Strategic Groups: A Cognitive Perspective

The strategic group concept provides an attractive middle ground hetween firm and itiditsiry for both theory development and empirical analysis. To date, this concept has been defined by researchers in terms of secondary accounting and financial data, and a number of critics have questioned the validity of this work. Our research shows that industry participants share perceptions about strategic commonalities among firms, and that participants cluster competitors in subtle ways not reflected in extant academic research on strategic groups. Decision makers' perceptions and cognitions are phenomena that can be expected to influence industry evolution. They are of research interest as an additional source of data on firm commonalities which helps address concerns about previous strategic group research

Consensual Uncertainty

Abstract included in tex

Citigroup's John Reed and Stanford's James March on management research and practice

Academy President's Executive Overview: One of my most pleasurable, though daunting, jobs as president of the Academy of Management in 1998-99 was to select the Distinguished Scholar and Executive of the Year. I was lucky enough to find two people who have been in conversation for some time about an issue that deeply concerns me. In my presidential speech, which will appear later this year in the Academy of Management Review, I outline changes in the way knowledge is being created - both in academic disciplines and in companies. I think these changes are changing the nature of business schools, and potentially jeopardizing their future. James G. March and John S. Reed have had similar concerns for some time. The following article summarizes some of their conclusions

The continuing relevance of strategy

My father-in-law understood what accounting was, or at least he was satisfied with his definition. He was much less sure about 'strategy', and I was not much help. It has never been easy for me to explain my field to others, although an example will sometimes suffice. 'Strategic decisions have longterm impact,' I said to my father-in-law a number of years ago. 'Your decision not to open a branch store in Aspen was strategic.' This kind of definition can lead to further conversation, or stop it. 'I didn't realize it was so important at the time,' he might have said, giving me an entrée to Mintzberg's (1978) arguments about realized strategy. Instead he dismissed my example by contending, 'I couldn't give it much thought, because I didn't have anyone who could handle it.' Unfortunately, I had not read Edith Penrose (1959) at the time. I recently have had an increasing number of such unsatisfying conversations. Though I have much better stories to tell, I still worry that collectively we are falling short. Strategy is too often dismissed in this globalizing world of shifting alliances and instantaneous electronic connections as timeconsuming and irrelevant. I think one problem is definitional. In the last several decades, organization behavior, organization theory, human relations and other areas of management inquiry have grown and developed, yet they do not seem to have had the difficulties defining their subject that we have had. The conversations we start, among ourselves and with others, are rarely brought to conclusion; they tend to falter in the face of new enthusiasms. The millennium is a good point to examine some of these starting points, and contemplate how we might further a fascinating, but elusive, area of inquiry

A Current and Future Agenda for Cognitive Research in Organizations

The study of cognition in organizational settings has expanded dramatically over the last decade in response to the interdisciplinary growth of cognitive science. The first papers to appear generated great enthusiasm for the possible applications of a cognitive perspective but, understandably, focused on cognition itself, tended to work in the absence of empirical data, were sceptical about the possibility of defining collective cognition, and introduced too many similar but somewhat inconsistent concepts. The papers in this volume illustrate how we have moved beyond those early days in several critical areas, as detailed below

1999 Presidential Address: Changes in Organizational Knowledge Production

The explosion of knowledge production within business and other organizations poses a critical challenge to current modes of teaching and research within our business schools. We need to consider new strategic positions closer to the knowledge production being carried on within the organizations we study, without assuming that immediate relevance is our primary objective. The academic advantage, in my opinion, still lies in generalization and abstraction

Strategic argument mapping

Includes bibliographical references (p. 38)

Seeing isn't believing: Understanding Diversity in the Timing of Strategic Response

There is general consensus in the strategy literature that successful firms alter strategy to address changes in their environments and enact more favourable conditions. Studies of organizational change suggest that this adjustment is not always made in a timely manner. Different beliefs about cause and effect have been established as a plausible explanation for differential responses to environmental change. This exploratory study of six pharmaceutical firms suggests more specifically that multiple concepts associated with environmental changes must be directly linked to organizational performance before new strategies are initiated. The results emphasize the importance of stress as a precursor to strategic response and have implications for the way we conceptualize 'response' when referring to significant changes in strategy

1999 Presidential Address: Changes in Organizational Knowledge Production

The explosion of knowledge production within business and other organizations poses a critical challenge to current modes of teaching and research within our business schools. We need to consider new strategic positions closer to the knowledge production being carried on within the organizations we study, without assuming that immediate relevance is our primary objective. The academic advantage, in my opinion, still lies in generalization and abstraction

Toward a new social contract theory in organization science

Includes bibliographic references (p. 23-29)