Abstract
This chapter takes a historical perspective on the theoretical underpinnings of strategic agility. It provides an overview of seminal contributions by influential scholars who helped pave the way for the strategic agility paradigm. The analysis delineates key preconditions, enablers, and enhancing factors related to agility. It also highlights the integral relationship between agility and uncertainty that recurs across seminal works. The discourse begins by tracing early warnings against rigid planning mentalities and the gradual shift from forecasting to flexibility and scenario thinking. It then explores the transition from closed to open innovation models as environmental velocity accelerated. The review also reveals an evolution from resource exploitation to dynamic capability building as sources of competitive advantage became less durable. Additionally, it elucidates the progression from avoidance of uncertainty to management approaches such as options thinking. The analysis examines the theoretical underpinnings of core strategic agility attributes, including organizational ambidexterity, entrepreneurial orientation, rapid decision-making, and absorptive capacity. It also reveals both alignment and tensions between these concepts and traditional strategic management theories. Finally, the chapter underscores how the imperative for strategic agility, as emphasized by contemporary discourse, was foreshadowed by insights from early scholarship. The enduring quest for strategic agility in navigating external ambiguities and adapting internal activities remains critical in determining competitive positioning.
References
Allen, T. J. (1977). Managing the flow of technology. MIT Press.
Andrews, K. (1971). The concept of corporate strategy. Irwin.
Ansoff, H. I. (1965). Corporate strategy: An analytic approach to business policy for growth and expansion. McGraw Hill.
Ansoff, H. I., Declerck, R. P., & Hayes, R. L. (1976). From strategic planning to strategic management. Wiley.
Barney, J. (1991). Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of Management, 17(1), 99–120.
Cennamo, C., & Santalo, J. (2013). Platform competition: Strategic trade-offs in platform markets. Strategic Management Journal, 34(11), 1331–1350.
Chandler, A. (1962). Strategy and structure: Chapters in the history of American industrial enterprise. MIT Press.
Chesbrough, H. W. (2003). Open innovation: The new imperative for creating and profiting from technology. Harvard Business Press.
Christensen, C. (1997). The innovator’s dilemma: When new technologies cause great firms to fail. Harvard Business School Press.
Cohen, W. M., & Levinthal, D. A. (1990). Absorptive capacity: A new perspective on learning and innovation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35(1), 128–152.
Covin, J. G., & Slevin, D. P. (1991). A conceptual model of entrepreneurship as firm behavior. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, 16(1), 7–25.
Cyert, R. M., & March, J. G. (1963). A behavioral theory of the firm. Prentice-Hall.
D’Aveni, R. A. (1998). Waking up to the new era of hypercompetition. Washington Quarterly, 21(1), 183–195.
de Diego, E., & Almodóvar, P. (2022). Mapping research trends on strategic agility over the past 25 years: Insights from a bibliometric approach. European Journal of Management and Business Economics, 31(2), 219–238.
Dew, N., Sarasathy, S., Read, S., & Wiltbank, R. (2009). Affordable loss: Behavioral economic aspects of the plunge decision. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 3(2), 105–126.
Doz, Y. L., & Kosonen, M. (2007). The new deal at the top. Harvard Business Review, 85(6), 98–104.
Doz, Y. L., & Kosonen, M. (2008). Fast strategy: How strategic agility will help you stay ahead of the game. Wharton School Publishing.
Doz, Y. L., & Kosonen, M. (2010). Embedding strategic agility: A leadership agenda for accelerating business model renewal. Long Range Planning, 43(2–3), 370–382.
Drucker, P. F. (1964). Managing for results. Harper & Row.
Galbraith, J. (1973). Organization design. Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.
Gemünden, H. G., Salomo, S., & Hölzle, K. (2007). Role models for radical innovations in times of open innovation. Creativity and Innovation Management, 16(4), 408–421.
George, G. (2005). Slack resources and the performance of privately held firms. Academy of Management Journal, 48(4), 661–676.
Ghemawat, P. (2002). Competition and business strategy in historical perspective. The Business History Review, 76(1), 37–74.
Granovetter, M. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360–1380.
Jacobides, M. G. (2019). In the ecosystem economy, what’s your strategy? Harvard Business Review, 97(5), 128–137.
Johnson, G., Yip, G. S., & Hensmans, M. (2012). Achieving successful strategic transformation. MIT Sloan Management Review, 53(3), 25.
Kandiah, G., & Gossain, S. (1998). Reinventing value: The new business ecosystem. Strategy & Leadership, 26(5), 28–33.
Kohtamäki, M., & Farmer, D. (2017). Strategic agility—Integrating business intelligence with strategy. In Real-time strategy and business intelligence (pp. 11–36). Palgrave Macmillan.
Kohtamäki, M., Heimonen, J., Sjödin, D., & Heikkilä, V. (2020). Strategic agility in innovation: Unpacking the interaction between entrepreneurial orientation and absorptive capacity by using practice theory. Journal of Business Research, 118, 12–25.
Lawrence, P., & Lorsch, J. (1967). Organization and environment. Managing differentiation and integration. Division of Research, Harvard Business School.
Levitt, T. (1960). Marketing myopia. Harvard Business Review, 4(4), 59–80.
Liedtka, J. M., Bragg, W., & Hegarty, E. (1996). Collaborating across lines of business for competitive advantage. Academy of Management Executive, 10(2), 20–37.
Luehrman, T. A. (1998). Strategy as a portfolio of real options. Harvard Business Review, 76, 89–99.
March, J. G. (1991). Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning. Organization Science, 2(1), 71–87.
Markides, C. C., & Freek, V. (2023). Have companies become too specialized? Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2023/02/have-companies-become-too-specialized. Accessed 24 Jan 2024
McGrath, R. G. (1997). A real options logic for initiating technology positioning investments. Academy of Management Review, 22(4), 974–996.
McGrath, R. G. (2013). The end of competitive advantage: How to keep your strategy moving as fast as your business. Harvard Business Review Press.
Miller, D. (1983). The correlates of entrepreneurship in three types of firms. Management Science, 29(7), 770–791.
Mintzberg, H. (1973). Strategy-making in three modes. California Management Review, 16(2), 44–53.
Pfeffer, J., & Salancik, G. R. (1978). The external control of organizations: A resource dependence perspective. Harper & Row Publishers.
Pidun, U., Reeves, M., & Schüssler, M. (2019). Do you need a business ecosystem? Available at https://www.bcg.com/publications/2019/do-you-need-business-ecosystem. Accessed 13 Sept 2022.
Porter, M. E. (1980). Competitive strategy. Free Press.
Porter, M. E., & Heppelmann, J. E. (2014). How smart, connected products are transforming competition. Harvard Business Review, 92(11), 64–88.
Powell, W. W. (1990). Neither market nor hierarchy: Network forms of organization. Research in Organizational Behavior, 12, 295–336.
Prahalad, C. K., & Hamel, G. (1990). The core competence of the corporation. Harvard Business Review, 68(3), 79–91.
Prange, C., & Hennig, A. (2019). From strategic planning to strategic agility patterns. Journal of Creating Value, 5(2), 111–123.
Quinn, J. B. (1977). Strategic goals: Process and Politics. Sloan Management Review, 19(1), 21–37.
Quinn, J. B. (1978). Strategic change: "logical incrementalism". Sloan Management Review, 20(1), 7–21.
Quinn, J. B. (1979). Technological innovation, entrepreneurship, and strategy. Sloan Management Review, 20(3), 19–30.
Salter, M. S., & Weinhold, W. A. (1979). Diversification through acquisition: Strategies for creating economic value. The Free Press.
Schumpeter, J. (1934). The theory of economic development. Cambridge University Press.
Selznick, P. (1957). Leadership in administration: A sociological interpretation. Harper & Row.
Shams, R., Vrontis, D., Belyaeva, Z., Ferraris, A., & Czinkota, M. R. (2021). Strategic agility in international business: A conceptual framework for “agile” multinationals. Journal of International Management, 27(1), 100737.
Simon, H. (1969). The science of the artificial. MIT Press.
Stalk, G., Jr., & Hout, T. M. (1990). Competing against time. Research-Technology Management, 33(2), 19–24.
Teece, D. J., Pisano, G., & Shuen, A. (1997). Dynamic capabilities and strategic management. Strategic Management Journal, 18(7), 509–533.
Thompson, J. (1967). Organizations in action. McGraw-Hill.
Tushman, M. L., & O’Reilly, C. A., III. (1996). Ambidextrous organizations: Managing evolutionary and revolutionary change. California Management Review, 38(4), 8–29.
Tushman, M. L., & Romanelli, E. (1985). Organizational evolution: A metamorphosis model of convergence and reorientation. Research in Organizational Behavior, 7, 171–222.
Tushnman, M. L., & Anderson, P. (1986). Technological discontinuities and organisational environments. Administrative Science Quarterly, 31(3), 439–465.
Voelpel, S., Leibold, M., Tekie, E., & von Krogh, G. (2005). Escaping the red queen effect in competitive strategy: Sense-testing business models. European Management Journal, 23(1), 37–49.
Weick, K. E. (1987). Substitutes for strategy. In D. Teece (Ed.), The competitive challenge (pp. 211–233). Harper & Row.
Wernerfelt, B. (1984). A resource-based view of the firm. Strategic Management Journal, 5(2), 171–180.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Balzano, M., Bortoluzzi, G. (2024). The Historical Roots of Strategic Agility. In: Strategic Agility in Dynamic Business Environments. International Series in Advanced Management Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-58657-6_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-58657-6_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-58656-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-58657-6
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)