9 We prefer to emphasize coordination and integration rather than pattern as a distinguishing characteristic of strategy. Patterns in action can generally result from three sources: random action, accumulation of incremental, path-dependent, and locally adaptive individual steps (such as experiments), or grand design. In our view, a pattern created by random actions, even one that helps the firm adapt, does not constitute a strategy.
resource deployments and its state of alignment with the environment frozen at a point in time. Strategy paths and trajectories represent the development over time of coordinated action sequences or moves. Both states (e.g., a firm’s international diversity posture) and paths (e.g., a firm’s internationalization path) are a confluence of the firm’s designed and emergent strategies.
The firm’s internally coordinated goals and actions are anchored in its continuous co-alignment with its environment (Thompson, 1967; Porter, 1991). Co-alignment is viewed both as a process and as a relatively constant and superordinate goal, coordinating other intermediate goals and lower-level actions, but not necessarily as an outcome obtained. Co-alignment is sustained through actions aimed at creating, (re)defining and integrating the firm’s domains, through the firm’s navigation and (re)positioning within each domain, and through changes in the firm’s resource mix, which supports, and is influenced by, the firm’s domain and navigation strategies. In contrast to steady-state alignment, the coalignment process is ongoing and dynamic and consists of a series of ever-changing games (Porter, 1991).
Key to the notion of co-alignment is the idea of mutual influence. The firm both adapts to its context, and at times adapts the context to it (Pfeffer and Salancick, 1978; Bourgeois, 1984; Itami and Roehl, 1987; Porter, 1991). The firm needs to manage—that is selectively identify, respond to, and influence, internal and external constraints —historical, organizational, and environmental actors, attributes, forces, and developments—which define and limit for a meaningful period of time what it can successfully achieve (Pettigrew, 1987; Ghemawat, 1991). It needs to strike a dynamic balance in allocating its resources between responsive and defensive actions, and more entrepreneurial ones such as innovating, influencing sources of uncertainty (e.g., government regulations), and changing the rules of the game (Brandenburger and Nalebuff, 1996).
The three elements of the definition clearly establish strategy at the intersection of a specific content (goals and actions), mode of behavior (coordinated), and context (adaptation). Goals and actions define what is included in strategy. Coordination distinguishes strategy from other noncoordinated behaviors—even those that are adaptive—yet allows for multiple forms of coordination to be included. Lastly, adaptation suggests that not all coordinated behaviors are included (Meyer, 1991). It therefore provides external anchoring to otherwise closed-system forms of coordination.
The definition also blends mechanistic and organic ideas. It includes mechanistic conceptions of strategy as postures, states, and plans. However, by integrating organic ideas, such as emergent strategy, it portrays strategy as less rigid, linear, static, individualistic, and prospective. The definition further utilizes the three defining characteristics of the organic perspective. Particularly, it emphasizes incessant adaptation and temporal and emergent coordination; it is interactive and emphasizes mutual and dialectic influences; and it integrates external and internal actions, multiple coordination modes and multiple strategy levels.[8]
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