性质、市场竞争度与战略变革幅度6项条件对创新绩效的组态效应。结果表明：战略变革不构成高创新绩效的必要条件,不同制度情境下企业应依据组织要素特征选择战略变革模式。4种组态能够引致高创新绩效：高政府效率、非高创新创业活跃度环境下高绩效国企宜实施回避式战略变革;高政府效率、高创新创业活跃度环境下高绩效民企应实施妥洽式战略变革;高政府效率、高创新创业活跃度环境下非高绩效国企宜实施转向式战略变革;非高政府效率、非高创新创业活跃度环境下非高绩效企业应进行复兴式战略变革。     

Networks and network resources in technological innovation systems: Towards a conceptual framework for system building

Previous research has shown that formal networks can play a crucial role in the formation of technological innovation systems (TIS). Firms and other actors collaborate in formal networks not only to generate new knowledge but also to strategically create and shape supportive system resources such as technology specific R&D programs. This paper takes a closer look at the resources, which are developed and deployed by networks to facilitate the building up of a TIS. Networks rely not only on the organizational resources of their members but also on new resources developed at the network level including network governance structures, trust among network members, a common understanding of the strategic goals or a good reputation of the network. Our analysis shows that the capacity of networks to fulfill different tasks of system building especially depends on the network resources they are able to establish. With the differentiation of organizational, network and system resources we introduce a conceptual framework, which makes three important contributions. It highlights the strategic nature of (innovation) system building; it allows us comparing the contribution of different actors and formal networks in this regard; and it improves our understanding of how firm and system level processes are intertwined.     

基于产业链的战略管理研究

产业链是一种包含生产企业、供应商、经销商、服务商、顾客等相互合作与信息交流活动的强有力的高绩效企业网络.新的企业组织形态和价值创造机制对战略管理提出了新的要求.与传统战略管理不同,基于产业链的战略管理要求链中的企业跨越企业边界,对质量、交货期和成本进行重新认识,企业的绩效不仅取决于企业自身的效率,同样取决于与产业链中其他相关企业合作效率,以及整个产业链价值创造系统的整体运行效率.针对传统战略管理理论的局限分析了产业链的基本特征及其对战略管理的影响,提出了产业链条件下的战略管理模式,指出战略管理应以产业链整体优化为目标,以企业间关系管理作为战略管理重点,以建立产业链内有效企业间市场为途径,实施高参与型管理.     

战略网络的组织形态演进及联盟动机分析

战略网络是战略联盟发展的高级阶段。根据两条不同的主线，追溯了企业战略网络组织形态的演变路径，从8个方面综合分析了战略网络中的若干联盟动机，并对我国企业建立企业战略网络提出了相关的建议。     

The chief executive officer as corporate champion of technological innovation: aii empirical investigation

Research on innovation has engoged the attention of many scientific disciplines over the past few decades. But while some categories of determining factors (mainly organizational and environmental) are at the centre of this research, others, such as the role and significance of strategic leadership, seem to have received much less empirical attention. Using evidence from a sample of 97 manufacturing enterprises, the present study tests a model of the impact of strategic leadership and corporate context on technological innovatin (TT). The personality and demographic characteristics of chief executive officers (CEis') are used to measure strategic leadership. A number of environmental and internal organizational variables measure the broader context. Four dimensions of TI are measured. Results suggest that CEO characteristics significantly influence TI, but the structural and environmental context is on aggregate more influential. Interestingly though, in new product introductions, CEIs' characteristics outweight environmental and internal organizational factors.     

Global Sourcing in Industry Equilibrium

This paper extends the Antràs and Helpman (2004) model to a continuum of sectors to explore a full set of possibilities for organizational forms in global sourcing. We show that industries of the economy are divided into seven classes of sectors in terms of the prevalence of organizational forms. In particular, the coexistence of different organizational forms is less likely as the sectoral input intensity is more extreme, so that intra‐industry heterogeneity is less relevant to the firms' organizational choices. It is also demonstrated that our equilibrium analysis offers a useful framework for examining comparative statics on the sectoral input intensity.     

Organizational choices for efficiency and market power

We examine the role of strategic consideration in the choice of organizational structures characterizing large corporations. These considerations bridge the gap between the research on transaction costs and organizational forms and the research on strategic entry deterrence and threats. An illustrative model is presented and we derive propositions which look promising for providing empirical benchmarks.     

Different approaches of pattern management and strategic intelligence

The world around us contains endless amounts of information. That information is mostly loose in our minds. Very often, it does not at first contact fit in with our conventional understanding, experience or any context we are used to. Hence, we may say that we are overwhelmed with constantly changing raw data, and strategic actors especially tend to be short of more rapid, up-to-date, valid and in-depth understanding of the transforming business landscape and social environment. Strategic intelligence is an emerging field of business consulting, which aims to undertake the task of revealing large, complex or complicated issues of transformation in a more understandable form. Pattern management, however, can be seen as one field or one approach of strategic intelligence. It is an approach that may, on one hand, be based more on empiric data and formal structures than other forms of strategic intelligence, but, on the other hand, it is a very heuristic approach to integrate quantitative data, reasoning and narratives. The main attempts of this article are, first, to show, what are in general the most commonly used ways of managing, finding, drawing, reasoning or anticipating patterns from our environment, and second, to locate how the concept of pattern can be understood in different ways. From the gathered knowledge, this article presents three main categories of reasoning patterns: empirical calculation (EC) is common especially in enterprise consulting. Theory proving with observations (TPO) is common especially in natural sciences, and real combining (RC) is common especially in qualitative research and in narrative.     

“互联网+”背景下制造企业智能化战略转型路径：多案例比较研究

“互联网+”背景下新一代信息技术与实体产业深度融合，智能化战略成为制造企业顺应科技革命和产业变革趋势，重塑竞争新优势的重要选择。以美国GE、德国Siemens、日本Toyota与中国Haier作为研究对象，应用复杂系统理论进行多案例分析，构建“资源要素—核心能力—系统创新”智能化战略转型综合模型，明确不同国家制造企业因资源、能力和系统差异而形成的不同模式，在转型出发点、落脚点以及目标、路径等方面存在的显著区别。结论不仅从微观动态层面为理解制造企业智能化战略转型提供了基本信息，也有利于从系统论角度构建制造企业智能化战略转型发展框架，对中国制造企业转型升级具有重要的实践指导意义。     

中间性组织的组织形态及其相互关系研究

层级组织和市场组织是两种最基本的经济组织形态.而在现实世界,还有很多经济组织既具有层级组织的某些特征,也具有市场组织的某些特征.处于二者之间的中间地带上有着多种类型的经济组织,如虚拟企业、网络企业、企业簇群、战略联盟、企业集团等,它们统称为"中间性组织".这些纷繁复杂的组织形态既有共性又表现出千差万别的个性特征.弄清各组织形态的特征,揭示各组织形态间的相互关系,恰当地选择和构建有效率的经济组织将成为提高国家与地区、产业与企业竞争力的关键.     

Exploring e-government futures through the application of scenario planning

In this paper, we examine the impact of information and communications technologies (ICT) on government departments/agencies and the contribution of external agents to change and development programs. We present empirical evidence of externally facilitated change to mindsets and patterns of behavior within local government through use of a scenario planning-based approach. Our aim was to facilitate the organizational actors' conduct of investigation of the ‘limits of the possible’ for a range of plausible futures and determination of strategic responses to these. Participants used their own current knowledge and understanding as a basis for development, with the introduction of external ‘expertise’ to challenge their thinking and to expand their understanding. Following this, we facilitated the participants' elucidation of key uncertainties on the future, exploration of the relationships between them and possible outcomes. The participants then constructed scenarios that outlined four possible and plausible futures. These held explicit meaning for the participants, enabled them to identify implications of each possible future in relation to structure and service requirements and informed analysis of current structure, service, etc. We compare and contrast the process and outcomes of our scenario-planning intervention (based on intuitive logics) with both those of other futures methodologies (decision analysis, Delphi and environmental scanning) and with other scenario methodologies (trend-impact analysis and cross-impact analysis). We argue that the external facilitation of internal generation of knowledge, understanding and meaning, and of exploration of the limits of the possible for the future, is a valuable tool for comprehending strategic choices. We conclude that our scenario approach, utilizing intuitive logics, enables organizational actors to make sense of the complexities and ambiguities that they face and so facilitates strategic change.     

Application capability of e-business, e-business success, and organizational performance: Empirical evidence from China

Previous research efforts suggested that firms' overall e-business success tends to deliver greater organizational performance. However, few researchers examined how a firm leverages e-business investment to gain greater e-business success. Even fewer researchers investigated the different impacts of different levels of e-business success on organizational performance. This paper addresses two questions: (1) what capabilities influence a firms' ability to build e-business success and enjoy greater organizational performance, where firm-level e-business success is measured by e-business service capability and IT-enabled collaborative advantage; and (2) whether the two ways of measuring e-business success result in different impacts on organizational performance? We propose that a firm's application capability of e-business involving systems development and systems usage is positively related to a firm's overall e-business success, thus having a positive impact on organizational performance. We use survey data from 152 Chinese manufacturing firms and their B2B e-business systems participants to test our theoretical hypotheses and proposed model. The findings suggest that both systems development and systems usage have significant and positive impacts on e-business service capability, which in turn leads to greater IT-enabled collaborative advantage. This finding could be translated into the important role of a firm's application capability of e-business on e-business success. It is concluded that the application capability of e-business acts as one of the main mechanisms through which the e-business investment leads to greater e-business success. We also find that IT-enabled collaborative advantage, compared with e-business service capability, has a more significant and greater impact on organizational performance. This study extends prior e-business success research by opening up the ‘black box’ between a firm's e-business investment and its e-business success, and by distinguishing the relative impacts of e-business service capability versus IT-enabled collaborative advantage on organizational performance. Another contribution of this study is that the effect of context factors (firm size, industry, and system duration) in developing country on our proposed model.     

组织惯例更新触发因素与影响效应——基于先动型市场导向和可持续竞争优势视角

组织惯例更新是企业进行组织优化和迭代以适应外部动态环境的重要途径，基于组织学习理论和动态能力理论，构建先动型市场导向—组织学习—组织惯例更新—动态能力—可持续竞争优势研究框架，探讨组织惯例更新触发因素与影响效应。通过对191家科技型企业进行问卷调研发现：①先动型市场导向显著正向影响组织惯例更新，组织学习在先动型市场导向与组织惯例更新之间起部分中介作用；②组织惯例更新显著正向影响企业可持续竞争优势，动态能力在组织惯例更新与可持续竞争优势之间发挥完全中介作用。研究结论有助于厘清组织惯例更新触发因素、丰富组织惯例更新结果研究，并对企业建立可持续竞争优势具有一定指导意义。     

La Configuration Stratégique de l'entreprise mixte: pour la distinction public vs privé au plan organisationnel

The present document attempts to provide a global understanding of the ways in which the mixed corporation differs from public and private firms. Its main objectives are to: 1) identify how organizational theory specialists distinguish mixed firms from those which are purely public or private; 2) redefine the lines of thought which can serve to classify public, mixed and private firms from an organizational perspective; 3) formulate research proposals related to the functioning and survival of mixed firms operating alongside public and private firms.
This document aims to constitute a synthesis of the ideas and empirical knowledge already acquired about the nature and functioning of mixed firms, in order to identify the means by which this type of firm can become specific and distinct from public and private firms as an object of study. Specifically, our review of the literature is intended to lead to the development of an organizational approach which will distinguish between public, mixed and private enterprises.
We undertake the integration of hybrid, resource dependence, strategic choice, organizational ecology and institutionalism theories in order to develop criteria of distinction between the public, mixed and private categories, as well as between sub-categories of mixed firms, so as to arrive at a strategic configuration perspective of the organization.
Use of the model is illustrated by examples taken from observation of a number of mixed Western European and Canadian firms. Research proposals on the distinctive character and variety of mixed firms are also outlined in view of future empirical verification.     

信息化战略认知与建设行为对制造企业智能化转型的影响

为揭示信息化对制造企业智能化转型影响的黑箱,基于中石化智能化转型案例与文献分析,从认知逻辑与行为逻辑双视角,提出信息化战略认知与信息化建设行为分别通过知识偏好、技术创新对制造企业智能化转型产生积极影响的理论假设。结合逐步回归法与Bootstrap法综合验证了其完全中介效应的存在,并通过调节作用检验证实了技术人才丰富的制造企业其信息化建设行为对技术创新的促进作用更显著;通过稳健性检验一方面证实了结论可靠性,另一方面也表明机械设备制造企业技术创新对智能化转型的作用更显著。因此,制造企业尤其是具有高技术要求的制造企业,需重视技术人才培养,通过信息化发展促进企业形成知识偏好,加强技术创新,推进智能化转型。     

企业战略联盟的市场绩效分析

从产业经济学的角度看,任何一种正式或非正式的经济组织,其市场绩效都存在一定的差异,导致市场绩效降低的企业行为或组织形式必然受到政府的管制。例如,垄断和串谋在市场经济国家都被视为不正当的竞争行为,政府将用法律手段对其进行规制。企业战略联盟作为一种企业间合作组织,它与垄断和串谋究竟有何本质区别?政府是否应该用法律手段进行规制?要回答这些问题,则必须从市场绩效的角度对其进行评价。     

flexible specialization and the reconfiguration of television production in the UK

This paper sets out to examine the strategic, technological and organizational implications of Piore and Sabel's thesis of 'industrial divides'— of critical moments in history when the existing logic of organizational and technological development comes to be challenged. This thesis, while very influential in the social sciences, has not received the attention it merits in the discourse o f strategic management. Herein we extend the Piore and Sabel thesis to examine changes currently under way in the UK television (TV) industry. These changes, based on flexibility and the development of network forms of organization in TV production, are broadly supportive of Piore and Sabel's argument. However, when we look at the downstream elements ofthe TV value chain, we see dzffermt forms of reconfiguration at firm and sector levels driven in part by an emerging range of new distribution technologies.     

The Role of Capacity Management in Manufacturing Strategy: Experiences from the Australian Wine Industry

There has been little research focused on identifying the position and role of capacity management in strategic manufacturing decision making. This research presents the findings of a major investigation into strategic capacity management in the Australian wine industry. The research found that advanced processing technology is being used as part of a strategy for increasing capacity in this industry. It was also found that supply dependability and product cost/price were the most important competitive priorities for wine production, after product quality. All three of these were found to be directly influenced by the level of capacity management. The importance of capacity management varied, depending on the category of wine producer (32 different categories were identified). It was also determined that the strategic position of capacity management in the manufacturing decision making process is linked to production planning and control, quality control and assurance and plant and equipment.