TY - JOUR
T1 - How Firms Undertake Organizational Changes to Shift to More-exploratory Strategies
T2 - A Process Perspective
AU - Vedel, Jane Bjørn
AU - Kokshagina, Olga
N1 - Published online 18 September 2020.
PY - 2021/1
Y1 - 2021/1
N2 - Firms’ organization of exploratory research has interested scholars of both research policy and organization theory, yet we still know too little about how firms undertake organizational changes to shift to more-exploratory strategies. Adopting a process perspective, we explore this question through a longitudinal, comparative case study of a Danish pharmaceutical firm and a French-Italian semiconductor firm. We demonstrate how firms adjust their organizational structures to increase exploration, a process of constantly addressing countervailing organizational and interorganizational demands by deploying, combining, and changing balancing mechanisms at the organizational and managerial levels. Moreover, our findings show that firms’ different organizational structures affect their adaptations to exploratory outcomes. These findings advance theory because they illuminate the dynamic interplay between firms’ adjustments of organizational structures and their movements toward more exploration. We use a recursive process model to theorize our findings.
AB - Firms’ organization of exploratory research has interested scholars of both research policy and organization theory, yet we still know too little about how firms undertake organizational changes to shift to more-exploratory strategies. Adopting a process perspective, we explore this question through a longitudinal, comparative case study of a Danish pharmaceutical firm and a French-Italian semiconductor firm. We demonstrate how firms adjust their organizational structures to increase exploration, a process of constantly addressing countervailing organizational and interorganizational demands by deploying, combining, and changing balancing mechanisms at the organizational and managerial levels. Moreover, our findings show that firms’ different organizational structures affect their adaptations to exploratory outcomes. These findings advance theory because they illuminate the dynamic interplay between firms’ adjustments of organizational structures and their movements toward more exploration. We use a recursive process model to theorize our findings.
KW - Balancing mechanisms
KW - Exploration-exploitation
KW - Organizational adaptation
KW - Organizational structures
KW - Process perspective
KW - Balancing mechanisms
KW - Exploration-exploitation
KW - Organizational adaptation
KW - Organizational structures
KW - Process perspective
UR - https://sfx-45cbs.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/45cbs?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_ctx_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info:sid/sfxit.com:azlist&sfx.ignore_date_threshold=1&rft.object_id=954921364529&rft.object_portfolio_id=&svc.holdings=yes&svc.fulltext=yes
U2 - 10.1016/j.respol.2020.104118
DO - 10.1016/j.respol.2020.104118
M3 - Journal article
VL - 50
JO - Research Policy
JF - Research Policy
SN - 0048-7333
IS - 1
M1 - 104118
ER -