The strategy and change interface: understanding “enabling” processes and cognitions

Abstract

The aim of this special issue is to better understand the strategy and change interface, in particular, the (sub)processes and cognitions that enable strategies to be successfully implemented and organizations effectively changed. The ten papers selected for this special issue reflect a range of scholarly traditions and, thus, as our review and integration of the relevant literatures, and our introductions to the ten papers demonstrate, they shed light on the strategy and change interface in starkly different ways. Collectively, the papers give us more insight into the recursive activities, and structural, organizational learning and cognitive mechanisms that are encouraged or deliberately established at organizations to allow their people to successfully implement a strategy and effect change, including achieve greater levels of horizontal alignment. Moreover, they demonstrate the benefits associated with establishing platforms and/or routines designed to overcome decision-makers’ cognitive shortcomings while implementing a strategy or making timely adjustments to it. We conclude our editorial by identifying some yet unanswered questions.

Exploring a market-like organizational system’s performance by considering the efficiency/effectiveness trade-off in micro-level exchanges

“…, 2018; Zubac et al. , 2010) and a configuration of subprocesses that can be linked to high performance (Zubac et al. , 2021).…”

“…’s (2010) payments perspective. Moreover, this paper emphasizes the strategic importance of a “make-things-happen” attitude in operation (Zubac et al. , 2021) by introducing the similarity principle to explain how a dyadic exchange efficiently occurs.…”

Probing the impact of cognitive heuristics on strategic decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from an emerging economy

“…Rational planning is a strategic management theoretical framework primarily focused on a rational approach to strategic decision-making. The research work by Zubac et al (2021) highlighted that the underlying assumption of rational planning is violated due to cognitive biases. Acciarini et al (2021) also contend that the presence of cognitive biases during the strategic decision-making process causes deviations from anticipated goals and incurs wastage of resources.…”

“…Rational planning is a strategic management theoretical framework primarily focused on a rational approach to strategic decision-making. The research work by Zubac et al . (2021) highlighted that the underlying assumption of rational planning is violated due to cognitive biases.…”

“…Under-confidence bias can induce pessimistic behaviour because under-confidence decision-makers perceive that they have to exhibit limited knowledge; as a result, they opt for suboptimal choices, which can hinder the quality of strategic decision-making. Accordingly, decision-makers suffering from under-confident bias may overestimate their downside risk, resulting in a suboptimal strategic decision (Zubac et al , 2021).…”