Integrating diverse perspectives in strategy studies

The field of business strategy has seen a wide range of approaches to understanding and improving strategic decisions in organizations and beyond. This paper examines the growing need for further integration among the myriad intellectual perspectives available to strategy researchers, to lessen unwelcome balkanization in theory and practice. After examining cases where different problem definitions all point to the same solution, we turn to harder cases for which no single best solution exists. Multiple approaches are discussed to reconcile conflicting problem frames and conceptual lenses. A key distinction is made – when resolving complex strategy problems – between pattern matching solutions and designs based on first principles. My main focus is on what should be done after a strategy problem has been well analyzed descriptively but diverse solution ideas remain without integration.