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The Temporal Development of Strategy: Patterns in the U.K. Insurance Industry

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  • David Webb

    (Centre for Creativity, Strategy and Change, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, Great Britain)

  • Andrew Pettigrew

    (Centre for Creativity, Strategy and Change, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, Great Britain)

Abstract

Much writing in the field of strategic management remains an exercise in comparative statics. Cross-sectional research designs are combined with the static metaphors of contingency thinking to analyse the fit between the positioning and resource base of the firm and its performance in differing environments. However, the inadequacies of this tradition are increasingly recognised even by scholars who have created it (Porter 1991). Strategy can no longer be conceived through the static language of states or positions and must now be understood as an innovation contest where the bureaucratic and inflexible will not survive.This paper takes up the challenge to explore the dynamics of industry and firm strategy development. The empirical focus of the paper is the U.K. insurance industry in a period of upheaval between 1990 and 1996. By means of an innovative cross-correlational time series analysis, we are able to show the ebb and flow of strategic change in the industry and the patterns of initiation and imitation as certain firms lead areas of strategy and others follow. These findings are interrogated and interpreted by drawing on and developing theoretical ideas from three literatures which historically have not talked to one another. These are the literatures on innovation, institutionalism, and contextualism.The empirical results show firms pursuing multiple strategies at one point in time and also altering the strategic agenda over time. A cross-correlational analysis of nine firms in the U.K. insurance industry reveals the existence of leaders and laggards in the development of a variety of strategic initiatives. Theoretically the paper examines the mixture of external conditions and internal context and processes which contribute to the development of early and later adopters of strategies in an industry over time.

Suggested Citation

  • David Webb & Andrew Pettigrew, 1999. "The Temporal Development of Strategy: Patterns in the U.K. Insurance Industry," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 10(5), pages 601-621, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:10:y:1999:i:5:p:601-621
    DOI: 10.1287/orsc.10.5.601
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    3. Adams, Mike & Baker, Paul L., 2021. "Does boardroom nationality affect the performance of UK insurers?," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(5).
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    5. Huygens, M.W. & Baden-Fuller, C.W.F. & van den Bosch, F.A.J. & Volberda, H.W., 2001. "Coevolution of Firm Capabilities and Industry Competition," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2001-61-STR, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    6. Bob Walrave & A Georges L Romme & Kim E van Oorschot & Fred Langerak, 2017. "Managerial attention to exploitation versus exploration: toward a dynamic perspective on ambidexterity," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 26(6), pages 1145-1160.
    7. Klarner, Patricia & By, Rune Todnem & Diefenbach, Thomas, 2011. "Employee emotions during organizational change--Towards a new research agenda," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 332-340, September.
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