2021
Organizing strategy and
entrepreneurship
• 13 Lectures
o 5 theory lectures
o 3 serious gaming lectures
o 4 sessions related to the group assignment
o 1 wrap-up session
• The grade consists of a group assignment and an individual written exam.
o Group assignment (50% of final grade), minimum score for each component
must be higher than a 5,5
▪ 20% presentation
▪ 30% client proposal
o Individual written exam (50% of final grade), minimum score of a 5,5
▪ There are 5 questions, each with sub-questions.
▪ All theory topics are covered in the exam.
▪ The title for the questions indicates the core theory topic that is
covered with that particular question (though we sometimes also ask
you to relate to other theory topics). We also indicate references for
the questions, for your convenience.
▪ Each question counts for 20 points; the distribution of points across the
sub-questions is clearly indicated.
▪ The standard solutions give an indication of what we find important
when grading your answers – mostly the points are awarded based on
depth of argumentation.
▪ This year, we will have an open book exam, while the questions in the
sample exam were developed for a closed book exam. In an open book
exam, we will not ask you to ‘name’ specific things. The emphasis will
be more on argumentation, rather than on listing items in your
answers.
,Table of contents
Lecture 1: Strategy and strategic renewal ..................................................................................... 2
1.1 Introducing theory ........................................................................................................................ 2
1.2 Strategy and strategic renewal ..................................................................................................... 2
1.3 Strategic planning and serious gaming (Geurts et al., 2007) ........................................................ 7
1.4 Wrap up ........................................................................................................................................ 9
Lecture 2: Technological disruptions ........................................................................................... 10
2.1 Introducing technological disruptions ........................................................................................ 10
2.2 Impact on environment and organization (Tushman & Anderson, 1986) .................................. 14
2.3 Reacting on technological disruptions (Charitou & Markides, 2003) ......................................... 19
2.4 Technological disruption and strategic renewal (Warner & Wäger, 2019) ................................ 22
2.5 Wrap-up ...................................................................................................................................... 26
Lecture 3: Market and nonmarket environments ........................................................................ 28
3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 28
3.2 Competitive strategy: the “classic approach” (Porter) ............................................................... 29
3.3 Imitation by competitors: the bandwagon effect (Kim & Pennings, 2009) ................................ 31
3.4 Making competition irrelevant: blue ocean strategy (Kim & Mauborgne, 2005) ...................... 35
3.5 Nonmarket challenges: Integrating social and political issues (Bach & Allen, 2010) ................. 41
3.6 Wrap-up ...................................................................................................................................... 46
Lecture 4: Corporate entrepreneurship ....................................................................................... 49
4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 49
4.2 Defining corporate entrepreneurship ......................................................................................... 50
4.3 The four models of corporate entrepreneurship (Wolcott & Lippitz, 2007) .............................. 52
4.4 How can organisations create the inventions needed (Ahuja & Lampert, 2001) ....................... 59
4.5 Michael Porter Ted Talk .............................................................................................................. 64
4.6 Social Entrepreneurship (Gandhi & Raina, 2018) ....................................................................... 64
4.7 Wrap up ...................................................................................................................................... 68
Lecture 5: Strategic leadership ................................................................................................... 69
5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 69
5.2 Strategic leadership practices (O’Reilly & Tushman, 2011) ........................................................ 70
5.3 Executive characteristics: the Upper Echelons perspective ....................................................... 73
5.4 Executive characteristics and organizational resilience (Sajko et al., 2021) ............................... 76
5.5 Senior, middle, and operating managers’ roles in strategic renewal (Floyd & Lane, 2000) ....... 79
5.6 Wrap-up ...................................................................................................................................... 88
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,Lecture 1: Strategy and strategic renewal
1.1 Introducing theory
Let’s start by asking ourselves what we can expect from a course with the title ‘organizing strategy and
entrepreneurship’. Therefore we might want to take the dictionary and look up the different parts of the
name of the course.
• Strategy is about a careful plan or method for achieving a particular goal over a long period of time.
• Entrepreneurship is about starting something new, and in the process of that taking risks to get
there.
• Organizing is about something ongoing, so it is about arranging and planning.
If you take all these things together then you will see that this course will be about the process through
which organisations engage in strategy development and renew themselves. Therefore, strategic renewal
is a very important concept in this course.
Key questions
“How can organizations adapt and renew their strategies, in order to survive, remain successful and
help build a more resilient society?”
This is the overarching question for this course. This also means that at the end of this lecture you will
have the full answers to this question, however at the end of this (introductory) lecture we will have
some answers that help us decompose this question in some sub questions:
• What is strategy? Which are the main components of a successful strategy? (Hambrick &
Fredrickson, 2001)
• What is strategic renewal? What are the different ways in which organizations can renew their
strategies? (Argwal & Helfat, 2009)
• How can organizations optimally prepare for the future? How can they survive and remain
successful in a highly dynamic and connected environment? (Geurts et al., 2007).
1.2 Strategy and strategic renewal
Strategy (Hambrick & Fredrickson, 2001)
Strategy is not just one clear thing, but it is build up by different components. If you want to identify the
strategy of an organisation then it is important that you are aware of all of the five elements Hambrick &
Fredrickson (2001) mention in their article. Each of these elements are a major element of a strategy.
Element 1: Arena. This basically boils down to “What are our markets?”, so it’s about the question where
you will be active.
• Will we producing a mass-market product so that we will have a whole country as our target
audience, or will it be for a specific niche?
• Which geographic areas?
• Which core technologies?
• Which value-creation stages?
Element 2: Vehicles. By this we mean “How will we get there?”. So if we already know what our market
will be and where will be active, we still need to know how we will get there and reach our target
audience. This could be via different things. So if an organisation wants to grow, it could grow through
some organic element, by just building on the core competences that they have already and making
those bigger. But it could also be through merges and acquisitions.
Element 3: Differentiators. Differentiators are the things that make you different from your competitors.
Basically it is about why customers would opt for you and not for your competitors. It’s about how you
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,will win your customers over. You could do so on multiple ways, it could be because of low prices, or
because you have a certain image. So, there are different differentiators and it is important that you
differentiate those within your strategy.
Element 4: Staging. Staging is about the speed and the sequence of your strategy. So, if you want to get
somewhere, how will you get there in terms of what will be the first actions that you take? What are
major hurdles that you need to take, and what are the steps that you need to take (what is the first step,
what is the second?). Example: You are a Belgian beer producer that wants to extent its product to
Netherlands, then you can do it in different ways. You could for instance try to win over the whole of the
Netherlands at one go and just have a deal with supermarket to roll out your product through the whole
of the Netherlands, but you could also decide to first roll out your product at North-Brabant and then
branch out to other regions. Conclusion: there re different sequences that you can follow, and that is part
of the staging phase.
Element 5: Economic logic. This is the fifth element. This is where you’re going to ask yourself how you’re
going to make money. What is the logic that you can remain existing and get some money in. For
example because you have scale advantages, or having the best staff and therefore they can provide the
best customer service which can also result in an economic logic.
The most important thing of your strategy is not just the individual elements, but the fact that all of them
should work together. You can only have a coherent and sound strategy when all of these five elements
are aligned with each other.
Example: If you have a mass-market product (very broadly defined arenas where you want to cover a
whole country). Then probably you should work with an economic logic such as scale economies which
would lead to lower costs in mass-production. In terms of differentiators you should probably go for
lowest cost price. It should all work together.
Figure 1. Five major elements of strategy (Hambrick & Fredrickson, 2001)
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,An organisation will have to develop strategy and in that case all of the previously five mentioned
elements should be aligned, but you have many different inputs on this organisational strategy. On the
one hand you have the organisations own mission and objectives, which evidently has an impact on the
strategy. But what’s also very important is the strategic analysis. They need to do some strategic analysis
from the in- and external environment to come to a sound and aligned strategy.
Some tools for strategic analysis:
• PEST analysis: get to know more about an organisations macro-environment.
• Porter’s five forces: get an overview of the organisations competitive environment.
• Porter’s value chain analysis: internal organisational analysis, that splits up the organisation in
different activities and try to see what the costs and profits are.
• McKinsey’s 7s model: if there is something inside the organisation that needs to change (internal
environment).
• Stakeholder analysis: important for any type of analysis, you need to find out who the key actors
are.
• SWOT analysis: internal and external strengths and weaknesses
• Boston consultancy matrix: about portfolio management, making sure that for all product lines
within the organisation you know what the relative market share is.
• Ansoff matrix: if an organisation wants to grow it can be in new or existing markets with new or
existing products, and based on that there are different actions that can be taken.
Based on the strategic question that you’re trying to answer, find the tools that would help you the most
in getting an idea of what would work.
Figure 2. Putting strategy in its place (Hambrick & Fredrickson, 2001)
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, Strategic renewal (Agarwal & Helfat, 2009)
The paper
The way that this article is build up is that first you will have some interesting information on what
strategic renewal precisely is. Then an example of IBM in which they really apply this logic. And then they
introduce the other papers that will be written in this issue, but this is not relevant for us so we can skip
that. What should we study in this paper? What is strategic renewal (definition and different types).
Definition
Agarwaly & Helfat (2009) define strategic renewal by first explaining the two different components.
• Strategic. They define the strategic part of strategic renewal as something that has a critical
influence on the success or failure of an organisation. So something is only strategic if it really
has an impact on the core of the organisation. It is also about the long-term prospects. So, it is
about something that has long-term consequences that influence the core of the organisation.
• Renewal. The basic idea behind renewal is that there was something going on, but now there is
something new.
If you take these two elements together then you come to the general definition of what strategic
renewal is: “Strategic renewal includes the process, content, and outcome of refreshment or
replacement of attributes of an organization that have the potential to substantially affect its long-term
prospects.”
In the lecture there are certain aspects of strategic renewal that are highlighted. If we´re talking about
strategic renewal then it could be that we´re talking about the process (so what really happens when
we’re doing the strategic renewal: how do you get there) or it could be about the content (what exactly is
being renewed), or it could be about the outcome (if there was strategic renewal, what would be the
new situation). So, if you read an article about strategic renewal it could be on either one of these three
things.
It is always about refreshment or replacement of attributes. And it is about having the potential to
substantially affect its long-term prospects. So, it’s about a critical influence on the core of the
organisation, and it is about the long-term prospects.
Taken that together that also means that there is a subtle difference between:
• Strategic renewal & strategic change are not synonyms. ‘Renewal’ is per definition always a
change. However, not every strategic change is a strategic renewal. It could also be that a change
is adding something or removing something, in that case something is not renewed.
• Strategic renewal & innovation are not synonyms. Innovation can be something that happens in
the periphery, so innovation does not always have to be about strategy. It is not always long-
term oriented.
Old exam question: Strategic renewal and innovation are not synonyms. Provide two distinct reasons why.
Old exam question: Agarwal and Helfat (2009: 282) define strategic renewal as follows: “Strategic renewal
includes the process, content, and outcome of refreshment or replacement of attributes of an organization
that have the potential to substantially affect its long-term prospects.”
In their paper on managerial roles, Floyd and Lane (2000: 155) also provide a definition of strategic renewal:
“Strategic renewal is an evolutionary process associated with promoting, accommodating, and utilizing new
knowledge and innovative behaviour in order to bring about change in an organization’s core competencies
and/or a change in its product market domain.”
First, identify and describe three core elements in Agarwal and Helfat’s definition of strategic renewal. After
that, for each of the three core elements you identified: discuss whether this element also comes back in
Floyd and Lane’s definition.
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