Abstract: Growing interest in the role of management practices in explaining company performance has recently led to the development of the Practice-Based View (PBV) of strategy. Using a large general management practices survey with 465 000 respondents from 222 companies, this paper demonstrates how individual management practices across functional domains (e.g., HR and strategy process) come in bundles related to the underlying strategic posture (exploration/exploitation) and approach towards motivation (Theory X / Theory Y) of the company. Results show praxis is not uniform within companies, with frequency declining lower down in hierarchy for majority of practices. Finally, general management practices together explain a large share of variance in performance, but no individual management practice explains more than a modest share.

Abstract: The management literature has emphasized the importance of employee involvement in the strategy making process, yet increasing such involvement is not without costs. We examine and unpack this tension by conceptualizing employee involvement as two distinct types of practices: participation and inclusion. Using formal analysis, we show that it is always beneficial for organizations to engage in participation, but not always in inclusion. We argue that the optimal level of inclusion depends on the intensity and heterogeneity of employee preferences, as well as on the formal coordination capacity of the organization. We also derive the boundary conditions that shift the organization’s preference for participation and/or inclusion. Finally, we examine our propositions using qualitative data of a detailed in-depth case study of the strategy making process.

Abstract: This study will develop and test a two-stage model of problem finding and problem solving for value creation. Combining and extending insights from the problem solving perspective (Nickerson and Zenger, 2007) and search through fitness landscapes (Levinthal, 1997) we develop a fitness landscape in which two types of agents are in play: some are engaged in blind search, and some engage in theory-guided search. Blind searchers choose a solution space for a particular problem randomly; the other type of searchers strategically target problems based on their theory of potential value creation. We compare the performance of these two agents across different levels of problem complexity, financial constraints, uncertainty, and problem symmetry.

Abstract: For decades, managers of large but as well small and young firms want to know how to plan. Yet, strategic management researchers disagree whether formal or emergent planning increases performance. Despite all the contradictory results, research has neglected contextual factors as firm maturity (age and size). As a baseline model, we examine if formal or emergent planning increase firms’ relative competitive performance. For more specific insights we consider different maturity levels (age and size). Further, we look at complementary effects of planning through the lens of organizational ambidexterity. Our results of 535 firms suggest that mature firms take advantage from formal planning, while young and small firms’ improve performance by emergent planning. In specific cases both planning approaches can even have positive combinative effects.