IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orstsc/v2y2017i4p272-281.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Searching for Great Strategies

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas Fink

    (London Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Mayfair, London W1K 2XF, United Kingdom; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 75016 Paris, France)

  • Pankaj Ghemawat

    (Stern School of Business, New York University, New York, New York 10012; IESE Business School, 08034 Barcelona, Spain)

  • Martin Reeves

    (BCG Henderson Institute, Boston Consulting Group, New York, New York 10001)

Abstract

We focus on answering the question posed for this special issue by elaborating a specific perspective, involving information-enabled search, in which firms add capabilities (or components) that expand what they can accomplish in the product market arena, and the key strategic choices concern the kinds of capabilities that are added. We establish that measuring how a new candidate component interacts with the components we already have can be a reasonable proxy for how they will combine with new components which we don’t yet have. This allows us to compare the performance of “impatient strategies” focused on the current usefulness of a new component and “patient strategies” focused on anticipated long-term usefulness. Their relative performance depends on how far the innovation process has progressed, and on the structure of the innovation space itself. In particular, a flattening in the increase of complexity implies an increase in the relative attractiveness of patient strategies over impatient ones, i.e., constitutes a signal to a switch strategies. It is therefore possible to construct information-based adaptive search strategies, which outperform either random strategies or fixed (patient or impatient) strategies for component selection. And there are broader implications for strategy as well.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas Fink & Pankaj Ghemawat & Martin Reeves, 2017. "Searching for Great Strategies," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(4), pages 272-281, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orstsc:v:2:y:2017:i:4:p:272-281
    DOI: 10.1287/stsc.2017.0052
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1287/stsc.2017.0052
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/stsc.2017.0052?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. T. M. A. Fink & M. Reeves & R. Palma & R. S. Farr, 2016. "Serendipity and strategy in rapid innovation," Papers 1608.01900, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2017.
    2. T. M. A. Fink & M. Reeves & R. Palma & R. S. Farr, 2017. "Serendipity and strategy in rapid innovation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 8(1), pages 1-9, December.
    3. R. E. Caves & B. T. Gale & M. E. Porter, 1977. "Interfirm Profitability Differences: Comment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 91(4), pages 667-675.
    4. Teppo Felin & Stuart Kauffman & Roger Koppl & Giuseppe Longo, 2014. "Economic Opportunity and Evolution: Beyond Landscapes and Bounded Rationality," Post-Print hal-01415115, HAL.
    5. Ghemawat, Pankaj, 2016. "Evolving Ideas about Business Strategy," Business History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 90(4), pages 727-749, January.
    6. Lee Fleming, 2001. "Recombinant Uncertainty in Technological Search," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(1), pages 117-132, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Giovanni Gavetti & Joe Porac, 2018. "On the Origin of Great Strategies," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 3(1), pages 352-365, March.
    2. Gordon, Adam Vigdor & Ramic, Mirza & Rohrbeck, René & Spaniol, Matthew J., 2020. "50 Years of corporate and organizational foresight: Looking back and going forward," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stephanie Cheng & Pengkai Lin & Yinliang Tan & Yuchen Zhang, 2023. "“High” innovators? Marijuana legalization and regional innovation," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(3), pages 685-703, March.
    2. Wareham, Jonathan & Pujol Priego, Laia & Romasanta, Angelo Kenneth & Mathiassen, Thomas Wareham & Nordberg, Markus & Tello, Pablo Garcia, 2022. "Systematizing serendipity for big science infrastructures: The ATTRACT project," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    3. Shafique, Muhammad & Hagedoorn, John, 2022. "Look at U: Technological scope of the acquirer, technological complementarity with the target, and post-acquisition R&D output," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    4. Alje van Dam & Koen Frenken, 2019. "Variety, Complexity and Economic Development," Papers 1903.07997, arXiv.org.
    5. Alje van Dam & Koen Frenken, 2020. "Vertical vs. Horizontal Policy in a Capabilities Model of Economic Development," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2037, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Aug 2020.
    6. Mewes, Lars & Broekel, Tom, 2022. "Technological complexity and economic growth of regions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(8).
    7. Ivan Savin, 2021. "On optimal regimes of knowledge exchange: a model of recombinant growth and firm networks," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 16(3), pages 497-527, July.
    8. James, Steffan & Liu, Zheng & Stephens, Victoria & White, Gareth R.T., 2022. "Innovation in crisis: The role of ‘exaptive relations’ for medical device development in response to COVID-19," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    9. Koen Frenken & Frank Neffke & Alje van Dam, 2023. "Capabilities, institutions and regional economic development: a proposed synthesis," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 16(3), pages 405-416.
    10. Lebdioui, Amir, 2022. "Nature-inspired innovation policy: Biomimicry as a pathway to leverage biodiversity for economic development," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    11. Dam, Alje van & Frenken, Koen, 2022. "Variety, complexity and economic development," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(8).
    12. Pyung Nahm & Raviv Murciano-Goroff & Michael Park & Russell J. Funk, 2023. "Serendipity in Science," Papers 2308.07519, arXiv.org.
    13. Lu, Jinfeng & Dimov, Dimo, 2023. "A system dynamics modelling of entrepreneurship and growth within firms," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 38(3).
    14. de Rassenfosse, Gaétan, 2013. "Do firms face a trade-off between the quantity and the quality of their inventions?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(5), pages 1072-1079.
    15. Avimanyu Datta, 2016. "Antecedents To Radical Innovations: A Longitudinal Look At Firms In The Information Technology Industry By Aggregation Of Patents," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 20(07), pages 1-31, October.
    16. Giovanni Gavetti & Constance E. Helfat & Luigi Marengo, 2017. "Searching, Shaping, and the Quest for Superior Performance," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(3), pages 194-209, September.
    17. Boeker, Warren & Howard, Michael D. & Basu, Sandip & Sahaym, Arvin, 2021. "Interpersonal relationships, digital technologies, and innovation in entrepreneurial ventures," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 495-507.
    18. Malgorzata Wachowska & Magdalena Homa, 2020. "The Role of Ethnic Diversity in Stimulating Innovation Processes: Comparative Analysis of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(4), pages 1157-1176.
    19. Christoph Grimpe & Katrin Hussinger & Wolfgang Sofka, 2023. "Reaching beyond the acquirer-Target Dyad in M&A – Linkages to External knowledge sources and target firm valuation," DEM Discussion Paper Series 23-01, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    20. Forman, Chris & van Zeebroeck, Nicolas, 2019. "Digital technology adoption and knowledge flows within firms: Can the Internet overcome geographic and technological distance?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(8), pages 1-1.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orstsc:v:2:y:2017:i:4:p:272-281. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.