A Multi‐level Dialectical–Paradox Lens for Top Management Team Strategic Decision‐Making in a Corporate Venture

This paper aims to critique the process of corporate‐owned, high‐tech start‐up strategizing through an inductive, longitudinal, case study of ‘UK‐Research‐Tech’. Insights are given through the combined ‘dialectical–paradox’ concept, thereby focusing on where ‘dialectic’ and ‘paradox’ theorizing overlap. This linked iterative, ‘dialogical–dialectic’ research approach also reflects chief executive officer/top management team (CEO/TMT) start‐up dynamics over time. These foci fill important gaps that impede better understanding of dialectical, dialogical and paradoxical forces within strategic decision‐making. As an interpretative tool, they illuminate CEO/TMT strategizing and changing interrelationships affected by broader, volatile, techno‐economic contexts and parent‐company influences on ventures. In this case study, it was found that the CEO's relatively autocratic, parent‐framed approach combined with TMT members' contradictory reactions to create ‘dialectical–paradox’ oppositional forces, eventually only resolved through ‘eleventh hour’ business strategy changes to rescue the venture. This research contributes to more nuanced understandings of corporate‐constrained ventures during early business development from start‐up strategic decisions at parent‐company level to subsequent conditions of more independent dynamic equilibrium. The ‘dialectical–paradox’ conceptual lens contributes an innovative critique of processes affecting strategic decision‐making dynamics. Another important contribution is the empirically inspired conceptual model, developed for use both to guide subsequent case‐study research analyses and as a reflective tool for CEO/TMT strategic decision‐making, especially within corporate‐inspired start‐ups.     

Income determination for corporate tax purposes using IFRS as a starting point: evidence for listed companies within Austria, Germany, and The Netherlands

The internationalisation of financial accounting and the European Commission’s ambition to harmonise corporate taxation have raised the question whether IFRS accounts could be used for tax purposes. In order to quantify the effects of an IFRS-based taxation on corporate tax burdens in different EU member states, we estimate firms’ tax equity using notes on income taxes in IFRS financial statements of companies listed in Austria, Germany, and The Netherlands. The difference between estimated tax equity and IFRS-equity, adjusted for the effect resulting from the recognition of deferred taxes, shows the effect of using IFRS as a tax base on the present value of corporate taxes. We find that estimated tax equity is mostly lower than IFRS-equity, indicating that an IFRS-based taxation would often increase the present value of corporate taxes. The median of estimated tax equity is 5.6 % (Austria), 6.4 % (Germany) and 9.0 % (The Netherlands) below IFRS-equity. However, an IFRS-based taxation does not always induce higher equity as often argued in the literature. In 307 of 1,113 totally analysed firm-years, estimated tax equity exceeds IFRS-equity. To find a further estimation for the effects of tax base reforms we also approximate the total stock of unused tax losses and the amount of useable tax losses. We find that deferred tax assets for unused tax losses are depreciated to a substantial extent.     

Drawing on the Map: An Exploration of Strategic Sensemaking/Giving Practices using Visual Representations

In this paper we explain how practitioners perform strategic sensemaking with visual representations. Here, we identify four modes of strategic sensemaking/giving: content‐generating, process‐generating, process‐ingraining and content‐ingraining. While each of these modes supports strategic sensemaking/giving by focusing practitioners’ work on specific issues, they also divert practitioners from focusing on key aspects of strategy making. We conceptualize these limitations as ‘blind spots’. As a result, strategic sensemaking appears fragmented and can lead to breakdowns in sensemaking. However, the flexibility of visual representations facilitates strategic sensemaking by allowing practitioners to switch from one mode to another. These findings improve our understanding of the strategic sensemaking/giving practices that are associated with the use of visual representation.     

Real Options in Management and Organizational Strategy: A Review of Decision‐making and Performance Implications

This paper contributes to the debate on the role of real options theory in business strategy and organizational decision‐making. It analyses and critiques the decision‐making and performance implications of real options within the management theories of the (multinational) firm, reviews and categorizes the organizational, strategic and operational facets of real options management in large business settings. It also presents the views of scholars and practitioners regarding the incorporation and validity of real options in strategy, international management and business processes 1 . The focus is particularly on the decision‐making and performance attributes of the real options logic concerning strategic investments, governance modes and multinational operations management. These attributes are examined from both strategic and operating perspectives of decision‐making in organizations, also with an overview of the empirical evidence on real options decision‐making and performance.     

Welche privaten Veräußerungsgewinne sollten besteuert werden?

This paper analyses for various corporate tax systems whether the capital gains tax distorts investment decisions and how tax effects could eventually be neutralized. In case of the disposal of shares between private investors the capital gains tax, the corporate tax and the income tax on dividends induce a triple taxation. On the contrary, distributing cash via share repurchases instead of paying out dividends can lower the tax burden in a classical corporate tax system and a shareholder relief system respectively. These findings necessitate the differentiation between share repurchases and other realizations of stocks in order to establish a neutral capital gains tax. While the capital gains taxation on transactions between private investors has to be reduced, the taxation of share repurchases must be matched with the respective dividend taxation.     

Hold or sell? How capital gains taxation affects holding decisions

Investments with exit flexibility require decisions regarding both the investment and holding period. Because selling an investment often leads to taxable capital gains, which crucially depend on the duration of an investment, we investigate the impact of capital gains taxation on exit timing under different tax systems. We observed that capital gains taxation delays exit decisions but loses its decision relevance for very long holdings. Often the optimal exit time, which indicates the maximal present value of future cashflows, cannot be determined analytically. However, we identify the breakeven exit time that guarantees present values exceeding those of an immediate sale. While, after-taxes, an immediate sale is often optimal, long holding periods might also be attractive for investors depending on the degree of income and corporate tax integration. A classic corporate tax system often indicates holdings over more than 100 periods. By contrast, a shareholder relief system indicates the earliest breakeven exit time and thus the highest level of exit timing flexibility. Surprisingly, high retention rates are likely to accelerate sales under a classic corporate system. Additionally, the worst exit time, which should be avoided by investors, differs tremendously across tax systems. For an integrated tax system with full imputation, the worst time is reached earlier than under partial or non-integrated systems. These results could help to predict investors’ behavior regarding changes in capital gains taxation and thus are of interest for both investors and tax policymakers. Furthermore, the results emphasize the need to control for the underlying tax system in cross-country empirical studies.     

开放经济中跨国公司的最优所得税模型

通过对不同避免双重征税方法下最优所得税模型的建立,解析了政府最优政策的收入函数,得到税收竞争均衡中的公司所得课税政策.对小型开放经济而言,在扣除法和抵免法,以及免税法与抵免法的不对称体系下,对跨国公司从源征收公司所得税都是最优选择.由此,得到不同于国际税收经典理论的结论.     

How strategy professionals develop and sustain an online strategy community – The lessons from Ericsson

In this paper, we report on an in-depth and inductive study of strategy professionals that proactively initiated, developed and sustained an online community dedicated to continuously engaging with issues of strategic relevance for the company Ericsson. We identified the design of an online community structure, cooperation of internal and external actors with diverse expertise and from different hierarchical levels, and formulation of adequate strategic content, as the three main decision areas that strategy professionals have to consider carefully. The detailed empirical analysis enabled us to expose characteristic interdependencies among decisions and contradictory demands that make open strategy processes a paramount organizational challenge. We argue that organizing of such collective action transforms professional strategists from expert planners and analysts into managers that centralize responsibility for decisions affecting a) permeability of community boundaries for different types of community members; b) incentive mechanisms that mobilize participation and stimulate knowledge sharing across hierarchical levels, and c) framing of strategic content needed to integrate fragmented contributions, often less aligned with strategic frames of senior managers, into actionable strategic initiatives.     

A systematic literature review of mining weak signals and trends for corporate foresight

Due to the ever-growing amount of data, computer-aided methods and systems to detect weak signals and trends for corporate foresight are in increasing demand. To this day, many papers on this topic have been published. However, research so far has only dealt with specific aspects, but it has failed to provide a comprehensive overview of the research domain. In this paper, we conduct a systematic literature review to organize existing insights and knowledge. The 91 relevant papers, published between 1997 and 2017, are analyzed for their distribution over time and research outlets. Classifying them by their distinct properties, we study the data sources exploited and the data mining techniques applied. We also consider eight different purposes of analysis, namely weak signals and trends concerning political, economic, social and technological factors. The results of our systematic review show that the research domain has indeed been attracting growing attention over time. Furthermore, we observe a great variety of data mining and visualization techniques, and present insights on the efficacy and effectiveness of the data mining techniques applied. Our results reveal that a stronger emphasis on search strategies, data quality and automation is required to greatly reduce the human actor bias in the early stages of the corporate foresight process, thus supporting human experts more effectively in later stages such as strategic decision making and implementation. Moreover, systems for detecting weak signals and trends need to be able to learn and accumulate knowledge over time, attaining a holistic view on weak signals and trends, and incorporating multiple source types to provide a solid foundation for strategic decision making. The findings presented in this paper point to future research opportunities, and they can help practitioners decide which sources to exploit and which data mining techniques to apply when trying to detect weak signals and trends.     

Affective reactions influence investment decisions: evidence from a laboratory experiment with taxation

We experimentally investigate the effect of taxation of gains and losses on investment behavior. Based on the insights of economic research and psychological concepts, we expect subjects to react to taxation with behavioral and affective changes. Our main results are threefold: first, we show that taxation on gains and the possibility to deduct losses bias investment behavior, but in different directions. Since net payoffs are identical across all tax scenarios and therefore the same investment behavior is to be expected, these differences are in contrast to what a standard theory would predict. Second, we observe that different tax regulations have different effects on the affective and cognitive perception of our subjects. Third, with respect to possible connections of the affective and cognitive ratings, tax regulations, and investment decisions, we are able to show that arousal and risk perception fail to influence the decision making of participants, while there is a highly significant influence of valence perception on choice patterns.     

Examining the Antecedents and Consequences of CIO Strategic Decision‐Making Authority: An Empirical Study*

Despite the strategic importance of information technology (IT) to contemporary firms, chief information officers (CIO) often still have varying degrees of strategic decision‐making authority. In this study, we apply the theory of managerial discretion to define CIO strategic decision‐making authority and argue that the CIO's level of strategic decision‐making authority directly influences IT's contribution to organization performance. We also draw on the power and politics perspective in the strategic decision‐making literature to identify the direct antecedents to the CIO's strategic decision‐making authority. A theoretical model is presented and empirically tested using survey data collected from a cross‐industry sample of 174 matched pairs of CIOs and top business executives through structural equation modeling. The results suggest that organizational climate, organizational support for IT, the CIO's structural power, the CIO's level of strategic effectiveness, and a strong partnership between the CIO and top management team directly influence the CIO's level of strategic decision‐making authority within the organization. The results also suggest that the CIO's strategic decision‐making authority in the organization directly influences the contribution of IT to firm performance and that effective CIOs have a greater influence on IT's contribution when provided with strategic decision‐making authority.     

A Real Options Reasoning Approach to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Integrating Real Option Sensemaking and CSR Orientation

In this article we explore the conceptual relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) orientation and real option reasoning. We argue that the firm's attitude, communication, and behavior toward CSR will act as significant determinants to the firm's sensemaking approach to real options; that is, if and how it (the firm) acknowledges, receives, and manages strategic real options. Integrating the previous work of Basu and Palazzo with Barnett, we propose a new model that extends the influence of CSR orientation/character to general strategic decision making while simultaneously developing the attention‐based view to real options.     

The Influence of Context on the Strategic Decision‐Making Process: A Review of the Literature

This paper critically reviews the strategic decision‐making process literature, with a specific focus on the effects of context. Context refers to the top management team, strategic decision‐specific characteristics, the external environment and firm characteristics. This literature review also develops an illustrative framework that incorporates these four different categories of contextual variables that influence the strategic decision‐making process. As a result of the variety and pervasiveness of contextual variables featured within the literature, a comprehensive and up‐to‐date review is essential for organizing and synthesizing the extant literature to explicate an agenda for future research. The purpose of this literature review is threefold: first, to critically review the strategic decision‐making process literature to highlight the underlying themes, issues, tensions and debates in the field; second, to identify the opportunities for future theory development; and third, to state the methodological implications arising from this review.     

Process matters—The relevance of the decision making process for divestiture outcomes

We apply strategic decision making and organizational change theory to corporate divestitures and argue that key characteristics of the divestiture decision making process can contribute to explaining the variation in divestiture outcomes. We test our hypotheses in an empirical multi-source quantitative study and find evidence that analytical comprehensiveness in the evaluation of divestiture effects on the corporate portfolio has a positive impact on the effectiveness of divestiture choices, but analytical comprehensiveness at the focal business unit (BU) level does not enhance decision effectiveness. Our results further indicate that involvement of the affected BU management has a varying impact during the decision making process, with negative effects during the early phase and positive effects in the later phase.     

整合市场战略与非市场战略的战略管理模型——基于中国房地产行业的研究

随着企业非市场因素在竞争中发挥出越来越显著的作用,将非市场环境分析及战略制定纳入企业战略管理过程中,并探讨其与市场环境及战略整合的特点,成为企业战略管理研究的新方向.在对中国转型经济时期典型房地产企业的非市场战略进行案例分析的基础上,研究中国转型经济环境下典型的非市场事项管理及相应的企业非市场战略特征,并试图从战略管理的角度出发,构建企业非市场因素与传统战略规划过程的整合模式.研究的结论补充了关于市场战略与非市场战略整合的相关研究,为中国转型时期企业如何在战略管理过程中纳入非市场环境评估及相应的战略制定与实施提供了理论模型与实例支持,对企业战略管理实践有指导作用.     

Top management team constellations and their implications for strategic decision making

Two major themes in the upper echelon decision making literature are the efficacy of the CEO and the composition of the top management team (TMT). Little research has examined their intersection. This study addresses the call to reveal the social processes within TMTs, by focusing on CEO-TMT member interaction in decision making. Drawing on video ethnographic data of two TMTs, we explore the patterns of interactions between CEOs and TMT members in their strategic decision making meetings. Through an analysis of 20 issue discussions, we identify five “constellations”, a team level construct capturing the core relational dynamics that are created through mutual CEO-TMT member influence during a team's discussion of a strategic issue. We explain how these constellations unfold and their implications for the processes and outcomes of TMT strategic decision making. We then elaborate how our findings contribute to the TMT and upper echelon literatures, as well as our understanding of team politics.     

How hot cognition can lead us astray: The effect of anger on strategic decision making

Anger is one of the most frequently experienced emotions. However, the extant research on the impact of anger has predominantly focused on its effect on decision making in simple decision tasks. Strategic decision making differs significantly from such tasks, as it is characterized by complexity, ambiguity, and a high information load. To better understand the impact of emotions on strategic decision making, we investigate the effect of anger on decision quality and decision speed. To do so, we carry out a strategy field experiment with 52 executives in which we use participants’ psychophysiological skin conductance response. In line with psychological research on non-strategic decisions, we find that anger negatively influences decision quality in strategic decision making. However, in contrast to predictions made by research on non-strategic decisions, we find no increase in decision speed among angry participants. We thus extend extant theory by suggesting that anger impacts the quality of strategic decisions but does not affect important process characteristics such as decision speed.     

基于低碳视角的政府监管与制造商生产的演化博弈研究

政府制定的监管政策对制造商生产策略的选择具有重要影响。本文基于低碳视角，引入政府碳税系数、补贴系数、低碳产品生产成本等参数，针对税收与补贴混合政策、单一税收政策和单一补贴政策三种模式，分别建立了政府与制造商之间决策行为的演化博弈模型，对比分析了不同监管政策下政府和制造商达到均衡所需条件的差异，并进一步探讨了影响政府、制造商决策的关键因素。研究结果表明，当初始生产低碳产品的制造商比例相同时，政府实施混合政策比单一税收政策或补贴政策对制造商生产低碳产品的激励作用更加明显。政府监管与政府低碳税收、高碳产品罚款和监管成本有关，制造商生产低碳产品受到产品成本、收益的影响。研究结论不仅为政府制定低碳产品政策提供了科学依据，也为制造商选择低碳产品策略给予了决策支撑。     

Lot‐sizing Decisions Under Limited‐time Price Reduction*

We consider the optimal lot‐sizing policy for an inventoried item when the vendor offers a limited‐time price reduction. We use the discounted cash flow (DCF) approach in our analysis, thereby eliminating the sources of approximation found in most of the earlier studies that use an average annual cost approach. We first characterize the optimal lot‐sizing policies and their properties, then develop an algorithm for determining the optimal lot sizes. We analytically demonstrate that the lot sizes derived using an average annual cost approach for the different variants of the problem are, in general, larger than the DCF optimum. While DCF analysis is more rigorous and yields precise lot sizes, we recognize that the associated mathematical models and the solution procedure are rather complex. Since simple and easy‐to‐understand policies have a strong practical appeal to decision makers, we propose a DCF version of a simple and easy‐to‐implement heuristic called the “Early Purchase” (EP) strategy and discuss its performance. We supplement our analytical developments with a detailed computational analysis and discuss the implications of our findings for decision making.     

Decision-making Autonomy in UK International Equity Joint Ventures

This paper investigates approaches to decision making in international joint ventures (IJVs) from the perspectives of the transactions cost and resource‐based theories of the firm. In particular, the concept of autonomy in decision‐making in a sample of UK‐European equity joint ventures is examined. The study adopts a multi‐method personal interview and self‐administered questionnaire approach to examine managerial perceptions of decision‐making and autonomy in the parent firms and the joint venture. The findings show that there are differences in the perception of autonomy between each of the parent firms, and between the parent firms and the IJV management. When we unpack the nature of autonomy in detail, it is found that IJV managers have greater degrees of operational autonomy than strategic autonomy and that decision making by IJV managers takes place within the context of constraints set within the IJV's business plan. This confirms the transaction cost theory which posits that key internal markets (for management, technology and capital) will be under parent control and also supports the resource based view that key capabilities are protected under the business plan established by the parent firms. The influence on IJV autonomy of the moderating variables IJV performance and IJV duration are also examined.