The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Strategic Management

Living Edition
| Editors: Mie Augier, David J. Teece

Local Search

Living reference work entry
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94848-2_320-1
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Abstract

The article opens with a discussion of local search as a process of problem-solving, highlighting how it tends to be adopted by firms that are experts in the current business environment, but may be resistant to change. The result of the adoption of such a strategy is that organizations will make incremental rather than revolutionary changes. Local search is seen to be a combination of a number of factors, such as environmental uncertainty and time and resource constraints. In this sense local search is seen to be more consistent with more predictable outcomes than the process of distant search. However, it does have a lower level of variance than distant search and this will have implications for an organization in times of considerable environmental change.

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Copyright information

© The Author(s) 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Management Science and School of EngineeringStanford UniversityStanfordUSA