Andrew S. Grove

Let chaos reign, then rein in chaos—repeatedly: managing strategic dynamics for corporate longevity

Combining longitudinal field research and executive experience, we propose that corporate longevity depends on matching cycles of autonomous and induced strategy processes to different forms of strategic dynamics, and that the role of alert strategic leadership is to appropriately balance the induced and autonomous processes throughout these cycles. We also propose that such strategic leadership is the means through which leadership style exerts its influence on corporate longevity. Our findings can be related to organizational research on structural inertia, learning and adaptation, as well as to formal theories of complex adaptive systems. They also contribute to resolving the seeming contradiction between a study of corporations that attributes exceptional long-term success to leadership style, and the more common proposition that strategy is the determinant of long-term performance.

Strategic Dynamics: Three Key Themes

We study the evolution of industries in terms of three interrelated key themes that together form an analytical lens. The first theme--strategy and strategic dynamics--raises the question of how companies can gain, sustain, or regain profitable growth in the face of various types of strategic dynamics. The second theme--strategy and action--is based on the observation that in rapidly changing environments it is quite difficult to maintain alignment between stated strategy and strategic action and examines how companies can regain such alignment. The third theme--industry change and corporate transformation--recognizes that industry-level change inevitably requires a company to fundamentally rethink its strategy and business model. It must transform itself in terms of what it does and, even more fundamentally, how it does it.