Strategic Renewal as Improvisation: Reconciling the Tension Between Exploration and Exploitation

Crossan, Mary; Hurst, David

doi:10.1016/s0742-3322(06)23009-2

Cited by 48 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…'Tension' bridges the literature on dialectics, paradox and contradiction, emphasizing organizations' need to balance multiple contradictory pressures (Crossan & Hurst, 2006;Lewis, 2000).…”

Section: Strategy Implementation: Tensions Politics and Resistancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet tension can also be positive when organizational actors are able to transcend and work across different forces in a both/and fashion (Lewis, 2000). Positive outcomes of tensions are often achieved via improvisation, which is the "creative and spontaneous process of trying to achieve an objective in a new way" (Vera & Crossan, 2005: 205; also Crossan & Hurst, 2006). To fully appreciate strategy implementation, it is thus important to understand such dynamics.…”

Section: Strategy Implementation: Tensions Politics and Resistancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Political activity is common in organizations (Rosen et al, 2013; Whittle et al, 2013) but can be counterproductive by focusing activities on internal power dynamics rather than external market issues, leading to in-fighting and potentially 5 delaying strategic decisions and actions. Conversely, politics can be productive; for instance, ensuring there is appropriate questioning of strategic decisions and actions to secure the best organizational outcome (Johnson, 1992; Whittle et al, 2013).Work on organizational tensions casts light on the social dynamics inherent in strategizing.'Tension' bridges the literature on dialectics, paradox and contradiction, emphasizing organizations' need to balance multiple contradictory pressures (Crossan & Hurst, 2006;Lewis, 2000).Contradictions present in organizational life include cooperation vs. competition, rigidity vs.flexibility, and short-term vs. long-term goals (Das & Teng, 2000). Tensions can be negative, leading…”

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confidence: 99%

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The Role of Task and Process Conflict in Strategizing

Lê¹,

Jarzabkowski

2014

British J of Management

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This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link The Role of Task and Process Conflict in StrategizingThe implementation of strategic initiatives is central to organizational success (Balogun & Johnson, 2004;. Recent studies show that implementation does not simply operationalize and execute strategy, but also results in subtle adjustments or explicit reformulations of strategy content (Sminia & de Rond, 2012;Vaara & Whittington, 2012). Strategy implementation is thus central to effective strategizing. Yet, strategy implementation is complex, partially because it is critically affected by human dynamics like resistance (Courpasson et al, 2013), politics (Whittle et al, 2013) and tension (Jarzabkowski et al, 2013). Rather than indicators of failure, such dynamics are an integral part of how organizations negotiate multiple goals (Denis et al, 2001(Denis et al, , 2007Johnson et al, 2003) and can improve the quality of strategy (Normann, 1977;Pettigrew, 1977). It is thus important to understand the human dynamics underlying strategy implementation.While strategy scholars have studied the role of dynamics such as resistance, politics, and tensions during strategy implementation, little focus has been put on conflict. This is surprising as (i) conflict is specifically about incompatibility of goals, processes and relationships (De Dreu and Gelfand, 2008;Jehn and Bendersky, 2003), which are central to strategy implementation; (ii) conflict significantly impacts organizational outcomes such as performance (De Wit et al., 2012) and helps develop organizational capability (Danneels, 2008;Hinthorne, 1996); (iii) all organizations are affected by conflict to some degree (De Dreu & Gelfand, 2008); and (iv) conflict often precedes resistance, politics and tensions (Courpasson et al, 2013;Jarzabkowski et al, 2013; Whittle et al, 2013). Hence, conflict is a critical dynamic for strategist to understand.The few studies explicitly investigating conflict in the strategy process tend to focus on formulation by studying strategic decisions (e.g. Amason, 1996;Amason & Schweiger, 1994;Eisenhardt et al, 1997). Such studies show that conflict leads to increased scrutiny of information and, consequently, better decisions Kellermanns et al, 2008;Mooney et al, 2007). There has been little attention to conflict during strategy implementation (exceptions: Floyd & Lane, 2000;Regnér, 2003). Conflict is likely to impact implementation but do not know how. That is our focus.Employing a strategizing perspective, we theorize the role of human dynamics in strategy implementation, focusing on conflict. We then investigate these ideas in a detailed longitudinal study of implementing a strategy in real-time, highlighting the importance of task and process conflict. Our study shows that the interaction of task and process conflict, and the responses this interaction evokes, enables strategy to emerge as actors implement it. Both conflict types enable...

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“…'Tension' bridges the literature on dialectics, paradox and contradiction, emphasizing organizations' need to balance multiple contradictory pressures (Crossan & Hurst, 2006;Lewis, 2000).…”

Section: Strategy Implementation: Tensions Politics and Resistancementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Strategy Implementation: Tensions Politics and Resistancementioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Role of Task and Process Conflict in Strategizing

Lê¹,

Jarzabkowski

2014

British J of Management

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“…The norm of agreement is critical for the creation of an experimental climate in teams, which is defined as a climate that provides room for experimentation and is tolerant of "competent" mistakes (Vera & Crossan, 2004). Low levels of experimentation and low tolerance for mistakes constitute a climate that pursues exploitation over exploration (Crossan & Hurst, 2003). In contrast, high levels of experimentation and tolerance for error are not associated with blind risk taking and lack of discipline, but instead represent a climate that promotes action as opposed to reflection as a way to understand and deal with reality (Cunha, Cunha, & Kamoche, 1999), where boundaries and minimal constraints are defined in such a way that experimentation can occur (Vera & Crossan, 2005).…”

Section: Team Experimental Climate and It Knowledge Integration Capabmentioning

confidence: 99%

IT knowledge integration capability and team performance: The role of team climate

Basaglia

Caporarello

Magni

et al. 2010

International Journal of Information Management

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“…According to Hurst (1995), Kotter (1996), Thiry (2002), Crossan and Hurst (2006), Kloot and Martin (2007), Ulmer et al (2007), and Pina and Rego (2010) when an enterprise faces an economic crises, the crises would force the enterprise to revive itself through various means such as: layoffs, closure of 'non-core' operations or examination of innovations, for its survival. Thus, the key finding of "pseudo-ABC" shows that it has a bearing on Palestinian enterprises that were learning to be inevitably creative for regeneration in 'crisis and to renew themselves in ecocycle model' (Hurst, 1995;Schumpeter, 1934).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Pseudo- Activity-Based Costing Practice for Decision-Making in Palestine: An Empirical Evidence-2”

Hajjawi¹

2017

JIBE

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The research question was how do enterprises produce effective costing practices under challenging operational environment in Palestine? This work aims at making a theoretical contribution about the way businesses adapt product costing to enhance resilience in challenging operational conditions in implementing strategic management planning. This study argues that Traditional Cost Accounting (-TCA) is gradually becoming less relevant in the present climate of global competitive business. Also, financial and nonfinancial information become not reliable for management planning. Such problems become a more urgent priority when the external environment is exceptionally restrictive as the case is under Israeli army occupation in Palestine. Activity-Based Costing (-ABC) that is a newer system that enables managers to cost more accurately, is the system without a business has hindered its commercial viability. This empirical study draws upon a questionnaire survey of ISO 9000 certified manufacturing enterprises. Enterprises in Palestine were shown to improvise, producing their own version of bespoke ABC, termed "pseudo-ABC". The system had tended to display low complexity. Chi-square tests and Cramer's V values show significant variables association in understanding the problems they encountered. "Pseudo-ABC" generated the right information to aid decision-making at a far less cost than standard ABC UK systems

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Strategic Renewal as Improvisation: Reconciling the Tension Between Exploration and Exploitation

Cited by 48 publications

References 45 publications

The Role of Task and Process Conflict in Strategizing

The Role of Task and Process Conflict in Strategizing

IT knowledge integration capability and team performance: The role of team climate

“Pseudo- Activity-Based Costing Practice for Decision-Making in Palestine: An Empirical Evidence-2”

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