Dr Peiran Su

This study explores how middle managers deal with knowledge inflows whilst striving to achieve ambidexterity. This is enabled through a two-dimensional conceptual framework involving knowledge sources (vertical or horizontal) and acquisition activities (structural and contextual). We based our study upon interviews conducted with 64 managers from hypermarket retailers in China, in addition to field observations and secondary data. Our findings reveal that these middle managers leverage different combinations of structural and contextual mechanisms to govern the vertical (top-down and bottom-up) knowledge inflows within their business units. Structural mechanisms comprise differentiation and integration. For their part, contextual mechanisms consist of a combination of discipline, stretch, support and trust. These combinations also enable horizontal knowledge inflows to be managed from outside the business unit. These also enable middle managers’ ambidexterity, first at the business unit level and second at the organization level. Our findings offer managerial guidelines for handling knowledge inflows from various sources and with different patterns. They also assist middle managers with their contribution to their firms’ pursuit of organizational ambidexterity.

This article analyses the relationship between a Scottish manufacturing company and the accountancy firm which provided it with professional services across its existence (1894–1967). It examines the professional roles fulfilled by the accountants, the work done and the fee income derived from it, in the context of the company’s history. It emphasises the importance of the services provided by accountancy firms for unlisted companies in understanding the development of professional accountancy in the United Kingdom. The material presented is used to test three different explanations of the UK accountancy profession’s rise which relate to the auditing function and has implications for historical methodology and epistemologies. The explanations explored may be categorised as economic rationalist, Foucauldian and jurisdictional points of view.

Scottish heavy industry declined in c.1950-1970, suffering inter alia from severe shortages of fuel, raw materials and skilled labour. Among a great number of heavy engineering firms closed in the 1980s was 114-year old A. F. Craig & Co. Ltd. of Paisley, a manufacturer of textile machinery, oil refinery equipment and sugar machinery. The firm survived economic recessions and two World Wars but not the period c.1950-1970. To understand how A. F. Craig reacted to its difficulties strategically, we explored its last years to investigate whether new strategies emerged in the firm and, if they did, their influence on the firm. Investigating archival data for the firm, we found that it adopted exploitative strategies without including explorative strategies in technological search and international diversification. The impact of these strategies was not effective enough to lead the firm out of its increasing difficulties. 

This paper demonstrates how meta‐analysis can be combined with structural equation modeling (MASEM) to address new questions in strategic management research. We review this integration, describe its implementation, and compare findings from bivariate meta‐analyses, a direct‐effect structural equations model, and two mediating frameworks using data on the strategic leadership and performance relationship. Results drawn from 208 articles that collectively included data on 495,638 observations demonstrate the new insights available from MASEM while also suggesting a revision to conventional thinking on strategic leadership. Whereas some theories posit that boards of directors influence firm performance through monitoring and disciplining the top management team, MASEM provides more support for the view that boards mediate the top management teams' decisions. Implications for applying MASEM in strategic management are offered.

We explore the interaction of open innovation and intellectual property (IP) in two Chinese latecomer pharmaceutical firms in their catch-up process. Studying archival data, documentation, and interviews, we found that the two firms exhibited five periods that were characterised by different open innovation activities and R&D capabilities. In their early stages, the two firms lacked R&D functions; thus, they imported technologies and pursued production-oriented strategies. As they gradually entered into collaborations and established their R&D departments, open innovation and IP protection played important and dynamic roles in this process. Thus, a catch-up process involves not only acquiring technological capabilities and innovative competencies but also transforming a firm's capacity to strategies.

This thesis addressed three questions regarding learning from failure: 1) How does firms’ failure experience influence their search activities? 2) How does firms’ failure experience affect their performance? and 3) How does firms’ exploration and exploitation influence the impact of failure on performance? Based on the theoretical lens of learning from failure, absorptive capacity, and exploration and exploitation, the series of longitudinal quantitative studies in this thesis revealed that firms’ failure experience negatively affects exploratory search, positively influences R&D performance, and exhibits a mixed blessing on firms’ financial performance. Boundary conditions of the relationships were discussed.