Strategic renewal of organizations

Article Type: Abstracts From: Strategic Direction, Volume 25, Issue 10

Agarwal R. and , Helfat C.E.Organization Science (USA), March-April 2009, Vol. 20 No. 2, Start page: 281, No. of pages: 13

Purpose – Discusses the concept of organizational strategic renewal. Design/methodology/approach – Distinguishes between strategic renewal and strategic change, defines strategic renewal as including the process, content and outcomes of refreshment or replacement of attributes of an organization that have the potential to substantially affect its long-term prospects,differentiates between discontinuous strategic transformation and incremental renewal, and gives examples of, and reasons driving, both types of strategic renewal, e.g. Kodak’s strategy transformation to deal with the introduction of digital cameras. Suggests that incremental renewal may obviate the necessity for later transformation renewal, submits that strategic renewal enables incumbent firms to survive creative destruction, and identifies diversifying companies and new ventures founded by incumbent’s employees as causes of industry/technological change. Describes repeated strategic renewal at IBM to support argument/submissions, contends that the company has had a major impact on the US economy over several decades, and profiles change from electrical-mechanical accounting equipment to electronic computing 1940-1965,and then from computing hardware to computing business services at the turn of the twenty-first century, tabling strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats associated with each change.Originality/value – Adds to corporate strategy literature.Article type: Conceptual paperISSN:1047-7039Reference: 38AL554

Keywords: Cognition, Core competences, Corporate strategy,Innovation, Market entry, Strategic management