An exploratory study of the determinants of the quality of strategic decision implementation in Turkish industrial firms

This paper investigates the determinants of quality of decision implementation. By drawing on a sample of 116 firms located in Turkey, the authors test whether the features of important team processes (i.e. trust and participation), of the organisation (i.e. past performance) and of implementation (i.e. its speed and uncertainty) exert an influence on the quality with which decisions are implemented. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to test the validity of the measures, while path analysis was used in hypotheses testing. The results suggest that quality of decision implementation is positively related to trust, participation and past performance, and negatively to implementation speed and uncertainty. The implications of these findings for theory, practice and general management are discussed

Voluntary disclosure of corporate strategy: determinants and outcomes. An empirical study into the risks and payoffs of communicating corporate strategy.

Business leaders increasingly face pressure from stakeholders to be transparent. There appears however little consensus on the risks and payoffs of disclosing vital information such as corporate strategy. To fill this gap, this study analyzes firm-specific determinants and organisational outcomes of voluntary disclosure of corporate strategy. Stakeholder theory and agency theory help to understand whether companies serve their interest to engage with stakeholders and overcome information asymmetries. I connect these theories and propose a comprehensive approach to measure voluntary disclosure of corporate strategy. Hypotheses from the theoretical framework are empirically tested through panel regression of data on identified determinants and outcomes and of disclosed strategy through annual reports, corporate social responsibility reports, corporate websites and corporate press releases by the 70 largest publicly listed companies in the Netherlands from 2003 through 2008. I found that industry, profitability, dual-listing status, national ranking status and listing age have significant effects on voluntary disclosure of corporate strategy. No significant effects are found for size, leverage and ownership concentration. On outcomes, I found that liquidity of stock and corporate reputation are significantly influenced by voluntary disclosure of corporate strategy. No significant effect is found for volatility of stock. My contributions to theory, methodology and empirics offers a stepping-stone for further research into understanding how companies can use transparency to manage stakeholder relations

Economizing and strategizing : how coalitions and transaction costs shape value creation and appropriation

Research summary: Research has examined how “economizing” and “strategizing” mechanisms interact in driving competitive outcomes, but the role of coalitions in this process has received little attention. Coalitions are formed to create more value (i.e., economizing) and to strengthen competitive positions (i.e., strategizing). Based on a formal coalitional model we derive several unintuitive results. We show that economizing actions may backfire because creating more value may lead other players to strategize more aggressively, offsetting the additional value creation. Moreover, creating countervailing power—i.e., building a coalition against players with significant power such as monopolists—not only allows the coalition to appropriate more value, but may also benefit the powerful trading partner by reducing competition among the coalition members. Coalition‐formation can hurt coalitions members by reducing economizing investments. Managerial summary: Managers typically seek competitive advantage either by improving efficiency (by having unique resources, lowering costs, or improving managerial practices) or by trying to obtain stronger bargaining positions against their buyers or suppliers. We show that these two approaches interact in surprising ways. For example, efficiency improvements create more opportunity for profit, but also give trading partners stronger incentives to bargain for a share of that profit. At the same time, small buyers or sellers can band together into clubs or cooperatives to get better deals from a powerful trading partner, thereby restraining competition amongst themselves. However, large firms can try to prevent such coalitions from forming by pursuing vertical integration of potential coalition members. We explore a variety of bargaining situations and show that the ability to encourage or thwart coalition formation is an important managerial tool