Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship in the Time of Societal Disruptions

Dear Colleagues, 

As Yogi Berra may very well have said, “The future is not what it used to be”. On reflection, this apparently trite statement captures the essence of the strategic challenge facing managers and businesses today. Most importantly, the nature of uncertainty in the business environment is increasingly different from what it was reasonably assumed to be over the last several decades of development of management theory and practice. This VUCA—to use the military-derived acronym—environment will increasingly be characterized by chaotic ambiguity (Type IV Uncertainty) (Courtney, Kirkland, and Viguerie, 1997) rather than the volatility (Type I Uncertainty) with which most management analyses and techniques are designed to cope. 

Chaotic ambiguity is the consequence of the phenomena and imperatives faced by businesses today, such as the inevitability of globalization, the imperative of innovation, and the growing importance of environment, social, and governance (ESG) considerations. The interaction of these visible phenomena and imperatives results in disruptive technologies, conflicted stakeholders, and wicked problems creating unknown futures. In addition to these recognized challenges, there are developments such as AI, climate change, gene editing, recurring pandemics, and political instability that individually and in combination will certainly disrupt societal norms and society. They are likely even to raise questions of what it means to be “human” and will result in unknowable futures. The impact of these societal disruptions is evident today and may, in the very near future, overwhelm unprepared managers. 

Societal disruptions that are caused by pandemics, climate change, gene editing, and AI are different in both kind and degree from the industry disruptions brought about by the likes of Amazon, Netflix, and Tesla. The severity and novelty of the challenge has generated new thinking (Camillus, Ramanadhan, and Ganapathy, 2021) about the necessary and primary strategic focus, the identity and purpose of organizations, and the design of management systems. This new thinking originating from a trio of strategy gurus—Michael Porter, C. K. Prahalad, and Clayton Christensen—defines a novel, strategic mindset and possibly creates an alternative paradigm for strategic management. Porter (2011) states that “Companies… must take the lead in bringing business and society together”. He goes on to emphasize that, in order to be sustainable, companies must offer products and services that meet societal needs and that the way to do that is to serve disadvantaged communities, the base of the pyramid, nontraditional communities, and urban areas. Prahalad (2005) identified the “fortune at the bottom of the pyramid”. In a related development, Hart and Christensen (2002) argued that disruptive technologies with high profit potential emerge when the needs of those at the base of the pyramid in emerging economies are sought to be addressed. 

The management challenge is to cope with, transcend, and even profit from these inevitable tsunamis of societal disruptions. This Special Issue seeks to address this challenge. Some of the questions that arise are:

1. How does one meaningfully define the organization in a context where domains can shift in unpredictable ways, strategies are short-lived, boundaries are amorphous, and stakeholders have conflicting priorities?
2. What is the role of constructs such as “identity” and “purpose” in the context of societal disruptions?
3. What techniques of strategic planning and management control need to be developed and employed for addressing wicked problems?
4. What forms of organizational structure can be designed to function in chaotic ambiguity?
5. What are the strategic implications of the increasing income inequity (Piketty, 2014) that results from societal disruption?
6. What are the essential elements of organizational culture that are needed for thriving in the face of disruptions?
7. How can effective alliances be developed when facing the prospect of an unknown, perhaps unknowable future? 

These questions are illustrative of the issues on which papers in this Special Issue will focus. Theoretical papers, empirical analyses, and case studies are welcome. Papers that provide clear and insightful guidance to practicing managers are especially welcome. 

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200-500 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editors ([email protected] or [email protected]) or to the Administrative Sciences editorial office ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review. 

We look forward to working with you to create an impactful compilation of work on Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship in the Time of Societal Disruptions. 

References:

Camillus, J. C., Ramanadhan, S. & Ganapathy, K. (2021). Strategy in the Time of Pandemics, Climate Change and the Kurzweil Singularity. Journal of Strategy and Management, 14(3), 300–314.

Courtney, H., Kirkland, J. and Viguerie, P. ( 1997). Strategy under uncertainty. Harvard Business Review, 75(6), 67–79.

Hart, S. L., & Christensen, C. M. (2002). The great leap: Driving innovation from the base of the pyramid. MIT Sloan Management Review, 44(1), 51–56.

Porter, M.E. and Kramer, M.R. (2011). Creating shared value. Harvard Business Review, 89(1), 62–77.

Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the twenty-first century. Harvard University Press.

Prahalad, C. K. (2005). The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. Wharton School Publishing.

Prof. Dr. John C. Camillus
Prof. Dr. John Lipinski
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• ESG
• identity
• purpose
• societal disruptions
• stakeholders
• strategic management systems
• strategic planning
• organizational structure
• strategy
• values

Title: Routines of Resilience: How organizational routines shape enterprise response to societal disruptions

Abstract: In this study, we adopt the lens of routines, a core construct in the theory of organizations, through which to view how enterprises respond to societal disruptions. As the Call for Papers for this special issue points out, societal disruptions – such as those caused by pandemics – are different in kind and degree from more familiar industry disruptions. The extant literature has begun to address many critical aspects of how organizations respond to disruptions in general, such as through changes in strategy, structure, systems, and culture. However, surprisingly for us, not many studies have addressed a key element of organizations that is a correlate of – and often underlies – each of those more visible elements – organizational routines. Organizational routines refer to the established, repetitive patterns of activity performed by groups and individuals within an organization. Examples include standard operating procedures, patterns of communication and coordination, and distinctive decision protocols. Organizational routines vary in their degree of formality, ranging from documented procedures (e.g., an airline’s safety practices) or informal practices that have become entrenched over time (e.g., cultural norms about how and when people socialize outside of work). Routines are foundational to organizations in that they provide stability, predictability, and structure, as well as drive performance and adaptability in the face of disruptions. In our prior work (Caner & Madhavan, 2024), we developed a model explaining how specific attributes of disruptive external events correlate with organizational routines, particularly as influenced by shared mental models. Specifically, we posited that for organizational routine change to occur, two conditions must be met: (a) the presence of an external disruptive event, and (b) organizational acknowledgment that this event prompts irreversible routine change. Drawing from event system theory (Morgeson, Mitchell & Liu, 2015), we first developed a circumplex model of external disruptive events, proposing four event dimensions: magnitude, coupling, clustering, and space. Then, using these dimensions as drivers of organizational routine change, we developed a contingency model wherein we proposed the extent to which organizational members' internal perceptions of external situations align with external reality (referred to as sharedness of mental models, SoMM, (Mohammed et al., 2010)) moderates the main effects of external event dimensions on routine change. In this study, we have two goals. One, we embed our framework in the context of a recent societal disruption, COVID-19. Two, we empirically test a model derived from our framework in Caner & Madhavan (2024) using the magnitude of COVID-19 as a disruptive event driving Work-from-Home (WfH) policies, which serves as an indicator of organizational routine change, and how this relationship is influenced by SoMM. We identify and discuss intriguing patterns in the data, such as differences between firms that quickly went back to pre-pandemic work routines, those that embraced WfH as a new way of working, and those that adopted various forms of hybrid work. Generalizing from this analysis, we draw out several key implications for an emerging theory of routines as a foundation for resilience in the face of societal disruptions. Given the continuing relevance of WfH policies (e.g., Bloom, Han & Liang, 2024), and of organizational resilience in the face of societal disruption, we believe that a theory-informed empirical investigation like ours is timely. References Bloom, N., Han, R. & Liang, J. (2024). Hybrid working from home improves retention without damaging performance. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07500-2 Caner, T. & Madhavan, R. (2024). What Comes After Black Swans and Gray Rhinos? An Organizational Perspective of Disruption. Group & Organization Management, 49 (2), 507-537. Mohammed, S., Ferzandi, L., & Hamilton, K. 2010. Metaphor no more: A 15-year review of the team mental model construct. Journal of Management, 36(4), 876–910. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206309356804 Morgeson, F. P., Mitchell, T. R., & Liu, D. (2015). Event system theory: An event-oriented approach to the organizational sciences. Academy of Management Review, 40(4), 515–537. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2012.0099

Title: The Threat of March-In Rights to Entrepreneurial Separation to Transfer Technology Programs

Abstract: In this paper, we present the application of Entrepreneurial Separation to Transfer Technologies from federally funded research and the difficulties associated with the transfer of intellectual property. With the increased threat (call) by the government to exercise "march-in" rights which could limit both the terms and what firms charge for goods (e.g. drugs) that come from intellectual property (IP) that results from Federally funded research, researchers may be disinclined to commercialize their IP. While the government wants to exercise their march-in rights to help consumers, they may be unintentionally harming them. The government is being more vocal about the threat of march-in rights in part because of the high consumer prices that have resulted from pandemic related inflationary pressures. This has the potential of rolling back 40 years of gains from the Bayh-Dole Act. Keywords: Technology transfer; Bayh-Dole Act; Entrepreneurship; Intellectual Property; Wicked Issues; March-in Rights; Entrepreneurial Leave Agreements

Title: ESG Integration as a tool for managers to value and prioritize sustainability initiatives in the face of societal disruptions

Abstract: This review paper examines the integration of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors into business valuation, essential for navigating the complex challenges of contemporary strategic management. As societal pressures and regulatory demands rise, aligning organizational strategies with sustainability becomes crucial for ethical and practical reasons. The paper offers a structured approach to incorporating ESG considerations into valuation exercises, addressing the uncertainty managers face in identifying value drivers to enhance enterprise value. The analysis proposes a three-step technique for strategic managers. First, it emphasizes understanding an organization's sustainability profile, ensuring a comprehensive grasp of its ESG landscape. Second, it focuses on identifying financially material sustainability topics and relevant metrics, leveraging standards like the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). Third, it integrates the financial impacts of these topics into a discounted cash flow (DCF) valuation, providing a tangible framework for financial decision-making. By embedding ESG factors into financial models, managers can quantify the impacts on revenue, operational efficiencies, and cost of capital. This approach not only fosters organizational resilience but also drives innovation, operational efficiencies, and stakeholder trust, ensuring long-term competitive advantage in a volatile world.

Title: Does a feedforward orientation in strategic processes provide competitive advantages? A retrospective review of control literature with an illustrative example from real life

Abstract: This paper reviews the literature on cybernetic control models and their applications in human organizational control systems. It highlights the limitations of traditional closed loop feedback control models and proposes feedforward control models as complements to feedback models. A side-by-side comparison of feedforward versus feedback attributes is presented to illustrate the salient differences between these two control types. The paper then proposes that feedforward control might be especially relevant for strategic control situations. The paper also briefly mentions other types of control that have been posited as piece-meal solutions to the dilemma of organizational control. An illustrative example of one organization, Zara, that consistently adopted a feedforward orientation in ‘fast-fashion’ retailing from its origins and thereby derived competitive advantages compared to its peers is provided. A major environmental discontinuity that severely undercut Zara’s business model (and those of its competitors) is described. Zara’s feedforward orientation enabled it to adeptly deal with this emergency and sense, seize and reconfigure its resources. Its feedforward orientation facilitated the development of dynamic capabilities that became new sources of competitive advantages for Zara in online retailing. The Conclusions, Implications, Directions for Future Research and Concluding Thoughts sections summarize the study’s potential contributions and impact.