Ulf Bosch

The author's research examines the convergence of strategic choice, institutionalism and firm-institutional interaction of multinational corporations (MNCs) in emerging markets. It focusses on the relationship between strategic orientation, industry-based competitive environment, firm resources configurations, institutional context, and differential performance outcomes. While it agrees with the general notion that the appropriate strategy will be a function of industry-factors and firm-specific factors, there may be varying performance implications depending on key elements of the institutional context as well as the firm-institution interaction. The research utilizes Miles and Snow’s (1978) enduring strategic typology and assumes that distinctive clusters of strategic types exist among multinational corporations in China resulting into differentiated performance outcomes in conjunction with the strategic responses to institutions they adopt. Snow and Ketchen (2014) suggested in an Academy of Management Review call-for-action to empirically evaluate typologies for their current relevance, pointing to Miles and Snow (1978). However, Miles and Snow’s (1978) typology does not reflect any social interaction and institutional underpinnings. This research complements Miles and Snow’s (1978) firm-environment adaptive cycle by instilling the institutional problem. In order to add the institutional perspective, the research draws on Oliver’s (1991) strategic responses to institutional processes. As Oliver (1991) does not address the co-evolutional perspective, an additional novel response ‘assert’ based on Child et al. (2012) is brought in by this research. The research advances the notion of institution-oriented strategic choice in international business (IB) strategy and provides a theoretical contribution by disentangling the relationship between generic strategy and institutional strategy. It helps to close a serious gap of empirical research and provides advice of practical relevance to business managers on how to develop proper strategic configurations to thrive in China’s institutional environment. Based on a bilingual self-report questionnaire, the field research in China has generated 212 quantitative cases and has been presented at the 2016 Strategic Management Society Special Conference in Hong Kong (Bosch, 2016). Keywords: [IB strategy, strategic choice, institutionalism, MNC, China]

Miles, R. E.; Snow, C. C. (1978) Organizational strategy, structure, and process. McGraw-Hill, New York.

Snow, C. C.; Ketchen, D. J. (2014) Typology-driven theorizing: a response to Delbridge and Fiss, Academy of Management Review, 39(2), pp. 231-233.

Oliver, C. (1991) Strategic responses to institutional processes, Academy of Management Review, 16(1), pp. 145-179.

Child, J.; Rodrigues, S. B.; Tse, K. K.-T. (2012) The Dynamics of Influence in Corporate Co-Evolution. Journal of Management Studies, 49(7), pp. 1246-1273.

Bosch, U. T. (2016) Strategy, Environment, Resources and Institutional Context as Determinants of Firm Performance in Emerging Markets: Empirical Evidence from Multinational Corporations in China. 2016 Strategic Management Society Special Conference in Hong Kong, Contextualizing Strategic Management in Asia: Institutions, Innovation and Internationalization, Track A, Session 345 - Qualitative Studies of Organizations and Governance, https://www.strategicmanagement.net/files/submissions/6952_presentation.pdf .

http://www.linkedin.com/in/ulfbosch