Strategizing With Institutional Theory

This text consults seven variants of institutional theory to explore how these can be applied to strategic management. These variants are New Institutional Economics, Old Institutionalism, New Institutionalism, institutional entrepreneurship and change, intra organizational institutionalization, institutional logics, and institutional work. In doing so, three strategic management styles are distinguished: competitiveness based strategic management, legitimacy based strategic management, and performativity based strategic management. While the competitive based style sees institutional theory submitting to mainstream strategy research, offering additional variables and considerations to explain competitive advantage, the legitimacy based style makes institutional theory a strategy theory in its own right by providing an explanation for an organization's viability that emphasizes legitimacy over competitive advantage. The performativity based style is an even more radical departure from mainstream strategizing by purporting that a future is actively created with organizations making contributions as emerging issues are being dealt with.

In this exciting volume, a diverse and accomplished group of scholars work to integrate theories of institutions with strategic management. The research they present examines a wide range of industrial contexts, ranging from American retailing at the end of the nineteenth century, to German tax law at the beginning of the twenty-first.

This is an analysis of what managers actually do in relation to the development of strategy in organisations.

Some 20 years after the emergence of configurational theory as a key perspective in organization studies in the 1990s, this approach has yet to deliver on its promise. While we know that configurations the relative arrangement of parts and elements - matters, empirical research on configurations is just beginning to deliver on its promise.

The theory of symbolic management reveals a pervasive pattern of 'symbolic decoupling' - a separation between appearances and reality - at every level of the governance system. At each level the processes of governance are less efficient or effective than they appear; from interpersonal relations within organizations such as those between CEOs and directors, top managers and lower-level employees, to relations between firm leaders and external stakeholders such as journalists and security analysts. There is even a separation between appearances and reality at the level of the governance system itself. In this book, James Westphal and Sun Hyun Park develop symbolic management into a major theoretical perspective on governance. Not only does symbolic management provide a compelling behavioral alternative to economic perspectives such as agency theory, but it subsumes economic theory. Agency theory is reconceived as a historically contingent institutional logic that became taken for granted among corporate stakeholders for a period of time and eventually replaced by a new logic of governance. Through a body of extensive empirical research Westphal and Park demonstrate how the symbolic management activities of firm leaders have contributed to this historical shift in prevailing logics of governance, and present a warning to regulators, investors, and the general public.

This book contains a series of essays and empirical case studies exploring the nature of institutional work.

Written by an expert team and praised for its refreshing approach, this essential text offers a critical, holistic understanding of strategy theory and practice. The fourth edition has been fully updated to include: • Coverage of contemporary issues including the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and digitalization • Topical and engaging case studies such as Disney’s Strategy and Covid-19, Netflix Versus Amazon: Dynamic Capabilities for Global Success, and PS5, Xbox and BMW: Chips and Supply Chains • A wealth of new examples of strategy in practice from world-renowned organisations such as Google, Uniqlo, Tesla, IKEA, and Airbnb Suitable for both undergraduate and postgraduate study, Strategy: Theory and Practice encourages readers to engage critically with the internal and external factors that shape strategy in the real world. A selection of tried and tested online resources, including a teaching guide, PowerPoints, an online case study bank and test bank of questions have been developed to support lecturers using the book in their teaching. Stewart Clegg is Professor at the University of Sydney, Emeritus Professor at the University of Technology Sydney, and Visiting Professor at the University of Stavanger, University of Johannesburg, and Nova School of Business and Economics. Christos Pitelis is Head of Department of International Business and Professor of International Business and Sustainable Competitiveness at the University of Leeds, and Life Fellow at Queens’ College, University of Cambridge. Jochen Schweitzer is an Associate Professor at the University of Technology Sydney. Andrea Whittle is Professor of Management at Newcastle University Business School.