STRATEGIC RENEWAL AND THE INTERACTION OF CUMULATIVE STRESS AND INERTIA

Strategic renewal is accomplished in large and small ways. This paper proposes a four phase characterization of how organizations move between state sustaining renewal and the more radical reconceptualizations that significantly alter organization activity. The argument juxtaposes inertia (or commitment to current strategy) and stress, the dissatisfactions that signal the need for renewal. To explore the details of this interaction, and its implications for the evolution of strategy over time, a formal model is developed. Quite plausible organization paths of renewal are simulated via the model which help illustrate our main theoretic arguments.

[1]  D. Whetten.  Organizational Decline: A Neglected Topic in Organizational Science1 , 1980 .

[2]  K. Andrews.  The Concept of Corporate Strategy , 1971 .

[3]  M. Tushman,et al.  Organizational Evolution: A Metamorphosis Model of Convergence and Reorientation , 1985 .

[4]  D. Maybury-Lewis,et al.  The Attraction of opposites : thought and society in the dualistic mode , 1989 .

[5]  J.-C. Spender,et al.  Industry recipes : an enquiry into the nature and sources of managerial judgement , 1989 .

[6]  Howard Thomas,et al.  Strategic decision analysis: Applied decision analysis and its role in the strategic management process , 1984 .

[7]  John Bigelow,et al.  A catastrophe model of organizational change , 1982 .

[8]  J. March,et al.  A Behavioral Theory of the Firm , 1964 .

[9]  Charles R. Schwenk.  Cognitive simplification processes in strategic decision‐making , 1984 .

[10]  Marjorie A. Lyles,et al.  Organizational Problem Formulation: An Empirical Study. , 1980 .

[11]  Y. Doz,et al.  Managing DMNCs: A search for a new paradigm , 1991 .

[12]  R. Rumelt.  Towards a Strategic Theory of the Firm , 1984 .

[13]  Charles R. Schwenk,et al.  Economic and psychological explanations for strategic persistence , 1989 .

[14]  J.-C. Spender,et al.  Recipes, Crises, and Adaptation in Mature Busrnesses , 1979 .

[15]  Ian C. MacMillan,et al.  A Generic Model of Competitive Dynamics , 1988 .

[16]  J O Huff,et al.  Cumulative Stress and Cumulative Inertia: A Behavioral Model of the Decision to Move , 1978, Environment & planning A.

[17]  D. Schendel,et al.  Corporate Turnaround Strategies: A Study of Profit Decline and Recovery , 1976 .

[18]  K. Lewin.  Frontiers in Group Dynamics , 1947 .

[19]  G. Huber.  Organizational Learning: The Contributing Processes and the Literatures , 1991 .

[20]  S. Kraemer.  Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Gregory Bateson , 1993, British Journal of Psychiatry.

[21]  Michael X Cohen,et al.  A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice. , 1972 .

[22]  M. Crozier.  The Bureaucratic Phenomenon , 1964 .

[23]  Danny Miller,et al.  Momentum and Revolution in Organizational Adaptation , 1980 .

[24]  Noel M. Tichy,et al.  Managing strategic change , 1983 .

[25]  E. Rogers.  Diffusion of Innovations , 1962 .

[26]  Alan Sheldon,et al.  Organizational paradigms: A theory of organizational change , 1980 .

[27]  Donald C. Hambrick,et al.  Large Corporate Failures as Downward Spirals , 1988 .

[28]  R. J. House,et al.  Organizations: A Quantum View , 1984 .

[29]  J. March,et al.  An introduction to models in the social sciences , 1975 .

[30]  A. Pettigrew.  The politics of organizational decision-making , 1973 .

[31]  A. V. D. Ven,et al.  Central problems in the management of innovation , 1986 .

[32]  R. Daft,et al.  Toward a Model of Organizations as Interpretation Systems , 1984 .

[33]  Henry Mintzberg.  Patterns in Strategy Formation , 1978, International Studies of Management & Organization.

[34]  C. D. Foster,et al.  A Strategy of Decision , 1963 .

[35]  K. Lewin.  Frontiers in Group Dynamics , 1947 .

[36]  K. Weick.  The social psychology of organizing , 1969 .

[37]  Henry Mintzberg.  The Nature of Managerial Work , 1974, Operational Research Quarterly (1970-1977).

[38]  T. Kuhn,et al.  The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. , 1964 .

[39]  Stuart Berg Flexner,et al.  The Random House Dictionary of the English Language and the Poetry of Tina Darragh , 2020, Dictionary Poetics.

[40]  O. Williamson.  Transaction-Cost Economics: The Governance of Contractual Relations , 1979, The Journal of Law and Economics.

[41]  P. Nystrom,et al.  To Avoid Organizational Crises, Unlearn , 1984 .

[42]  H. Becker.  Personal change in adult life. , 1964 .

[43]  W. Powell,et al.  The iron cage revisited institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields , 1983 .

[44]  M. Hannan,et al.  Structural Inertia and Organizational Change , 1984 .

[45]  C. Barnard.  The Functions of the Executive , 1939 .

[46]  J. Ford,et al.  Organizational Adaptation to Performance Downturns: An Interpretation-Based Perspective , 1987 .

[47]  P. C. Nutt.  Types of organizational decision processes. , 1984, Administrative science quarterly.

[48]  M. Tushman,et al.  Technological Discontinuities and Organizational Environments , 1986 .

[49]  B. Clark,et al.  The Distinctive College , 1970 .

[50]  L. Vogel,et al.  Strategy and Structure , 1986 .

[51]  G. Kelly.  The Psychology of Personal Constructs , 2020 .

[52]  Eric Abrahamson.  Managerial Fads and Fashions: The Diffusion and Rejection of Innovations , 1991 .

[53]  James W. Fredrickson,et al.  Inertia And Creeping Rationality In Strategic Decision Processes , 1989 .

[54]  L. Smircich,et al.  Strategic Management in an Enacted World , 1985 .

[55]  Anne Sigismund Huff,et al.  Industry influences on strategy reformulation , 1982 .

[56]  D DewarRobert,et al.  The Adoption of Radical and Incremental Innovations , 1986 .

[57]  Donald A. Schön.  Invention and the Evolution of Ideas , 1969 .

[58]  E. Johnsen.  Richard M. Cyert & James G. March, A Behavioral Theory of The Firm, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1963, 332 s. , 1964 .

[59]  J. Dutton,et al.  The Adoption of Radical and Incremental Innovations: An Empirical Analysis , 1986 .

[60]  D. Farmer.  Strategies for Change. , 1990 .

[61]  B. Hedberg,et al.  Strategy Formulation as a Discontinuous Process , 1977 .

[62]  Corporate Turnaround Strategies. , 1974 .

[63]  K. Eisenhardt.  Agency Theory: An Assessment and Review , 1989 .

[64]  L. Sproull,et al.  Thinking About Implementation , 1986 .

[65]  S. Winter,et al.  An evolutionary theory of economic change , 1983 .