Processes and practices of strategizing and organizing: Review, development, and the role of bridging and umbrella constructs

Abstract

The scope and purpose of this special issue is to draw interconnections between domains of strategy and strategic management research. Specifically, we initially conceptualized this special issue with two goals in mind: (1) to highlight and bridge intersections between strategy theories and bodies of scholarship; and (2) to advance and mainstream ways in which an explicit organizational dimension can be fostered in strategy and strategic management research. The papers selected for the issue capture this set of aspirations in various ways, and, as such, they collectively offer a foundation for extending strategy and strategic management research in exciting new directions. We start our introduction by providing a brief overview of the contributions provided by each paper in the context of three broad strategy themes: strategy and process; resources and organizational growth; and environment and institutional context. We subsequently discuss the potential for integration of research across these themes, and highlight the importance of what we define as bridging and umbrella constructs that are able to connect various strategy and organizational phenomena in coherent and meaningful ways. We elaborate the important distinction between these two constructs and their respective roles within theory development, and use that to drive and articulate directions for further research. © 2011 The Authors. Journal of Management Studies © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies.