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Strategy Research Watch is a one-page monthly publication that identifies and comments on a few quality strategy research papers recently published in leading management research journals. The authors highlight the essence of the research findings in lay terms, and comment on the implications for practicing managers.

Is This The Age Of Temporary Advantage – What Does Management Look Like If Sustainable Advantages Did Not Exist?

Dr Paul Raspin reviews research that highlights the emergence of the creation and management of temporary competitive advantages as an alternative to models of sustainable competitive advantage.

What is the process of Value Creation for your business?

Dr Paul Raspin reviews research concerned with the process of Value Creation and insights into creating products and services that are both novel and appropriate to the end user.

The Value For Money Formula – How Can It Help Gain Advantage?

Dr Paul Raspin reviews research concerned with the Value for Money formula, its two key elements – perceived use value and exchange value – and two major implications for organisational advantage.

How To Create Value – Is It Obvious?

Dr Paul Raspin reviews research that suggests that it is difficult to find agreement on how to create value and the mechanisms that allow the creator of value to capture value.

To Buy or Outsource Strategic Technology?

In today’s environment many top executives can relate to the dilemma of whether to outsource or develop their own offshoring capabilities. Professor Ajay Bhalla expands on research insights that suggest management should consider both insourcing and outsourcing their strategic technology, rather than making an either/or decision.

Minor Failures – Do They Matter?

Most managers value the importance of learning from failures. Few, however, recognize the significance of spotting and internalizing lessons from minor failures, which can artificially inflate confidence in managing risks. Dr Paul Raspin expands on research insights into how organisations can learn from failure and success.

Managing The Unexpected

Traditional strategy practice involves planning and designing strategies based on assumptions about the future. These strategies often lead to commitments that prevent effective coping and adaptation to rare events that disrupt but also present valuable opportunities. Rare events refer to a broad range of phenomena of interest to managers. They include low-probability events such as breakthrough inventions, and organisational crises or major changes, whether internal or external to an organization. Responding effectively to unexpected events requires managers at different levels to understand how these events can influence firm performance, and how they can impact their goals and responsibilities. Dr Paul Raspin highlights recent management research into managing the unexpected and breakthrough ideas to deal with a context of high uncertainty.

Failing To Learn?

Management research has found that in large failures, people are less likely to share information about failure but focus on protecting themselves from the political fallout. Referencing the recent BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico event, Dr Paul Raspin reviews research papers about how organisations can learn from their own failure and the failure of others, addressing the questions of what recent management research tell us about the impact of failure on organisational learning, and what prevents organisational learning.

Who Dares Lose Strategic Focus?

Dr Ajay Bhalla reviews research papers about strategic focus and the circumstances where it’s the preferred route to profitable growth. Drawing on the example of Hitachi, the Japanese technology company, we review the kinds of performance improvements that strategic focus can deliver.

How Do You Create Market Insight?

Dr Paul Raspin reviews key findings from a study into what market insight is, how to create it, and how firms can leverage market insight to capture value. Based on five years of PhD research, the authors find that “market insight” is a tightly defined concept, and that there are four key properties that knowledge must have for it to constitute true market insight. Creating Market Insight addresses the key strategic issue facing any company: How do we make sense of our market and find those precious nuggets of knowledge that lead to real competitive advantage?

First Mover Advantage – Is It Worth it?

Using recent management research and the strategies observed by Microsoft and Apple, this edition of Strategy Research Watch discusses market entry timing and the trade offs to be made to pursue first mover advantage (FMA) in the highly competitive and emerging computer tablet market.

Organisational Reputation and Economic Payoff – Is It Better to Be Good or Known?

In this edition, we focus on organisational reputation and economic payoff. Tiger Woods is a living example of the value of reputation, and has inadvertently provided some insights into the link between reputation and economic payoff. Further insights into this relationship are provided in our featured research papers which address: What is reputation? What factors shape stakeholder perceptions? How do different aspects of stakeholder perceptions influence the economic payoff to organisations?

Customer Service – Real or Feigned and Does It Matter?

This edition of Strategy Research Watch focuses on some new management research into customer service. The reviewed papers shed insights into what type of customer service to invest in, how this varies in context, and what to expect as an outcome. We hope these insights prove timely to you as many organisations are developing or refining their customer centric strategies in response to the current economic downturn.

What’s the Evidence on Evidence-Based Management?

Many managers seek to emulate logic and detachment when it comes to making business decisions. But is it appropriate to pursue a “scientific approach” to the practice of management? What is the evidence to support this? In this edition of Strategy Research Watch we review research papers about evidence-based management and its links to improved decision making and operational performance.

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