The Role of the Social Context for Strategy-Making

Beschreibung

In recent years, a new form of strategy-making has evolved within firms, which focuses on the continuous development of strategic initiatives. Nevertheless, our understanding of the professional management of strategic initiatives remains limited. Why do some initiatives fail to materialize? What role does organizational context, and more specifically its social aspect, play in this process?

Karolin Marx analyzes the impact of the social context, represented by the embeddedness of the initiative teams in the intrafirm network, on the performance of strategic initiatives by studying a sample of 54 corporate strategic initiatives. The results support the significance of the social context for strategy-making. However, it is shown that social relationships are not only positive, but can also impede the successful development of strategic initiatives. Furthermore, it is underscored that exploratory initiatives prosper in a different social setting than their exploitive counterparts. Therefore management should create a balanced environment in which both types of initiatives can develop and survive.

v Foreword Over the years strategic initiatives have received increasing importance as core vehicles for strategy-making. These coordinated undertakings enable firms to reinforce the current strategy or alter it in order to realign the organization in accordance with changed environmental conditions. Despite the growing importance of strategic initiatives the overall understanding of their professional management is still limited. While previous research has acknowledged the importance of the organizational context for the successful development of strategic initiatives, so far only little research has focused on this important link. Especially the social side of the organizational context has remained under-investigated. Karolin Marx addresses this shortcoming and analyzes the role of the social context, represented by the embeddedness of the initiative team in the intrafirm network, for strategy making. As initiatives are pursued by teams, it is reasonable to assume that the type and quality of the team's social relations to other organizational units impacts the thinking and behavior within the team and thus the performance of the initiative.
Die Bedeutung strategischer Prozesse und sozialer Netzwerke in der Unternehmensentwicklung
In recent years, a new form of strategy-making has evolved within firms, which focuses on the continuous development of strategic initiatives. Nevertheless, our understanding of the professional management of strategic initiatives remains limited. Why do some initiatives fail to materialize? What role does organizational context, and more specifically its social aspect, play in this process?

Karolin Marx analyzes the impact of the social context, represented by the embeddedness of the initiative teams in the intrafirm network, on the performance of strategic initiatives by studying a sample of 54 corporate strategic initiatives. The results support the significance of the social context for strategy-making. However, it is shown that social relationships are not only positive, but can also impede the successful development of strategic initiatives. Furthermore, it is underscored that exploratory initiatives prosper in a different social setting than their exploitive counterparts. Therefore management should create a balanced environment in which both types of initiatives can develop and survive.

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Karolin Marx

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Initiativen, strategische Netzwerkanalyse Netzwerke, soziale Regressionsanalyse, multiple Strategie Strategieformierung Strategieprozess development organizations strategy

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