Abstract
Enterprise Strategy Scope is the range of stakeholder satisfaction realized by a firm. Using the Upper Echelons Perspective, this study takes a configurational approach in examining the correlates of Enterprise Strategy Scope by considering the environmental and organizational context as well as top management team's characteristics and firm performance. Empirical support was found for the two hypothesized types of enterprise strategy configurations. In addition, we discovered a third type of configuration which has not yet been discussed in the literature. Overall, these empirical results suggest that enterprise strategy is influenced by several contextual variables operating on multiple levels of analysis.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bantel, K.A. and S.E. Jackson (1989). ‘Top management and innovations in banking: Does the composition of the top team make a difference?’Strategic Management Journal, 10, 108–124.
Boyd, B. (1990). ‘Corporate linkages and organizational environment: A test of the resource dependence model.’Strategic Management Journal, 11, 419–430.
Brenner, S.N. and E.A. Molander (1977). ‘Is the ethics of business changing?’Harvard Business Review, 55 (1), 57–71.
Dess, G.G. and D. Beard (1984). ‘Dimensions of organizational task environments.’Administrative Science Quarterly, 29, 52–73.
Finkelstein, S. and D.C. Hambrick (1990). ‘Top-management-team tenure and organizational outcomes: The moderating role of managerial discretion.’Administrative Science Quarterly, 35, 484–503.
Freeman, R.E. (1984).Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. Boston: Pitman.
Freeman, R.E. and D.R. Gilbert (1988).Corporate Strategy and the Search for Ethics. Englewood Cliff, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Gandz, J. and P.R. McDonald. ‘Toward a system for satisfying salient values in the business environment.’ Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, San Francisco.
Gilbert, D.R. (1986). ‘Corporate strategy and ethics.’Journal of Business Ethics 5, 137–150.
Goll, I. and Sambharya, R.B. (1990). ‘The effect of organizational culture and leadership on firm performance.’Advances in Strategic Management. Ed. P. Shrivastava and R. Lamb. 6: 183–200.
Hambrick, D.C. (1983). ‘An empirical typology of mature industrial-product environments.’Academy of Management Journal 26, 213–230.
Hambrick, D.C. (1984). ‘Taxonomic approaches to studying strategy: Some conceptual and methodological issues.’Journal of Management, 10, 27–41.
Hambrick D.C. and P.A. Mason (1984) ‘Upper echelons: The organization as a reflection of its top managers.’Academy of Management Review, 9, 193–206.
Jauch, L.R., R.N. Osborn, and T.N. Martin (1980). ‘Structured content analysis of cases: A complementary method for organizational research.’Academy of Management Review, 5, 517–525.
Keats, B.W. and M.A. Hitt (1988). ‘A causal model of linkages among environmental dimensions, macro organizational characteristics, and performance.’Academy of Management Journal, 31, 570–598.
Kimberly, J. (1976). ‘Organizational size and the structuralist perspective: A review, critique, and proposal.’Administrative Science Quarterly, 21, 571–597.
Lawrence, P.R. and J.W. Lorsch (1967).Organizations and Environment. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Lehmann, D.R. (1979).Market Research and Analysis. Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin.
Liao, S.S. (1975). ‘The effect of size of firms on managerial attitudes.’California Management Review, 18(2), 59–65.
McGuire, J., T. Schneeweis, and B. Branch. (1990). ‘Perceptions of firm quality: A cause or result of firm performance.’Journal of Management, 16, 167–180.
McGuire, J., A. Sundgren, and T. Schneeweis (1988). ‘Corporate social responsibility and firm financial performance.’Academy of Management Journal, 31, 854–872.
Meznar, M, J.J. Chrisman, and A.B. Carroll. (1990). ‘Social responsibility and strategic management: Toward and enterprise strategy classification.’Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings, San Francisco, 332–336.
Michel, J.G. and D.C. Hambrick (1992). ‘Diversification posture and top management team characteristics.’Academy of Management Journal, 35, 9–37.
Miller, D. and P.F. Friesen (1984).Organizations: A Quantum View. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Miller, D. (1987a). ‘Organizational configurations: Cohesion, change, and prediction.’Human Relations, 43, 771–789.
Miller, D. (1987b). ‘The genesis of configuration.’Academy of Management Review, 12, 686–701.
Milligan, G. (1980). ‘An examination of the effect of six types of error perturbation on fifteen clustering algorithms.’Psychometrika, 45, 325–342.
Mintzberg, H. (1979).The Structuring of Organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Mintzberg, H. and J. Waters (1985). ‘Of strategies, deliberate and emergent.’Strategic Management Journal, 6, 257–272.
Morrison, D.G. (1967). ‘Measurement problems in cluster analysis.’Management Science, 13, B775-B780.
Norburn, D. and S. Birley, (1988). ‘The top management team and corporate performance.’Strategic Management Journal, 9, 225–237.
Nystrom, P. (1990). ‘Strategies, management values, and outcomes in manufacturing companies.’International Journal of Value-based Management, 3, 17–27.
Porter, M.E. (1980).Competitive Strategy. New York: The Free Press.
Rich, P. (1992). ‘The organizational taxonomy: Definition and design.’Academy of Management Review, 17, 758–781.
Ryan, L.V. (1990) The evolution of stakeholder management: Challenges and potential conflicts.International Journal of Value-Based Management, 3, 105–119.
Schendel, D. and C. Hofer (Eds.) (1979).Strategic Management: A New View of Business Policy and Planning. Boston: Little, Brown.
Schmidheiny, S. (1992).Changing Course. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Shrivastava, P. and S. Nachman (1989). Strategic leadership patterns.Strategic Management Journal, 10, 51–66.
Vroom, V. and B. Pahl (1971). Relationship between age and risk-taking among managers.Journal of Applied Psychology, 55, 399–405.
Wiersema, M.F. and K.A. Bantel (1992). Top management team demography and corporate strategic change.Academy of Management Journal, 35, 91–121.
Wood, D. (1991). Social issues in management: Theory and research in corporate social performance.Journal of Management, 17, 383–406.
Yin, R.K. and K.A. Heald (1975). Using the case survey method to analyze policy studies.Administrative Science Quarterly, 20, 371–381.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Business Policy and Strategy Division at the National Academy of Management Meetings in Atlanta in August, 1993.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Judge, W.Q., Fowler, D.M. A configurational approach to Enterprise Strategy Scope: An Upper Echelons Perspective. Int J Value-Based Manage 7, 91–106 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00890519
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00890519