This paper assesses how societal disruptions lead to collective action that addresses institutional voids. Examining field data from Sweden’s response to the Covid-19 outbreak, we track institutional voids related to four product market categories. We construct a process model and elaborate on what we conceptualize as entrepreneurial constellations, which consist of collaborating business firms, public organizations, and the government. These entrepreneurial constellations facilitate the functioning of markets or forming of new ones to deal with a disruption. Through collective action, constellations coordinate problems and self-interest to overcome regulatory obstacles. Findings point to institutional voids that relate to surges during the need to scale up existing critical product markets, creating and innovating new critical product markets. Recognizing such institutional voids helps constellations coordinate expertise that collectively enacts regulatory changes and innovation in coordinative functions. While emerging, they accomplish ongoing evaluative reflections that permit them to autocorrect. This new conceptual understanding of the surprising presence and consequences of institutional voids in market economies, where they are not expected to develop and cause insufficiencies and suffering, explains how entrepreneurial constellations improvise solutions to societal disruptions.

In this special issue, we have collected 13 articles that offer new vantage points for research on dynamic capabilities. We offer a selection of thought-provoking papers that advance current thinking on dynamic capabilities and provide directions for new inquiries using the dynamic capability framework. The microfoundations of dynamic capabilities have increasingly received interest. This special issue offers a range of conceptual methodological approaches to deepen our understanding of the issues surrounding the microfoundations of dynamic capabilities.

Background. Games are designed to help participants think about, understand, sharpen their problem statement as well as the specific objectives to be achieved to escape the problem situation. When participants prepare for the game (briefing), interact in the simulated environment (gameplay), and self- or jointly reflect about the gameplay they faced in terms of intended and unintended learning experiences (debrief), they benefit or suffer from facilitating that can or cannot fully cater to their needs. To support the participants to explore and resolve the problem situation in order to achieve learning goals, we propose that facilitators can make use of role shifts during gameplay. Method. To capture the role shifts in the gameplay phase we studied game runs of the MicroTech game. The MicroTech game is a free-form game in which participants play the role of top management team or division managers in a multiunit organization. Results. We analyzed the role shifts we experienced as facilitators by elaborating on game events and how we could manage those events differently in future game runs if necessary. We show a need for facilitators to be able to embody multiple roles in the case of policy gaming that are in fit with the different phases, while there is a simultaneous need to shift within phases in order to keep participants moving and stimulating them to work towards the learning goals. Conclusion. Gaming/simulation facilitators should explore what multiplicity is required of them to make the game a success. Although this may seem normal practice to well-prepared and professionally trained facilitators, this may be particularly important for novice facilitators.

The aim of this article is to conduct a comprehensive literature review concerning the influence of contextual factors on strategic decision processes. Our literature review organizes the existing literature on contextual factors along the lines of an integrative framework for studying strategic decisions. Interestingly, the stream of research on strategic decision processes is dominated by studies showing mixed, contradictory, and inconclusive findings. The effects of each contextual factor on the strategic decision process differ substantially across the reviewed studies. This creates several opportunities for further research on the topic. The review also reveals a paucity of cross-cultural studies, longitudinal studies, and tests of complex relationships such as three-way interactions, curvilinear relationships, and mediation effects. We conclude our review by suggesting seven directions for future research and identifying several implications for theory and practice.

The purpose of this study is analyze the internal factors impact of an employee (especially age, discipline, and motivation), and external factors of employee (especially training and incentives) on employee performance and organizational performance. The moderation impact of online application also analized at the relationship between employee performance on organizational performance. Used taxi drivers as unit analysis is an uniqueness of this study, the snowballing method with e-questionnaire used for collecting data resulted 100 taxi drivers as a sample. Using SmartPLS 3 in analyze, the results showed that the driver's motivation as a part of internal employee factors has a positive impact on employee performance directly and on organizational performance indirectly. Employee performance has a positive impact on organizational performance. The result implies that the company should always increase the driver's motivation for performance increased also. The other result showed that online application weakens the relationship between employee performance and organizational performance. Based on thus result, management needs to seek solutions. Keywords: Employee Internal Factors, Employee External Factors, Employee Performance, Organizational Performance, Online Application DOI : 10.7176/JRDM/57-04 Publication date :July 31 st 2019

Organizations are continuously experimenting with different means to include a broader group of stakeholders in open strategizing, which includes both internal and external stakeholders. Open strategizing,conceptualized as the influence on decision makers through direct ties from their social network, allows for more strategic information becoming available for decision making, and more stakeholders can engage in strategizing processes. Through a survey among 293 decision makers (49% managers, 51% entrepreneurs), we aim to show the influence of type of decision maker and cognitive motivation on the range of actors that affect strategic decisions. We test these effects and find that the results show marked differences exist between managers and entrepreneurs regarding which part of their social network and how cognitive motivation are influential in strategic decision-making

Sustainable development at the corporate level requires balancing social, environmental, and financial performance goals. Achieving such triple bottom line (TBL) performance is a very challenging task. In this study, we explore the role the organization's top management team (TMT) plays in leading their organization towards corporate sustainability. We focus on how two distinct aspects of the TMT's structural compositionthe presence of a chief sustainability officer (CSO) and the TMT's functional diversityaffect the organization's ability to reach high levels of TBL performance. We follow the presence of 22 global energy companies in Corporate Knight's Global 100 sustainability index for a period of 11years and find that, surprisingly, the presence of a CSO does not boost TBL performance. However, we do find a positive effect for TMT functional diversity, suggesting that more diverse TMTs are better able to lead their organization to higher levels of TBL performance.

Collaborative learning is often used in higher education to help students develop their teamwork skills and acquire curricular knowledge. In this paper we test a mediation model in which the quality of group discussions mediates the impact of gender diversity and group motivation on collaborative learning effectiveness. Our results show that the proportion of women in groups, and the group level need for cognition and core self-evaluations (within group average) positively predict discussion quality that in turn predicts group (academic) performance. Our results show that discussion quality fully mediates the effects of need for cognition and core self-evaluations on group performance. The effect for gender diversity on group performance is only partly mediated by discussion quality.

The major purpose of this paper is to conduct a comprehensive literature review concerning the influence of contextual factors on strategic decision processes (SDPs). An in-depth examination of the literature was carried out in an effort to gather together all major studies on the topic. Overall, we have analyzed 87 papers. Our literature review concludes that this area of research is still very active in terms of papers published every year but at the same time dominated by studies showing mixed findings. The latter creates a number of opportunities for further research on the topic. The review also revealed that there is a paucity of cross-cultural studies, longitudinal studies, tests of complex relationships such as three way interactions, curvilinear relationships and mediation effects. Furthermore, the way SDPs are studied differs which leads to different depths of understanding how strategic decisions are made and implemented. We conclude our review by suggesting eight directions for future research.

Political behavior, intuition and rationality play important roles in strategic decision making. However, a framework that specifically accounts for the interplay between these dimensions is still missing. This study addresses this gap by using a configurational approach and conceptualizes the interplay of political behavior, intuition and rationality as a combination of key dimensions that lead to strategic decision effectiveness. The study presumes that the dimensions can combine in different ways to achieve this outcome. We draw on a serious game and interviews with decision makers to explore this interplay. Our empirical data suggest that different configurations of dimensions lead to decision effectiveness. The fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis’ solutions are resembled by the combinations found in the content analysis. Practically, we enable decision makers to recognize the patterns that unfold during the formulation phase of the strategic decision- making process. This allows them to determine whether the observed interplay is likely to lead to an effective decision and act upon it. Theoretically, the research reveals more variety in the pathways to achieve strategic decision effectiveness than vested research has brought to light.

How do organizations make effective strategic decisions? In this study we build on research on the microfoundations of strategy and strategic decision-making to study the underpinnings of strategic decision effectiveness. We argue that the process-effectiveness link can be more fully understood if decision makers’ cognitive characteristics are incorporated. Such cognitive characteristics are expected to drive behavior in the strategic decision-making process. These account for variation in how information is collectively handled and political interests are accommodated. A field study was conducted in which we gathered multi-respondent survey and interview data on strategic decisions from 81 organizations. Our results suggest that there are actually two dimensions of strategic decision effectiveness, financial and process, each affected differentially by the microfoundations through the strategic decision-making process.

Why do inter-organizational relationships (IORs) dissolve? This question is hardly addressed in the literature in which most attention is directed at tie formation and the economic and strategic outcomes of inter-organizational relationships. This study focuses on a specific outcome: tie dissolution. In order to understand the causes of tie dissolution, we have conducted a comprehensive literature study analyzing the literature with regard to two aspects: 1) Which organization theories help at understanding tie dissolution? 2) Which causes does empirical research provide for explaining tie dissolution? Our study consists of an in-depth analysis of a total of 104 theoretical and empirical papers that result in the following answers: 1) Tie dissolution is predominantly explained with Transaction Cost Theory, Social Exchange Theory, Evolutionary Theory of Organizations and Organizational Learning Theory. (2) Reasons for dissolution can be categorized in environmental factors, network factors, relational factors and organizational factors. Relational factors dominate the landscape. The paper argues that the study of the consequences of tie dissolution is a relevant next research step.

In this paper we focus on the development of the literature on microfoundations of strategy. The objective is to identify the building blocks that make up the microfoundations framework. We start from two seed papers, Felin & Foss (2005) and Gavetti (2005), and combine bibliometrics with network analysis on a selective set of papers. This leads to the identification of papers that contain important building blocks and an assessment of the accumulation of knowledge for developing the argument on the role of individuals and their interactions in the context of routines and capabilities. Our main finding is that the microfoundations framework appears to be very comprehensive. It encompasses more than the role of individuals and their interaction which was our departure point based on the seed papers. The results reveal that it is a combination of individual, social and organizational characteristics, and mechanisms that enables the micro level to travel to the macro level. Moreover the findings show that the importance of aggregation was emphasized by the seed papers and most central papers that were analyzed in-depth. There is convergence in the literature that both components and emergence are contingent on the strategic phenomenon or problem under study. The study also revealed that the accumulation did not really occur as expected by the authors. We identified a citation network that resembles a butterfly, a small body in the center and two large wings. It seems there are two large clusters for the seed papers (the wings) and only a limited number of papers that build on the two papers (the body). The field is still legitimizing itself. Time will tell whether the field will integrate and converge more on the specifics of the microfoundations framework and transform from a butterfly into a caterpillar. Alternatively, more clusters may arise due to the study of specific strategy phenomena.

The decision-making literature emphasizes that in high-stake decisions the characteristics of individual decision-makers, their interpretation of decision situations, and their social ties play an important role in decision outcomes. Despite these results, research on small- and medium-sized enterprises has only partially covered these influences. In a sample of 565 small-business owners, this study identifies the extent to which these characteristics and social ties affect decision effectiveness and the extent to which their impact is mediated by evaluative judgements of the decision situation. Our results suggest that the interplay between human capital and social capital affects decision outcomes via evaluative judgments and this effect is moderated by decision content, in such a way that depending on decision content (internal versus external focus) entrepreneurial experience and the breadth of social capital are either assets or liabilities for decision effectiveness.

Recent research in group cognition points towards the existence of collective cognitive competencies that transcend individual group members’ cognitive competencies. Since rationality is a key cognitive competence for group decision making, and group cognition emerges from the coordination of individual cognition during social interactions, this study tests the extent to which collaborative and consultative decision rules impact the emergence of group rationality. Using a set of decision tasks adapted from the heuristics and biases literature, we evaluate rationality as the extent to which individual choices are aligned with a normative ideal. We further operationalize group rationality as cognitive synergy (the extent to which collective rationality exceeds average or best individual rationality in the group), and we test the effect of collaborative and consultative decision rules in a sample of 176 groups. Our results show that the collaborative decision rule has superior synergic effects as compared to the consultative decision rule. The ninety one groups working in a collaborative fashion made more rational choices (above and beyond the average rationality of their members) than the eighty five groups working in a consultative fashion. Moreover, the groups using a collaborative decision rule were closer to the rationality of their best member than groups using consultative decision rules. Nevertheless, on average groups did not outperformed their best member. Therefore, our results reveal how decision rules prescribing interpersonal interactions impact on the emergence of collective cognitive competencies. They also open potential venues for further research on the emergence of collective rationality in human decision-making groups.

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the role of social capital as a strategic decision aid in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in different service sectors.Design/methodology/approachData on 434 strategic decisions in service SMEs was gathered through computer‐aided telephone interviews and analyzed using structural equation modeling to test the mediating role of level of risk acceptance and confidence in the relationship between the breadth of social capital and decision effectiveness.FindingsEvaluative judgments (risk acceptance and confidence) explain the negative effects of social capital on decision effectiveness. Service delivery and dependency on tacit know‐how account for differences between SMEs in different service sectors and serve as explanations for different effects of social capital as a decision aid.Research limitations/implicationsThe study sheds light on the psychological underpinnings of social capital effects in strategic decisions. Higher varieties of actors make decision makers more tolerant for risk and decrease their confidence, which in turn hampers decision effectiveness.Originality/valuePrevious work on social capital suggests that it is beneficial to outcomes. The literature and policy initiatives also stress the beneficial effects of social capital and networking. This research on strategic decision‐making shows that the positive effects of social capital are not as pronounced as expected for the service SMEs. This paper draws explicit attention to the negative effects for strategic decision‐making.