Special issue on how universal is the nature and process of strategy?

Citation

(2010), "Special issue on how universal is the nature and process of strategy?", Journal of Strategy and Management, Vol. 3 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jsma.2010.35803baa.001

Special issue on how universal is the nature and process of strategy?

Article Type: Call for papers From: Journal of Strategy and Management, Volume 3, Issue 2

Guest Editors:Mariëlle Heijltjes, University of Maastricht, The NetherlandsAyse Saka-Helmhout, University of Surrey, UKArjen van Witteloostuijn, University of Antwerp, Belgium

Introduction

Professor Arndt Sorge will retire in the autumn of 2010. Arndt Sorge is a typical example of an international scholar with European roots. Being a German citizen himself, he worked in France, The Netherlands and the UK. He was involved in the launch of Organization Studies in 1980, becoming this journal's Editor-in-Chief in the 1990s. But, perhaps more importantly, his work has always been explicitly comparative and international in nature, as witnessed by his latest book The Global and the Local (2005, Oxford University Press). In this book, he forcefully argues that the outcomes of globalization are not what many expect them to be. For one, seemingly universal templates, such as business process reengineering or shareholder value, turn out to be interpreted and implemented differently in different countries. Moreover, in response to globalization processes, many societies strengthen their local identities, reinforcing the practices that make them different from other societies.

Special issue theme

The issue will focus on cross-country comparative studies that apply societal effect reasoning to issues of strategy: to what extent is strategy universal or country-specific, and how can this be explained? In this context, the special issue is open to a wide variety of strategy- related themes. Without being complete in any way, papers relating to the following list of questions would nicely fit within the special issue's theme:

1. 1.

   Can a firm's source of competitive (dis)advantages be attributed to country-specific features?

2. 2.

   Are the composition, functioning and effectiveness of top management teams (partly) driven by societal sorting processes?

3. 3.

   Are competitive and cooperative strategies biased in any way owing to a country's cultural and historical roots?

4. 4.

   Do the interpretation and implementation of allegedly universal management concepts vary across countries?

5. 5.

   Is the impact of globalization processes on the nature of strategy different from one country to another?

6. 6.

   Is organizational performance appreciated and measured differently in different countries?

7. 7.

   To what extent is a firm's strategizing contingent on both organizational and societal conditions?

8. 8.

   How can a focus on societally embedded actors and their actions, interactions and negotiations advance our understanding of strategy-making?

Submission guidelines

All manuscripts must be submitted before 1 July 2010 by e-mail to:arjen.vanwitteloostuijn@ua.ac.be with a cc to: abby.ghobadian@henleymc.ac.uk

For more information on the special issue, manuscript requirements and details of how the papers will be reviewed and selected (including a mid-review workshop, Autumn 2010) please visit: www.emeraldinsight.com/jsma.htm

Reference

Sorge, A. (2005), The Global and the Local, Oxford University Press, Oxford.