Strategic management: The evolution of the field

• Date: 01 November 2019
• Author: Nakul Parameswar,Sanjay Dhir,Sunali Bindra
• Published date: 01 November 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/jsc.2299

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Strategic management: The evolution of the field

Sunali Bindra

1

| Nakul Parameswar

2

| Sanjay Dhir

3

1

School of Business, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi

University, Katra, Jammu & Kashmir, India

2

Indian Institute of Management Jammu,

Jammu & Kashmir, India

3

Department of Management Studies, Indian

Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India

Correspondence

Sanjay Dhir, Department of Management

Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi,

Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016, India.

Email: sanjaydhir.iitd@gmail.com

Abstract

The merger of “plan”and “pattern”sects of research is essential for the understand-

ing of strategic management understanding and will pose significant methodological

challenges. Detailed firm- and industry-level data over long periods will unravel path

dependencies. The underlying strategy variables used are causally ambiguous and dif-

ficult to measure.

1|INTRODUCTION

As early as 1970s, strategy scholars had been bifurcated into two fac-

tions: “strategy as plan”researchers who outlined the determination

of strategy from the standpoint of “HOW”firm's strategies emerge

and change over time, and “strategy as pattern”researchers interested

in knowing the strategy's antecedents and outcomes and seeking to

answer the question of “WHAT”underpins firm's competitive advan-

tage (Dhir, Ongsakul, Ahmed, & Rajan, 2019). Alternatively, “pattern”

research was, and is still, concerned with the past strategy part of

strategic management, while “plan”research was, and is still, more

concerned with the management part. The “strategy as plan”as domi-

nant research theme was triggered by the discontent among the man-

agers about the outcomes of prior strategic planning efforts by

considering patterns that failed to foresee the uncertainties of the

environment. As a result, strategic planning was merely reduced to a

goal-setting exercise without the understanding of competitive advan-

tages of firms. Sophistication in the formulation of corporate strategy

as a “pattern”was initially simple, but it was eventually difficult to

implement (Ansoff, 1965). The researchers then sought to compre-

hend the procedures and the dynamic environment which led to an

implicit formulation and strategy implementation (Christensen, 1997).

The landmark study in this regard, and to further to deepen the divide,

was that of Smriti, Dhir, and Dhir (2018) and Mintzberg (1978), who

asserted that strategy emerged from distinct business operations of

different members of a firm, rather than the consequence of the static

pattern exercise of strategic planning.

Although scholars share the view that the deeply rooted divide

between plan and pattern research is counter-productive and acts as

a barrier to greater understanding of strategic management activities

(Pettigrew, 1985), the following section of our paper is structured

along the “plan–pattern”research divide to reflect the evolved and

current state of Strategic Management research, holistically, as we

look into the phase three of evolution in the field. It is also believed

that there is no way of bridging the two extremes by developing a

shared conceptual framework because plan and pattern researchers

use different languages, different concepts and different sets of tools

and techniques (see Table 1), but given the significant contribution of

both the groups, a holistic look into their individual contribution to

Strategic Management is required to warrant the advance of the strat-

egy as a field in the globalized 21st century.

2|LATE 1930S—EARLY 1980S

2.1 |Strategy as “pattern”

The field of strategy and the scholars who viewed “strategy as pat-

tern”emerged as early as 1930 and gained momentum in the 1960s

in the work of pioneering scholars such as Barnard (1938), Ansoff

(1965) and Chandler Jr (1962). Chandler Jr (1962) defined strategy as

the planning and implementation of business development. The strat-

egy consisted of choosing the company's fundamental longer-term

goals and thus adopting action plans. It aims to predict the future of

organization through available knowledge and past behavior. Ansoff

(1965) introduced different concepts such as competence, mission,

and definition of business. Based on his experience, Ansoff (1965)

observed that a business aimed at maximizing financial returns. These

studies were complemented by Schumpeter (1942), who gave the

concept of “creative destruction”to drive out competition and create

monopoly Aghion, Bergeaud, Boppart, Klenow, and Li (2019).

JEL classification code: M16.

DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2299

Strategic Change. 2019;28:469–478. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jsc © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 469