Irene M. Duhaime

STRATEGIC CHANGE IN THE TURNAROUND PROCESS: THEORY AND EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE

Early corporate turnaround theorists argued that strategic reorientations are central to the recovery process at many declining firms. However, subsequent large-sample empirical studies have reported that performance turnarounds for declining firms are primarily associated with cutback actions that increase efficiency, thus creating a gap between theory and empirical findings. We close this gap by presenting and empirically supporting a model proposing that the extent of strategic change initiated in a successful turnaround varies systematically with a declining firm’s need and capacity to reorient its strategy. Based on our model, we offer explanations for why past large-sample researchers were not able to verify the role of strategic change in the turnaround process and we reassert the adaptive role that strategic reorientations have in the turnaround attempts of declining firms with weak strategic positions.

Seeing The Big Picture: The Influence Of Industry, Diversification, And Business Strategy On Performance

Much of the strategic management literature separates industry, corporate, and business levels of analysis, and empirical studies tend to examine these levels independently, not addressing how indu...

IN THE EYES OF THE BEHOLDER: CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF RELATEDNESS HELD BY THE MANAGERS OF LARGE DIVERSIFIED FIRMS

In this study, chief executive officers were surveyed to evaluate how they perceive their firms’ businesses to be related. Responses from nearly 200 top executives provided the data for this study. Findings suggest that some managers think of relatedness in terms of similarities in products, markets, and technologies, a type of relatedness that is assessed by existing measures of diversification. The study also found, however, that managers hold additional conceptualizations of relatedness, including relatedness characterized by an emphasis on shared differentiation and marketing skills. The importance of the study’s findings and its contributions to the diversification literature are discussed.

Divestment Decision-Making: The Role of Business Unit Size

This study reports exploratory empirical research regarding divestment decision-making, focusing especially on the role of business unit size in such decisions. Data from two related studies suggest that unit size has an important impact on divestment decision-making. Corporate strategists should devote more attention to the size variable when considering acquisitions, resource allocations, and managerial career paths.

Financial analysis and strategic management

Abstract Applications of financial analysis and planning models to strategic management are presented and discussed in this article. The authors first define the concept of strategy and the nature of strategic problems, then present a useful organizing paradigm of the strategic management field. Against that backdrop, financial analysis applications are discussed. Various financial analysis and planning models are reviewed, focusing on their usefulness to strategic management. Suggestions for future research directions are raised and considered.

The Mechanisms of Governance

Prologue PART I: OVERVIEW 2. Chester Barnard and the Incipient Science of Organization 3. Transaction Cost Economics PART II: CONCEPTS AND APPLICATIONS 4. Comparative Economic Organization: The Analysis of Discrete Strucutural Alternatives 5. Credible Commitments: Using Hostages to Support Exchange 6. Economic Institutions: Spontaneous and Intentional Governance 7. Corporate Finance and Corporate Governance 8. The Politics and Economics of Redistribution and Inefficiency PART III: ORGANIZATIONS 9. Transaction Cost Economics and Organization Theory 10. Calculativeness, Trust, and Economic Organization PART IV: PUBLIC POLICY 11. Delimiting Antitrust 12. Strategizing, Economizing, and Economic Organization 13. The Institutions and Governance of Economic Development and Reform PART V: CONTROVERSY AND PERSPECTIVES 14. Transaction Cost Economics Meets Posnerian Law and Economics 15. Transaction Cost Economics and the Evolving Science of Organization Glossary