1、Theory and research in strategicmanagement: Swings of a pendulumRobert E. HoskissonUniversity of OklahomaMichael A. HittTexas A Phone: 405-325-3982; Fax: 405-325-1957; e-mail: rhoskisscbafac.ou.edu.Journal of Management1999, Vol. 25, No. 3, 417456Copyright 1999 by Elsevier Science Inc. 0149-2063417g
2、ic decision theory (process research) and knowledge-based view of thefirm. The research methodologies are becoming increasingly sophisti-cated and now frequently combine both quantitative and qualitativeapproaches and unique and new statistical tools. Finally, this reviewexamines the future directio
3、ns, both in terms of theory and methodol-ogies, as the study of strategic management evolves. 1999 ElsevierScience Inc. All rights reserved.The evolution of the field of strategic management since its inception hasbeen impressive. From its “humble” beginnings as the limited content of acapstone gene
4、ral management course in the business school curriculum,1strategicmanagement is now a firmly established field in the study of business andorganizations. During a relatively short period of time, this field has witnessed asignificant growth in the diversity of topics and variety of research methodse
5、mployed. While proliferation of topics and methods is generally encouraging,reflecting the vigor of the field, it is also worthwhile at this juncture to review thestate of theory and research, examining accomplishments, and preparing forcontinued progress in the next century.Owing to its roots as a
6、more applied area, strategic management has tradi-tionally focused on business concepts that affect firm performance. Herein, thekey theories and topics of strategic management along with the methods used inits study are reviewed. The field of strategic management is eclectic in nature, butwith the
7、recent development of the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm (e.g.,Barney, 1991; Wernerfelt, 1984), it has, once again, increased emphasis on firmsinternal strengths and weaknesses relative to their external opportunities andthreats. Calls for the use of qualitative methods to identify a firms re
8、sources areincreasing as each firm is considered to have a distinctive bundle of resources.This approach often uses single case studies as used in instruction and by earlystrategy scholars (e.g., Learned, Christensen, Andrews, Conner, 1991;Wernerfelt, 1984), together with the two closely related con
9、tent areas: the knowl-edge-based view (e.g., Kogut Spender andstrategic leadership (e.g., Cannella Finkelstein Kesner Newman, 1973; Porter, 1973). IO economics considersstructural aspects of an industry, whereas work on strategic groups is largelyfocused on firm groupings within an industry. Strateg
10、ic groups research continuesto be a focus, especially by the population ecologists building on the aforemen-tioned work.Reemergence of internal firm characteristics was evident in the emphasis oncompetitive dynamics and boundary relationships between the firm and its envi-ronment (e.g., Chen, 1996;
11、Gimeno Karnani Hosk-isson Hoskisson (2) firm competence and resources; (3) managers personal valuesand aspirations; and (4) obligations to segments of society other than the stock-holders. This broad definition of strategy is in accord with that of Chandler, butincorporates Selznicks (1957) “distinc
12、tive competence” and the notion of anuncertain environment (Rumelt et al., 1992). After the strategy is formulated,implementation is concerned with how resources are mobilized to accomplish thestrategy and requires appropriate organization structure, systems of incentives andcontrols, and leadership
13、. To Andrews and colleagues, implementation is “com-prised of a series of subactivities which are primarily administrative” (1969: 19).The three seminal works by Chandler, Ansoff, and Andrews and his col-leagues, respectively, provide the foundation for the field of strategic management(e.g., Rumelt
14、 et al., 1992). Collectively, they help define a number of criticalconcepts and propositions in strategy, including how strategy affects performance,422 THEORY AND RESEARCH IN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENTJOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, VOL. 25, NO. 3, 1999the importance of both external opportunities and internal ca
15、pabilities, the notionthat structure follows strategy, the practical distinction between formulation andimplementation, and the active role of managers in strategic management. Whilethere existed disagreements regarding these concepts that remained to be furtherspecified and developed (Hofer in the
16、1969 edition of Learned et al.s Business Policy, there is a set of423R.E. HOSKISSON, M.A. HITT, W.P. WAN AND D. YIUJOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, VOL. 25, NO. 3, 1999twelve cases on Olivetti plus a note on the Office Machine Industry, totaling about180 pages.In comparison, Chandlers Strategy and Structure i
17、s less normative orprescriptive in nature, although the research methods employed are still inductive(Rumelt et al., 1994). Chandler mainly used a historical approach to produce adetailed account of four large firms (Du Pont, General Motors, Standard Oil ofNew Jersey (later known as Exxon), and Sear
18、s Roebuck), considered to berepresentative to derive his thesis and propositions. Most of the information on thefirms was gathered from publicly available sources, internal company records, andinterviews. Interestingly, prior to the in-depth case studies of the four firms, anextensive survey of a la
19、rger number of firms had been conducted to provide initialknowledge of the business patterns of large U.S. enterprises. Subsequent to thecase studies, Chandler extended the scope of the case study to conduct a com-parative analysis among four firms to investigate what and why enterprisesadopted or r
20、ejected the multidivisional structure. Therefore, unlike Andrews andAnsoff, Chandler attempted to seek generalizations regarding his thesis across awider population of firms.Overall, the approaches used by prominent strategy scholars during thisfoundation period were mainly normative or prescriptive
21、 in purpose, with in-depthcase analysis as the primary research tool. To the extent that generalization is oneof the goals, it is primarily achieved through induction (Rumelt, Schendel, Mason, 1939) paradigm. The most widely adopted IO framework in strategicmanagement gave rise to the rich body of r
22、esearch on “strategic groups.”In the preface to the first edition of Industrial Organization, Bain stated thatthe book (or IO economics in general) was concerned with “the economywidecomplex of business enterprises . . . in their function as suppliers, sellers, orbuyers, of goods and services of eve
23、ry sort produced by enterprises” and “theenvironmental settings within which enterprises operate and in how they behavein these settings as producers, sellers, and buyers.” He also suggested that hisapproach was basically “external,” and “the primary unit of analysis was theindustry or competing gro
24、ups of firms, rather than either the individual firm or theeconomywide aggregate of enterprises (1968: vii). The central tenet of thisparadigm, as summarized by Porter (1981), is that a firms performance isprimarily a function of the industry environment in which it competes; andbecause structure de
25、termines conduct (or conduct is simply a reflection of theindustry environment), which in turn determines performance, conduct can beignored and performance can, therefore, be explained by structure. Recent re-search, in fact, supports this argument, but also suggests that the industry envi-ronment
26、has differential effects on large and small firms (Dean, Brown, see Grimm Porter, 1979). In thisregard, industry is no longer viewed as a homogeneous unit to the extent that theconcept of strategic groups exposes the “structure within industries” (Porter,1979).Although Hunt, Newman, and Porters rese
27、arch on strategic groups purportsto explain firm performance, the focus is actually on groups, rather than on firms.For example, Newmans (1973) study is on 34 “producer goods” industries thatare all related to chemical processes, while Porters (1973) focus is on 38“consumer goods” industries. A seri
28、es of studies conducted in the context of thebrewing industry by Hatten (1974), Hatten and Schendel (1977), and Hatten,Schendel, and Cooper (1978) attempt to move the study of strategic groups to thefirm level by emphasizing firm heterogeneity and conduct (strategy). As a result,426 THEORY AND RESEA
29、RCH IN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENTJOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, VOL. 25, NO. 3, 1999these studies focus on strategic groups within one industry. In addition to usingstructural variables such as firm size and industry concentration ratio, thesebrewing studies employ manufacturing (e.g., capital intensity of plants
30、), market-ing (e.g., number of brands), and financial (leverage) variables, among others, asthe basis for strategic group formation. Firm profitability is regarded as a functionof both industry structure and strategic conduct (Cool Hattenand (2) whether a firms performance depends on strategic group
31、 member-ship. They argued that the existence of strategic groups in an industry rests on theresearchers presumption that strategic groups actually exist. Indeed, the resultinggroupings may be merely statistical artifacts of the cluster analytic proceduresused to create groups. To date, the concept o
32、f strategic groups lacks theoreticalsupport. Furthermore, the relationship between group membership and firm per-formance depends critically on the existence of mobility barriers. To the extentthat mobility barriers exist in an industry, there is no theory to define them in aparticular industry. The
33、 attributes used for clustering strategic groups are consid-ered mobility barriers if firm performance is different among the strategic groups.Nonetheless, Barney and Hoskisson (1990) show that different clusters of thesame set of firms can produce significant differences in firm performance bygroup
34、. Based on these two limitations, Barney and Hoskisson (1990) raise doubtabout the contribution of strategic groups research to the field of strategicmanagement. The concept of strategic groups, developed largely as a theoreticalcompromise between IO economics and strategic management, may lack theo
35、-retical validity. Recently, Wiggins and Ruefli (1995) found that stability ofperformance group membership is lacking, questioning the efficacy of mobilitybarriers and, thus, the predictive validity of strategic groups. The fundamentalquestion is whether firms are acutely aware of their mutual depen
36、dence withintheir particular strategic groups (Porter, 1979), or are these groups an analyticconvenience employed by researchers (Hatten Oster, 1982). This line of research foundinitial evidence that there is a low level of firm movement across strategic groups.Through an in-depth longitudinal study
37、 of the U.S. insurance industry, Fiegen-baum and Thomas (1995) expanded this line of research by focusing on theinfluence of strategic groups as a reference point for firm-level competitivestrategy decisions. Another recent development in strategic group research isbased on a cognitive perspective.
38、Instead of using secondary data, Reger and Huff(1993) rely on managers cognitive classifications to categorize strategic groups.In a related vein, Porac, Thomas, Wilson, Paton, and Kanfer (1995) also usemanagers cognitive perceptions to examine how firms define a reference group ofrivals. More recen
39、tly, Peteraf and Shanley (1997) advance cognitive strategic427R.E. HOSKISSON, M.A. HITT, W.P. WAN AND D. YIUJOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, VOL. 25, NO. 3, 1999group research by proposing a theory of strategic group identity and distinguishbetween groups with strong identities from those with weak identities
40、.Similar to the research on strategic groups, organizational ecologists recentlyhave emphasized an evolutionary perspective in which the population of strate-gically similar organizations are studied longitudinally, considering both theirsuccess and failure (Barnett Newman,1973, 1978), mutual forbea
41、rance (e.g., Edwards, 1955; Bernheim Bulow, Geanako-plos, Chen Smith, Grimm,Chen, Smith, Grimm, Porter, 1979), but develop-ment of the concept by strategy researchers has been predominantly concernedwith firm strategy within an industry (e.g., Purdue Universitys brewing industrystudies). Interesting
42、ly, strategic groups research represents the first swing in thefield back toward the firm level.The ability of strategy research to internalize and develop diverse theories tostudy a variety of topics perhaps has enabled the field to experience exceptionaldevelopment in its short history. Besides st
43、rategic groups discussed above, re-search on competitive dynamics clearly demonstrates the fields ability to inte-grate economics based arguments with management theories and concepts, suchas information processing, expectancy-valence theory, to create a unique body of430 THEORY AND RESEARCH IN STRA
44、TEGIC MANAGEMENTJOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, VOL. 25, NO. 3, 1999research with a strong focus on the firm and competitive interaction. Therefore,although strategic management in this period was heavily influenced by econom-ics, researchers were able to develop new, unique theories for the field.Early Inte
45、rmediate MethodologiesTremendous changes in the methodology of strategic management researchoccurred during this period. Schendel and Hatten strongly advocated that strategicmanagement needed empirical research to show relationships between variablesas “the conceptual development of the field has ou
46、tstripped the research derivedevidence available to support, deny or modify it” (1972: 101). Furthermore, theypointed out the need for strategy research to go beyond the inductive approach andconduct more deductive studies with “reliable data specifically collected to allowthe development of testabl
47、e answers to strategic questions” (1972: 102). Schendeland Hatten (1972) suggested that it was necessary for the field to build models,perform analyses, and develop theories. A landmark event that served to definethe development of the field was a conference held in 1979 at the University ofPittsbur
48、gh organized by Dan Schendel and Charles Hofer. The purpose of theconference was threefold: (1) to describe and define the field of strategic man-agement; (2) to critically examine the research methodologies and data sourcespresently in use; and (3) to suggest fruitful future directions (Schendel Gi
49、meno Hatten Patton, 1976). The use of increasingly sophisticated methods in the field has beenimpressive e.g., Gimeno Keats Chen Jensen Hoskisson Hoskisson, 1987; Hoskisson, Harrison, Hill,Hitt, Hoskisson on the other hand, to capture the benefits from unrelated diversification,an internal competitive structure is required. Hoskisson, Hill, and Kim (1993)have comprehensively reviewed M-form research in strategic management.Another topic where TCE is fruitfully applied is the hybrid form of organi-zation. “Hybrids” refer to the various organizing modes between the two pol
