Strategy

- December 2021
- Article
Entrepreneurial Learning and Strategic Foresight

By: Aticus Peterson and Andy Wu

We study how learning by experience across projects affects an entrepreneur's strategic foresight. In a quantitative study of 314 entrepreneurs across 722 crowdfunded projects supplemented with a program of qualitative interviews, we counterintuitively find that entrepreneurs make less accurate predictions as they gain experience executing projects: they miss their predicted timeline to bring a product to market by nearly six additional weeks on each successive project. Although learning should improve prediction accuracy in principle, we argue that entrepreneurs also learn of opportunities to augment each successive product, which drastically expands the interdependencies beyond what an entrepreneur can anticipate. We find that entrepreneurs encounter more unforeseen interdependencies in their subsequent projects, and they sacrifice on-time delivery to address these interdependencies.
- December 2021
- Article
Entrepreneurial Learning and Strategic Foresight

By: Aticus Peterson and Andy Wu

We study how learning by experience across projects affects an entrepreneur's strategic foresight. In a quantitative study of 314 entrepreneurs across 722 crowdfunded projects supplemented with a program of qualitative interviews, we counterintuitively find that entrepreneurs make less accurate predictions as they gain experience executing...
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Anatomy of a Hospital System Merger: The Patient Did Not Respond Well to Treatment

By: Martin Gaynor, Adam Sacarny, Raffaella Sadun, Chad Syverson and Shruthi Venkatesh

There is an ongoing merger wave in the U.S. hospital industry, but it remains an open question how hospital mergers change, or fail to change, hospital behavior, performance, and outcomes. In this research, we open the “black box” of practices within hospitals in the context of a mega-merger between two large for-profit chains. Benchmarking the effects of the merger against the acquirer’s stated aims, we show that they achieved some of their goals: they harmonized their electronic medical records and sent managers to target hospitals; after the acquisition, managerial processes were similar across hospitals in the merged chain. However, these interventions failed to drive detectable gains in profitability or patient outcomes. Our findings demonstrate the importance of hospital organizations and internal processes for merger research and policy in health care and the economy more generally.
- 2021
- Working Paper
The Anatomy of a Hospital System Merger: The Patient Did Not Respond Well to Treatment

By: Martin Gaynor, Adam Sacarny, Raffaella Sadun, Chad Syverson and Shruthi Venkatesh

There is an ongoing merger wave in the U.S. hospital industry, but it remains an open question how hospital mergers change, or fail to change, hospital behavior, performance, and outcomes. In this research, we open the “black box” of practices within hospitals in the context of a mega-merger between two large for-profit chains. Benchmarking the...
- November 2021
- Case
EbonyLife Media (A)

By: Andy Wu, Feng Zhu, Wale Lawal and Pippa Tubman Armerding
- November 2021
- Case
EbonyLife Media (A)

By: Andy Wu, Feng Zhu, Wale Lawal and Pippa Tubman Armerding

About the Unit

The Strategy unit studies firms as competitors in an economic landscape. Key issues include: the development and effectiveness of firm strategy at both a business and corporate level; the analysis of the competitive environment; and the sustainability of strategy over time.

Our research, course development, and teaching draws on multiple disciplines, including economics, sociology, and political science, and focuses on both domestic and global competition. The objective of the work is to generate findings and develop concepts that will help managers improve their strategic decisions while advancing the state of knowledge in the academic study of strategy and related disciplines.

Recent Publications

Entrepreneurial Learning and Strategic Foresight

By: Aticus Peterson and Andy Wu

December 2021 |
Article |
Strategic Management Journal

We study how learning by experience across projects affects an entrepreneur's strategic foresight. In a quantitative study of 314 entrepreneurs across 722 crowdfunded projects supplemented with a program of qualitative interviews, we counterintuitively find that entrepreneurs make less accurate predictions as they gain experience executing projects: they miss their predicted timeline to bring a product to market by nearly six additional weeks on each successive project. Although learning should improve prediction accuracy in principle, we argue that entrepreneurs also learn of opportunities to augment each successive product, which drastically expands the interdependencies beyond what an entrepreneur can anticipate. We find that entrepreneurs encounter more unforeseen interdependencies in their subsequent projects, and they sacrifice on-time delivery to address these interdependencies.

Keywords: Crowdfunding; Experience; Prediction; Timeline; Complexity; Entrepreneurship; Learning; Experience and Expertise; Forecasting and Prediction

Citation

Read Now

Andela: Africa's AWS for Talent

By: Tarun Khanna, Caroline M. Elkins and Joyce Kim

November 2021 |
Teaching Note |
Faculty Research

Citation

iOpenEye: Theater and #MeToo in Nigeria

By: Tarun Khanna, Caroline M. Elkins and Joyce Kim

November 2021 |
Teaching Note |
Faculty Research

Citation

The Anatomy of a Hospital System Merger: The Patient Did Not Respond Well to Treatment

By: Martin Gaynor, Adam Sacarny, Raffaella Sadun, Chad Syverson and Shruthi Venkatesh

2021 |
Working Paper |
Faculty Research

There is an ongoing merger wave in the U.S. hospital industry, but it remains an open question how hospital mergers change, or fail to change, hospital behavior, performance, and outcomes. In this research, we open the “black box” of practices within hospitals in the context of a mega-merger between two large for-profit chains. Benchmarking the effects of the merger against the acquirer’s stated aims, we show that they achieved some of their goals: they harmonized their electronic medical records and sent managers to target hospitals; after the acquisition, managerial processes were similar across hospitals in the merged chain. However, these interventions failed to drive detectable gains in profitability or patient outcomes. Our findings demonstrate the importance of hospital organizations and internal processes for merger research and policy in health care and the economy more generally.

Citation

Read Now

EbonyLife Media (B)

By: Andy Wu, Feng Zhu, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Wale Lawal

November 2021 |
Supplement |
Faculty Research

Citation

EbonyLife Media (A)

By: Andy Wu, Feng Zhu, Wale Lawal and Pippa Tubman Armerding

November 2021 |
Case |
Faculty Research

Citation

Educators

Corporate Strategy and the Theory of the Firm in the Digital Age

By: Markus Menz, Sven Kunisch, Julian Birkinshaw, David J. Collis, Nicolai J. Foss, Robert E. Hoskisson and John Prescott

November 2021 |
Article |
Journal of Management Studies

The purpose of this article is to reinvigorate research in the intersection of corporate strategy and the theory of the firm in light of the rapid advancement of digital technologies. Using the theory of the firm as an interpretive lens, we focus our analysis on the implications of the emerging digital age for three broad domains of corporate strategy: (1) corporate (competitive) advantage, (2) firm scale, scope, and boundaries, and (3) internal structure and design. Recognizing that digitalization exacerbates ambiguity and paradoxes, we sketch foundational strategies for future research. We suggest that there is a need to develop knowledge that accounts for the new realities of the digital age, depending on whether the corporate strategy phenomena under investigation and the theories of the firm used to explain them, are existing or new. The article serves also as an introduction to the Journal of Management Studies Special Issue on the topic.

Keywords: Digitalization; Digital Transformation; Multi-business Firm; Scale And Scope; Theory Of The Firm; Corporate Strategy; Technological Innovation; Competitive Advantage; Organizational Design; Theory; Research

Citation

Find at Harvard

Yildiz Holding's Corporate Strategy: Managing Diversification for Growth

By: Juan Alcacer and Esel Çekin

October 2021 |
Case |
Faculty Research

The case opens in May 2018 with Nurtaç Ziyal Afridi, chief strategy and growth officer of Yıldız Holding, a Turkish conglomerate, reflecting on the group’s diversification journey. In ten years, the group had achieved a remarkable growth through diversification: seven mergers, 33 acquisitions, and 23 divestments. By 2018, it had 164 companies and consolidated revenues of $12 billion. After two notable acquisitions (Godiva, a $850-million deal in 2007, and United Biscuits, a $3.2-billion deal in 2014), Yıldız Holding became one of the world’s largest confectionary companies. However, Yıldız Holding’s owner, Murat Ülker, wanted it to be the number one or two player globally. To achieve this goal, Afridi started a major restructuring program to focus on the group’s core assets. That was not an easy feat. The group companies addressed mass market to luxury customers, and their portfolio of products ranged from confectionary to dairy, beverages, baby food, and olive oil. They had wholesaling operations as well as retailing businesses across a wide reach of geographies. Afridi’s decisions in restructuring needed to balance all the various trade-offs. She had to decide how to define core, and accordingly decide which non-core assets to divest. Should she consider protecting only wholesaling businesses and divesting retailing? And what about managing their businesses in different geographies? Would it be a good idea if the group were to manage some geographies directly and leave the management of others to select partners?

Keywords: Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; North America; United Kingdom; Turkey; Asia

Citation

Educators

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