Prelims

Half Title Page

Strategic Responsiveness and Adaptive Organizations

Title Page

Strategic Responsiveness and Adaptive Organizations: New Research Frontiers in International Strategic Management

Emerald Studies in Global Strategic Responsiveness

Edited by

Torben Juul Andersen

Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

Simon Torp

University of Aarhus, Denmark

Stefan Linder

ESSEC Business School, Cergy-Pontoise (Paris), France.

United Kingdom – North America – Japan India – Malaysia – China

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Emerald Publishing Limited

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First edition 2019

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78973-012-8 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-78973-011-1 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-78973-013-5 (Epub)

Contents

List of Contributors

Torben Juul Andersen is a Professor of Strategy and International Management at the Copenhagen Business School and Director of the Center for Global Strategic Responsiveness, Department of International Economics, Government and Business.

Aylin Ates is a Senior Lecturer in Strategy at the Department of Management Science at Strathclyde Business School, Glasgow. She is a Director of the MSc in Project Management and Innovation Programme. Her research is published in, for example, International Journal of Operations and Production Management and International Journal of Production Research.

Consuelo Dolz is an Associate Professor at the Department of Business Administration “Juan José Renau,” University of Valencia, Spain. Her research has been focused on mergers and acquisitions, specifically the integration process, ambidexterity at SMEs – antecedents and consequences, family firms, and social corporate responsibility.

Tessa Flatten is a Professor at the TU Dortmund University as part of the Faculty of Business and Economics. Her key research interests focus on innovation management, entrepreneurship, and technology management topics.

Julian Hess is a Doctoral Candidate at the Faculty of Business and Economics, TU Dortmund University. His research is focused on strategy, innovation management, and digitalization in technology-based companies.

Maria Iborra is an Associate Professor at the Department of Business Administration “Juan José Renau,” University of Valencia, Spain. Her research covers the field of strategic management with specific focus on upper echelons and their role in creating ambidexterity in SMEs as well as Social Corporate Irresponsibility, its antecedents, and consequences.

Bilal Ahmed Jathol is an Assistant Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at Neoma Business School in Reims, France. He holds a PhD from Grenoble Ecole de Management, and his research focuses on organizational and entrepreneurial responses to change. His research mainly based on qualitative methods has been published in M@n@gement and presented at international conferences.

Wim van Lent is an Assistant Professor at the Montpellier Business School, France. His research focuses on the role of history in management and business development. He is an Associate Editor with the Journal of Management History.

Stefan Linder is an Associate Professor with the Accounting and Management Control Department at the ESSEC Business School in Paris. He has written several books and academic articles on topics like strategic management control, strategic planning, entrepreneurship, incentives, and governance design.

Charles-Clemens Rüling is a Professor of Organization Theory and Associate Dean for Research at Grenoble Ecole de Management, France. His research focuses on processes of organizational and institutional change. He is an Associate Editor of Long Range Planning, and his work has been published in Academy of Management Journal, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and Organization Studies.

Vicente Safón is an Associate Professor at the Department of Business Administration “Juan José Renau,” University of Valencia, Spain. His research is focused on strategic management, the role of upper echelons on ambidexterity, and the management and reputation of universities.

Andrew D. Smith is a Senior Lecturer in International Business, Strategy and Entrepreneurship and Director of Studies for International Business at the University of Liverpool Management School, UK. His research interests focus on the evolution of business and financial institutions, international business development, corporate governance, and political economy.

Simon Torp is an Associate Professor, Department of Business Development and Technology, Aarhus University. He has written extensively on ownership effects, leadership style, middle-management engagement, investment planning, management control, risk management, and employee competences.

Foreword

Whereas the strategy field covers a broad spectrum of research ranging from corporate strategy, M&As, product-market strategies, and business innovation to strategic renewal and sustainable adaptation, there appears to be an urgent need to focus on how firms act in turbulent environments and successfully adapt their business activities. Firms today operate in a business environment that increasingly seems to be characterized by abrupt, unpredictable events, including financial and economic crises, international political conflicts, and environmental challenges. Furthermore, the underlying challenges are often globally universal and require collaborative solutions where individual organizations only can excel in firm-specific responses in the short term. This development implies that business conditions are becoming increasingly uncertain and characterized by at times very extreme and unforeseeable outcomes. This calls for swift(er) responses to adapt the business and requires new thinking that can extend prior research.

The recently completed conference EURAM 2018 held in Reykjavik, Iceland, organized by the European Academy of Management, responded to this need for new thinking and introduced a new research track associated with the Strategic Interest Group focused on Strategic Management. The title of the new track was Strategic Responsiveness and Adaptive Organizations and was proposed and managed by the three editors of this volume that adopts the same title. The track attracted a number of highly relevant and very interesting contributions presented at various sessions during the three-day conference.

The current volume of the Emerald book series on Global Strategic Responsiveness presents a selection of these research efforts presented at the EURAM 2018 conference on the theme of Strategic Responsiveness and Adaptive Organizations. They offer promising ideas about how to deal with the current strategic challenges, and we thank the contributors for their willingness to share their thinking and findings and hope the readers will find each of the chapters stimulating as a potential foundation to extent this important work into the future.

Torben Juul Andersen, Simon Torp,

and Stefan Linder