Strategic Management Society

Should firms care about resolving social issues beyond their market boundaries? How can they create value by doing so? Concerns outside the boundaries of firms’ markets, such as environmental sustainability, infrastructure gaps, climate change, the rise of nationalism and protectionism around the world among many others, have an increasingly clear impact on firms’strategy. This is … More Stepping beyond market concerns: How should firms engage with non-profit stakeholders to create value?

Are activist investors the villains? In the movie “Pretty Woman (1990),” Richard Gere plays a corporate raider who takes over a struggling shipping company. The climax of the movie is when Gere’s character punches his colleague and old-time friend Phillip Stuckey in the face (played by Jason Alexander), decides not to break up the company … More Are activist investors the villains?

The slow down in investment in innovation in large corporation is obviously concerning but it is also puzzling. In a recent SMJ paper, Trey Cummings and Anne Marie Knott argue that some of that decline may be the unintended consequence of corporations relying on outside CEOs. According to the authors, the emphasis on general managerial … More Are outside CEOs detrimental to innovation?

Summary by SMJ Associate Editor, Olivier Chatain (HEC Paris) Arora A, Belenzon S, Patacconi A. The decline of science in corporate R&D. Strat Mgmt J. 2017;1–30. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2693 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smj.2693/full The topic and the findings of this paper are of interest to anyone who wants to know about the role of firms in the production of scientific knowledge … More SMJ Article – The Decline of Science in Corporate R&D

Corporate political activity in the United States has been a growing and increasingly controversial phenomenon following the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizen’s United case (2010). In Citizen’s United, the Supreme Court stated that because of freedom of speech considerations, the government cannot restrict political expenditures of corporations. Corporations may have many reasons to contribute … More How Do Investors React to Covert Political Activity of Corporations?

Civil war and violent social conflict drove headlines around the world in 2016 with conflict in Syria, the Mediterranean refugee crisis, and the backlash to immigration taking center stage across Europe and the US. But citizens are not the only actors who have to choose whether to flee or persist when armed conflict hits a country. … More “Caught in the Crossfire”: MNCs in armed conflict zones

Downtowns and cities are hot. But if we look at it carefully, is this more than an anecdotal trend? Strategy has a long history of studying location effects for business. What will the urban revival mean for businesses and strategy? We discuss recent research on the geography of work and entrepreneurship. Research cited in the discussion: … More Research Chatter 8: The Urban Revival