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Research Summary: This study examines whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) improves firms' competitiveness in the market for government procurement contracts. To obtain exogenous variation in firms' social engagement, I exploit a quasi-natural experiment provided by the enactment of state-level constituency statutes, which allow directors to consider stakeholders' interests when making business decisions. Using constituency statutes as instrumental variable (IV) for CSR, I find that companies with higher CSR receive more procurement contracts. The effect is stronger for more complex contracts and in the early years of the government-company relationship, suggesting that CSR helps mitigate information asymmetries by signaling trustworthiness. Moreover, the effect is stronger in competitive industries, indicating that CSR can serve as a differentiation strategy to compete against other bidders. Managerial Summary: This study examines how companies can strategically improve their competitiveness in the market for government procurement contracts—a market of economic importance (15-20% of GDP). It shows that companies with higher social and environmental performance (CSR) receive more procurement contracts. This effect is stronger for more complex contracts, in the early years of the government-company relationship, and in more competitive industries. These findings indicate that firms' CSR can serve as a signaling and differentiation strategy that influences the purchasing decision of government agencies. Accordingly, managers operating in the business-to-government (B2G) sector could benefit from integrating social and environmental considerations into their strategic decision making.

We examine the fit between a firm's product market strategy and its business model. We develop a formal model in order to analyze the contingent effects of product market strategy and business model choices on firm performance. We investigate a unique, manually collected dataset, and find that novelty-centered business models--coupled with product market strategies that emphasize differentiation, cost leadership, or early market entry--can enhance firm performance. Our data suggest that business model and product market strategy are complements, not substitutes.

We report on two studies (a single and a multi-industry) that empirically investigate a nomological network of relationships between strategic business unit product-market strategy (differentiation, cost-focus, and product-market scope), marketing capabilities (architectural and specialized capabilities, as well as their integration), and business unit performance (market effectiveness and subsequent one-year objective cash flow), along with a series of controls. Addressing important lacunae in the resource-based view our main research objective is to augment understanding of how critical firm-level marketing capabilities enable the realization of strategy, thus, further advancing both the resource-based view and more recent capabilities theorizing. Specifically, we test seven hypotheses and find strong evidence that both architectural and specialized marketing capabilities, and their integration, positively mediate the product-market strategy and derived business unit performance relationship. In contrast to many extant studies, both survey and objectively measured data are combined, and because the secondary data collected contains both resource-level (input) data and subsequent one-year financial data, a higher level of confidence may be attributable to our findings.

This paper argues that organizations tend to be more “open” or “closed” as a function of their members’ political ideologies and that this variation can help explain firms’ responses to social activism. Integrating research on social activism with political psychology, we propose that when firms experience activists’ protests, a liberal-leaning firm will be more likely to concede to activists’ demands than its conservative-leaning counterpart, because its decision makers will more readily accept the interconnectedness of the firm’s activities with the activists’ claims. Building on this core concept, we examine how factors that increase the salience of an organization’s ideology also amplify its effect on responses to protests. Based on a longitudinal sample of 558 protest events directed against Fortune 500 firms from 2001 to 2015, our results support the notion that liberal-leaning firms concede more to activism, an effect that exists after accounting for the ideological valence of the protest issues. When an organization’s members are more proximate to the corporate headquarters, this effect of its ideology is heightened. The same is true when the firm’s ideology is incongruent with that of its local community or its industry. These findings inform research on the organizational implications of political ideologies, as well as on social movements, institutional complexity, and nonmarket strategy.

In this article, we examine the mechanisms of the corporate political activities of service multinational enterprises (SMNEs) operating in an emerging economy. Reporting the findings of qualitative interviews with key decision-makers in Ukraine, the article illuminates how SMNEs operating in turbulent institutional contexts can enact various corporate political strategies, including social responsibility activities, to mitigate market costs and develop legitimacy. The findings elucidate how government agencies and institutions may also invoke corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a strategy. The article makes key contributions; firstly, it underscores the complementary dynamics that exist between CPA and CSR strategies in host markets characterised by weak and incomplete institutions. Secondly, the article contributes to the relatively under-explored nature of service sector MNEs operating in such institutional contexts.

Purpose This paper aims to establish how strategic target-market selection decisions are shaped, challenged and driven in response to the rapidly evolving technological landscape. The authors critically evaluate the implications of these changes for the role of marketers and the organizational function of marketing. Design/methodology/approach The research uses qualitative methods. Key-informant interviews are conducted among senior organizational practitioners within client-side organizations, digital agencies and strategic marketing consultancies, seeking to contrast their views. Findings The findings reveal an erosion of responsibility for the integrated strategic role of marketing decision-making. In particular, the authors reveal that the evolving digital landscape has precipitated a sense of crisis for marketers and the role of marketing within the firm. This extends beyond simply remedying a skills-gap and is triggering a transformation that has repercussions for the future of marketing and its practice, thus diminishing functional accountability. Research limitations/implications The findings have long-term implications for marketing as a strategic organizational function of the firm and for marketing as a practice. Originality/value The study considers an increasingly digitalized marketplace and the associated impact of big data for the function of marketing. It reveals the changing scope of strategic marketing practice and functional accountability.

PurposeThis study aims to explore the relationship between non-market strategies and organizational resilience, using a Chinese private enterprise as an example.Design/methodology/approachThis study collected data through semi-structured interviews and analyzed them through grounded theory, using a three-step approach of open coding, axial coding and selective coding to analyze and construct a model of the mechanism of the impact of non-market strategies on organizational resilience.FindingsThe following conclusions were drawn from this study. (1) Stakeholders, internal and external environment and entrepreneurship are important motivations that influence private firms to implement non-market strategies to enhance organizational resilience, with entrepreneurship being the key driver. (2) Non-market strategies contain three dimensions, and different non-market behaviors have different mechanisms of action on the organizational resilience of firms. (3) Non-market strategies and organizational resilience form an interactive spiral relationship. This mutually reinforcing effect promotes firm growth and sustainable corporate development. The research results enrich the theoretical connotation of non-market strategies, construct a model of the mechanism of influence of non-market strategies on organizational resilience, and describe three explanatory paths for the relationship between the two–incentive mechanism, functional mechanism and transformation mechanism.Research limitations/implicationsThis study's single case is unique and based on the Chinese context. In addition, this study adopts a rooted qualitative research approach and although the coding and model construction strictly follow the steps of grounded theory research, a degree of subjectivity is inevitable. On this basis, future research can adopt quantitative analysis methods to test and improve the model.Practical implicationsThis paper explores the important role of non-market strategies in the Chinese context under the impact of traditional market mechanisms, based on the perspective of Chinese private enterprises, and provides new insights and revelations for private enterprises to achieve sustainable development.Originality/valueThis study innovatively explores the formation mechanism of organizational resilience from the perspective of non-market strategies, adding a new perspective to the literature. Additionally, it examines the mechanisms between long-term non-market strategy and organizational resilience, particularly their relationship in times of crisis, utilizing a rooted approach that goes beyond static analysis.

Drawing on the organization theory literature concerning configuration theory, competing values theory, and fit assessment methodologies, we examine the existence and performance impact of product market strategy–organization culture fit. Specifically, we assess the relationship among three important elements of a firm’s product market strategy and the four cultural orientations that comprise the competing values theory of organizational culture using primary and secondary data from the US trucking industry. Using two different conceptualizations and operationalizations of fit, our results provide the first empirical support for the existence of interrelationships among product market strategy decisions and organizational culture orientations consistent with configuration theory conceptualizations of product market strategy–organizational culture fit. We also find support for theorized but previously untested relationships between product market strategy–organizational culture fit and firms’ customer satisfaction and cash-flow return on assets (CFROA) performance. Since product market strategy is heavily reliant on the input of marketers, and organizational culture has long been recognized as having an important impact on marketing-related decision making, these findings have important implications for marketing strategy research and practice.

Purpose Using the case of Foodora, this paper aims to assess the impact of technological innovation of an emerging actor in the sharing economy through stakeholders’ perceptions in the market and non-market domains. Design/methodology/approach Using a methodological approach called social media analytics (SMA) to explore the case of Foodora, 3,250 user-generated contents in social media are systematically gathered, coded and analysed. Findings The findings indicate that, while Foodora appears to be a viable provider in the marketplace, there is mounting public concern about the working conditions of its employees. In the market domain, Foodora manages its status as an online delivery platform and provider well, but at the same time, it struggles with its position in the non-market sphere, suggesting that the firm is vulnerable to regulatory change. These insights highlight the importance of simultaneously exploring and balancing market and non-market perceptions when assessing the impact of disruptive innovation. Originality/value This study offers originality by providing an integrative approach to consider both the market and non-market domains. It is also novel in its use of SMA as a tool for knowledge acquisition and management to evaluate the impact of emerging technologies in the sharing economy.

In an era where sustainable development is increasingly a core strategic issue for businesses, how top management, as the architects of corporate strategy, can achieve a synergy of economic, social, and environmental benefits through internal management mechanisms to promote corporate sustainability is a central focus for both academia and practice. This study aims to explore how Executive Cognitive Flexibility (CF) influences Firm Performance and to uncover the mediating effects of Non-market Strategy. We use panel data from Chinese A-share listed companies between 2016 and 2022 to examine and empirically analyze this mechanism. Our findings indicate that CF has a positive impact on Firm Performance. This relationship is realized through the pathway of Non-market Strategy, specifically manifesting as a reduction in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and an increase in Corporate Political Activity (CPA). Further analysis reveals that the impact of executive cognitive flexibility on firm performance is differentially influenced by internal and external environmental contexts. The findings of this study provide important practical insights and policy recommendations for companies on cultivating executive cognitive flexibility, optimizing non-market strategies, and enhancing firm performance in various internal and external environments.