No abstract

Research on strategic consensus focuses primarily on the extent of agreement among team members regarding organizational strategy. It does not include elements such as the content of the agreement, between-group consensus, or the significance of differences in consensus (e.g., for evaluating the effectiveness of strategic interventions). We propose a new analytical approach, Strategic Consensus Mapping, that provides a comprehensive analysis of strategic consensus within and between groups and that includes intuitive and easy-to-understand visualizations. This approach offers researchers the necessary tools for integrative theory building in strategic consensus, as well as in the broader managerial and organizational cognition domain. Using a case example, we illustrate the proposed methods for a multidimensional, multilevel, and longitudinal analysis of strategic consensus.

Implementing strategy demands an organizationwide effort, where teams should not operate in isolation. A challenge many organizations face in implementing their strategy is eradicating silo thinking and creating shared understanding of strategy between interdependent teams—that is, intergroup strategic consensus. However, strategy process research is silent on how such intergroup strategic consensus can emerge. Drawing on social identity theory, we offer a lens to understand what influences the degree of intergroup strategic consensus. We unveil a tension between organizational and group identification such that organizational identification enhances intergroup strategic consensus, whereas group identification reduces it. Moreover, we hypothesize that high group identification crowds out positive effects of organizational identification on intergroup strategic consensus. Data from 451 intergroup relationships between 92 teams within a service organization support these hypotheses. We replicate our results using 191 intergroup relationships between 37 teams from another organization. These results allow us to develop an understanding of intergroup strategic consensus, expand the conversation in strategy process research to between-team interdependencies, and challenge the assumption in management literature and practice that higher identification is always desirable.

It has been suggested that in the West and Japan the labor production factor is increasingly being replaced by the production factor knowledge. Knowledge is a person's capacity to carry out a particular task. It is thought to be composed of codified knowledge (information) and tacit knowledge which encompasses experience, skill and attitude. Learning is considered to be the production process by which knowledge is generated. According to the organizations which were present at the ISMICK 1996 (International Symposium on the Management of Industrial Corporate Knowledge), 'Identifying available knowledge' is the operational process in the knowledge value chain that should be improved with first priority. Here, we describe a tool for knowledge gap determination at the individual level: the knowledge matrix. It is a participatory method particularly useful for workers in the operational core of the organization.