2013 Awards for Excellence

2013 Awards for Excellence

Article Type: 2013 Awards for Excellence From: European Journal of Marketing, Volume 48, Issue 1/2

The following article was selected for this year's Outstanding Paper Award for European Journal of Marketing

"Pursuing 'flexible commitment' as strategic ambidexterity: an empirical justification in high technology firms"

Yiannis Kouropalatis
Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

Paul Hughes
The Business School, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

Robert E. Morgan
Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

Purpose – Firms face high velocity conditions today that render product market strategies increasingly temporal. Strategic flexibility is critical for enabling rapid adaptation to a changing environment. At the same time, managerial commitment to product-market strategy signifies the extent to which a manager comprehends and supports the strategy and reflects a necessary sense of ownership for any chosen product-market strategy. The purpose of this paper, then, is to examine strategically ambidextrous firms through the twin lenses of flexibility and commitment to determine whether performance benefits accrue from such characteristics.
Design/methodology/approach – While traditional research streams examine strategic flexibility and commitment to product-market strategy as opposing ends of a continuum, this paper adopts a broader perspective and examines strategic flexibility and commitment to product-market strategy as elements of strategically ambidextrous firms. Cluster analysis is used to identify groups of high and low strategically ambidextrous firms.
Findings – Strategically ambidextrous firms exhibit commitment to product-market strategy, which enables the effective realisation of selected strategies through focusing managerial attention and firm resources, and strategic flexibility, which enables adaptation of the planned product-market strategy based on feedback received, or abandonment followed by new strategic choices and impetus. The paper reveals that firms with high strategic ambidexterity exhibit significantly greater levels of strategic resources, decentralisation, product-market strategy process effectiveness, and implementation effectiveness compared with low ambidexterity firms. Thus, strategic ambidexterity is revealed to endow significant performance benefits.
Originality/value – This paper addresses the need to examine ambidexterity as "flexible commitment".
Keywords Product-market strategy, Strategic process, Ambidexterity, Flexibility, Commitment, Business performance, Corporate strategy

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/03090561211248099

This article originally appeared in Volume 46 Number 10, 2012, European Journal of Marketing

The following articles were selected for this year’s Highly Commended Award

"Do initial stock price reactions provide a good measurement stick for marketing strategies? The case of new product introductions in the US"

Dmitri G. Markovitch
Joel H. Steckel

This article originally appeared in Volume 46 Number 3, 2012, European Journal of Marketing

"Strategic flexibilities and export performance: the moderating roles of export market-oriented behavior and the export environment"

John W. Cadogan
Sanna Sundqvist
Kaisu Puumalainen
Risto T. Salminen

This article originally appeared in Volume 46 Number 10, 2012, European Journal of Marketing

"Does rhetoric impact advertising effectiveness with liking controlled?"

Bruce A. Huhmann
Pia A. Albinsson

This article originally appeared in Volume 46 Number 11, 2012, European Journal of Marketing

Outstanding Reviewers

Dr Danielle Dimitrov
Dr Nicholas Clarke