Research Projects (selected)
Innovating new sustainable business models through collective environmental entrepreneurship
We investigate how established companies change their business models to become more sustainable. This often implies the development of new or change of extant resources and capabilities that provide for competitive advantage. We study in depth how this transition takes place, including the challenges that the strategy work entails as well as the solutions that enable the innovation of environmentally sustainable business models. The project is a joint collaboration with Prof Esther Tippmann, NUI Galway.
Foundations of micro-foundations: Processes and Activities
In this project we examine activities and conditions that underlie the creation of organizational capabilities and, in the end, competitive advantage. Resources and capabilities have been at the center stage of strategic management research for a long time during with knowledge accumulated concerning their fundamental characteristics and requisites for sustainable competitive advantage and possible micro-foundations. We know less about what role managers may play in their emergence and development. This project examines organizational and managerial activities and processes underlying organizational capabilities. Besides activities and heuristics, it investigates how socio-cultural contexts including specific configurations and complementarities involving artifacts, locations, cognitions, emotions, etc. influence strategy development and capability outcomes.
Emotions in strategy and idea creation over time
We explore how—over long periods of time—the emotions of various stakeholders unfold in strategic decision-making and the creation of novelties. Emotions play a vital role in organizing activities, shaping collaboration, and influencing the success or failure of projects and, ultimately, organizations. The project is conducted in collaboration with researchers from Warwick Business School, Henley Business School, and HEC Montréal.
The Timing of Strategic Decision Making
Underlying diverse views of strategic decision making are contrasting time assumptions. This theoretical project examines these and aims to explain why strategy process/practice and strategy content perspectives have been disconnected and how they can be reconnected. How strategic decisions relate to the present, past, and future differ with consequences for the where, by whom and how strategic decisions are made and evolve. By uncovering explicit and implicit time assumptions in we uncover and disentangle conflicting research conclusions in strategic management and build a more integrative view of strategic decision-making processes.
Strategic responses and tactics vs. institutional pressures.
We examine how institutional factors influence strategy development and outcome and specifically how corporations respond to and try to manage institutional pressures. While diverse institutional demands and constraints from regulatory, normative and cultural-cognitive institutions have been examined, less focus has been on how corporations and, MNCs in particular, respond to these beyond trying to adapt. We know that industry norms and cognitions influence strategy development and what is considered legitimate and applicable, but less about the opportunities for strategizing they may create. This research thus investigates what responses and tactics there are, their underlying conditions and logics and how they are applied. The project is a collaboration with Dr. Ivar Padrón-Hernández, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo.
Dialectics in the strategy process
This research elucidate the role of dialectical tensions in strategy making. The research includes studying political processes in strategic renewal, how to move from disagreement to strategic decisions of international commitment, time in strategizing and colliding temporal assumptions, and power and micropolitics at the upper echelon. This project also includes the researchers Prof Esther Tippmann, NUI Galway, Prof Rian Drogendijk, Univ. of Groningen Netherlands, Prof Mats Forsgren and Prof. Ulf Holm, Uppsala Univ., Sweden, and Dr. Emre Yildiz, Mälardalens Univ. Sweden.
The future of strategy as practice
Strategy is not only what companies have but also what actors within companies do. We explore the future of the research stream Strategy as Practice—the everyday activities of strategizing. The project involves various initiatives in collaboration with scholars from HEC Montréal, the University of Zurich, the University of Queensland, Fudan University, and the University of Oxford.
Corporate elites and the international growth of Swedish firms
We investigate the so-called corporate elite, who ABB’s Percy Barnevik or the Wallenberg family, are famous examples of. The standing assumption is that, by gaining access to corporate elite members, firms can use external resources that would allow them to grow faster than what they otherwise would do. However, is this always true or are there also examples of a tightly coupled “club” that is preventing new persons to come in and new ideas to flow? The project is a joint collaboration with Prof. Ulf Holm, Uppsala Univ., Dr. Emre Yildiz, Mälardalens Univ.
Is experience an asset or a liability in international growth
We unfold the role of learning and experience in international growth and strategizing. We ask, “Is experience an asset, or a liability, in international expansion?” We study the role of experiences in relation to firms’ strategy, i.e. detailed strategic planning, improvisation, and heuristics. The project is a joint collaboration with Prof. Ulf Holm, Uppsala Univ., Sweden Dr. Emre Yildiz, Mälardalens Univ. Sweden, Dr. Susan Perkins University of Illinois at Chicago, US, & Prof. Irina Surdu The University of Warwick, UK.
Clusters, Competitiveness and Competitiveness Policy
In this research area, CSC examines questions regarding Cluster theory, Cluster mapping and Competitiveness benchmarking. Within Competitiveness Policy research, CSC is concerned with micro policy, competition policy, innovation policy, regional policy, network policy and cluster initiatives.