Microfoundations In Strategy Research

• Author: Nicolai J. Foss,Torben Pedersen
• Published date: 01 December 2016
• Date: 01 December 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2362

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Microfoundations In Strategy Research

Edited by

Nicolai J. Foss

Department of Strategic Management and Globalization, Copenhag en Business School

Torben Pedersen

Department of Management and Technology, Bocconi University

Introduction

Arguably first applied in the context of strategy by Lippman and Rumelt (2003a), the notion

of “microfoundations” has received increasing interest in the strategy field. The purpose of

this virtual special issue is to briefly explain the main ideas of the microfoundations research

agenda, discuss why and how it is relevant to strategy, and of course to showcase some of the

key microfoundational papers in the field, all published in the three SMS journals.

The basic motivation for the microfoundations research agenda in strategy has been to

decompose macro-level constructs in terms of the actions and interactions of lower level

organizational members, understand how firm-level performance emerge from the interaction

of these members, and how relations between macro variables are mediated by micro actions

and interactions (see Felin, Foss & Ployhart, 2015). Specifically, microfoundation research

has focused on anchoring higher-level concepts like dynamic capabilities, routines and social

capital on lower levels. Typical questions raised concern understanding dynamic capabilities

in terms of managerial cognition, the motivational antecedents of human capital-based

competitive advantage, how individual action and interaction constitute the capabilities that

drive performance, how routines emerge from such individual action and interaction, etc.

Though forceful calls for microfoundations in strategy date back more than a decade (Grant,

1996; Lippman & Rumelt, 2003a; Felin & Foss, 2005; Gavetti, 2005; Teece, 2007),

microfoundational work did not take off until approximately 2010. Specifically, recent years

has witnessed microfoundational strategy work on topics such as routines (e.g., Bapuji et al.,

2012; Cohen, 2012; Loch, Sengupta, & Ahmad, 2013; Winter, 2013), firm-level performance

(Eisenhardt et al., 2010), knowledge processes (Reinholt, Pedersen & Foss, 2011), absorptive

capacity (Lewin et al., 2011; Volberda, Foss & Lyles, 2010), ambidexterity (Rogan & Mors,

2014), firm R&D (Paruchuri & Eisenman, 2012), stakeholder management (Bridoux &

Stoelhorst, 2013), problem formulation (Baer et al., 2012), innovation (Grigoriou &

Rothaermel, 2014), dynamic capabilities (Argote & Ren, 2012; Helfat & Peteraf, 2015;

Hodgkinsson & Healey, 2011; Teece, 2007), social capital (Gooderham, Minbaeva &

Pedersen, 2011), networks (Ahuja et al., 2012), the RBV (Foss, 2011), and organizational

capabilities (Kemper, Schilke, & Brettel, 2013)-