N. Venkatraman

Research Commentary---Reframing the Dominant Quests of Information Systems Strategy Research for Complex Adaptive Business Systems

We review and reframe three main quests of research on information systems (IS) strategy: (1) the strategic alignment quest, (2) the integration quest, and (3) the sustained competitive advantage quest. The assumptions and logic of these quests have become less relevant in increasingly complex adaptive business systems (CABS), where the competitive performance landscapes of products and services are highly dynamic and co-evolve. We revise the strategic alignment quest to propose a co-evolution quest that addresses not only competitive strategy questions of a firm but also corporate strategy questions. The co-evolution quest seeks to increase a firms agility and dynamism in repositioning itself, identifying profitable product-market positions as the evolving competitive landscape erodes the profitability of the firms existing positions. To support the co-evolution quest, we revise the integration quest and propose a reconfiguration quest that encompasses not only business processes but also products and services, as well as the contracts, resources, and transactions associated with them. As the firm makes repositioning moves to co-evolve with the competitive landscape, the reconfiguration quest seeks to increase the firms agility in disintegrating its existing nexus of contracts, resources, and transactions that support the old positions and in reconfiguring new ones that support the new positions. Finally, we revise the sustained competitive advantage quest to propose a renewal quest that recognizes the temporary nature of competitive advantage in CABS. The renewal quest seeks to destabilize the firms old sources of competitive advantage when competitive dynamics erode their utility, rapidly create new sources of competitive advantage, and concatenate a series of temporary advantages over time. The three reframed quests provide the foundation for a research agenda on IS strategy in CABS.

Testing metric equivalence in cross-national strategy research: an empirical test across the United States and Japan

We propose a conceptual and analytical framework for assessing metric equivalence in cross‐national strategy research. We illustrate this framework by testing the equivalence of measurement models for a set of strategy constructs across the United States and Japan. Results of a two‐group LISREL analysis conducted on a data set of 447 interorganizational relationships reveal that some constructs have strong cross‐national equivalence, while others need content respecification or reconceptualization. We discuss implications and offer suggestions about how to conduct empirical strategy research in cross‐national settings. Copyright

REFLECTING “KNOWLEDGE” IN STRATEGY RESEARCH: CONCEPTUAL ISSUES AND METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES

Strategy researchers have become fascinated with the possibilities for developing theoretical perspectives rooted in knowledge and intellectual assets as drivers of superior performance. However, there have been many different schools of thought, each with its own conceptualization lenses and operationalization approaches. In this chapter, we focus on three schools of thought: (1) knowledge as stocks; (2) knowledge as flow; and (3) knowledge as a driver of an organizational capability. We use them to: (a) lay out the distinct approaches to conceptualization and operationalization of strategy-related concepts; and (b) identify specific ways to enhance theory-method correspondence. We believe that considerable progress could be made towards developing a knowledge-based view of strategy but only when accompanied by serious attention to measurement and methodological issues.

Is it working? Working from home at Statoil, Norway

Statoil a.s., Den norske stats oljeselskap, made home PCs, private ISDN connections and Internet access freely available to virtually all of its about 18[punctuation space]000 employees worldwide in 1997. The goal of this unprecedented initiative was to improve information technology (IT) skills of Statoil employees in preparation for competition in the emerging knowledge economy. Statoil management taught that availability of PCs at home could create a natural learning environment for employees to acquire IT skills during their leisure time. Although the initiative has resulted in improvement of employee IT skills, as predicted, it has also brought about many emergent outcomes including a rapidly growing working from home practice at Statoil. This practice, in turn, has surfaced the need to rethink organizing principles and human resource policies at Statoil. In this paper, the authors describe evolution and outcomes of Statoils working from home initiative. Combining insights from Statoils initiative and the broader virtual work literature, they argue that working from home is an essential part of the knowledge strategy of firms. They propose a framework that conceptualizes working from home strategy in terms of administrative efficiency and knowledge effectiveness at individual and team or task unit levels. They summarize managerial and technical challenges brought about by each strategy.

Interconnect to win: the joint effects of business strategy and network positions on the performance of software firms

We develop and test a model of how a software firms business strategy (product scope and market scope) interacts with the firms network position (alliance degree and structural holes) to impact performance. We test the joint-effects hypotheses on a sample 359 packaged software firms that have entered into 5,489 alliances involving 2,849 distinct firms during the time period, 1990–2002. While prior studies have demonstrated the importance of network positions as a determinant of firm strategy and performance, this chapter begins to examine the performance effects of how a firms business strategy and network positions interact. We find support for three of the four hypotheses lending empirical support for our theoretical model. We develop implications for network-based perspectives of strategy and outline areas for further research.