Exploring the topology of the plausible: Fs/QCA counterfactual analysis and the plausible fit of unobserved organizational configurations

Few ideas have been more persistently central in both strategy and organization research than the concept of fit (Child, 1974; Miller, 1992; Parker and Van Witteloostuijn, 2010; Sinha and Van de Ven, 2005). Beyond its theoretical appeal, the prominence of the idea of fit in the management literature is also due to its powerful practical applications. In fact, the conceptual frameworks developed around this idea have offered a systematic approach that can be applied to any organization to uncover areas of misalignment that may affect performance goals (Tushman and O’Reilly, 2002). Since early contingency approaches, research has focused on a two-dimensional notion of fit, investigating, for example, the internal fit between strategy and structure (e.g. Chandler, 1962; Miller, 1992) or the external fit between structure and contextual factors (e.g. Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967) as bivariate relationships. Drawing on these fundamental intuitions, in the last two decades scholars have developed the notion of configurational fit, defined here as ‘the systemic relationship among multiple sets of elements, either internal or external to an organization’ (cf. Drazin and Van de Ven, 1985; Meyer et al., 1993; Siggelkow, 2002; Snow et al., 2005). More precisely, configurational fit captures the multidimensionality and complexity of the relationships linking organizational elements (such as organizational structures, integration mechanisms and people); the attributes of a firm’s strategy (such as degree of diversification, vertical integration, customer orientation); and environmental dimensions (such as market volatility, technological dynamism, regulation and environmental munificence). An emergent and promising stream of literature has also recently expanded the set of factors that can systemically interact in a configuration, including informal organizational elements (Gulati and Puranam, 2009; Soda and Zaheer, 2012), showing how the multidimensional interaction among these factors can generate positive or detrimental effects on performance. 10310.1177/1476127012452826Soda and FurnariStrategic Organization 2012