Strategy Making in High-Technology Firms: The Empiricist Mode

Mintzberg H. McHugh A. , “Strategy Formation in an Adhocracy,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 30 (1985): 160–197.

Mintzberg and McHugh, op.cit.; and Burgelman R.A. , “On the Interplay of Process and Content in Internal Corporate Ventures: Action and Cognition in Strategy-Making,” Academy of Management Proceedings (1984), pp. 2–6.

Mintzberg H. Waters J. A. , “Of Strategies, Deliberate and Emergent,” Strategic Management Journal, 6 (1985): 257–272.

Lindblom C.E. , “The Science of Muddling Through,” Public Administration Review (Spring 1959), pp. 79–88; Allison G.T. , Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston, MA: Little Brown & Co., 1971).

March J.G. Olsen J.P. , Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations (Norway: Universitetsforlaget, 1976).

Mintzberg McHugh , op.cit., 1985.

Chandler A.D. , Strategy and Structure (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1962), Bower J.L. , Managing the Resource Allocation Process (Boston, MA: Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University, 1970); Quinn J. B. , Strategies for Change (Homewood, IL: Irwin, 1980); Mintzberg H. Waters J.A. , “Tracking Strategy in an Entrepreneurial Firm,” Academy of Management Journal, 25/3 (1982): 465–499.

See Bourgeois L.J. Eisenhardt K.M. , “Strategic Decision Processes in Silicon Valley: The Anatomy of the Living Dead,” California Management Review, 30/1 (Fall 1987): 143–159.

Utterback J.M. , “The Process of Technological Innovation Within the Firm,” Academy of Management Journal (March 1971), pp. 75–88; Burgelman R.A. , “A Process Model of Internal Corporate Venturing in the Diversified Major Firm,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 28 (1983): 223–244.

Rothwell R. Freeman C. Horsley A. Jervis V.T.P. Robertson A.B. Townsend J. , “SAPPHO updated-Project SAPPHO,” Research Policy 3 (1974): 258–291; Maidique M.A. Zirger B.J. , “A Study of Success and Failure in Product Innovation: The Case of the U.S. Electronics Industry,” IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, EM-31/4 (November 1984): 192–203.

Teece D.J. , “Profiting from Technological Innovation: Implications for Integration, Collaboration, Licensing and Public Policy,” in Teece D.J. , ed., The Competitive Challenge: Strategies for Industrial Innovation and Renewal (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Company, 1987).

von Hippel E.A. , “Users as Innovators,” Technology Review, 5 (1976): 212–239; and von Hippel E. A. , “Lead Users: A Source of Novel Product Concepts,” Management Science, 32/7 (1986): 791–805.

Kanter R.M. , The Change Masters (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1983); Quinn J.B. , “Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Strategy,” Sloan Management Review (Spring 1979), pp.19–30.

Roberts E.B. , “New Ventures for Corporate Growth,” Harvard Business Review (July/August 1980), pp. 134–142; Burgelman R.A. Sayles L.R. , Inside Corporate Innovation (New York, NY: Free Press, 1986); Romanelli E. , “New Venture Strategies in the Minicomputer Industry,” California Management Review, 30/1 (Fall 1987): 160–175.

Horwitch M. Prahalad C.K. , “Managing Technological Innovation—Three Ideal Modes,” Sloan Management Review (Winter 1976), pp. 77–89.

Roberts , 1980, op. cit.; Quinn , 1979, op. cit.

Horwitch M. Thietart R.A. , “The Effect of Business Interdependencies on Product R&D-Intensive Business Performance,” Management Science, 33/2 (1987): 179.

Cooper A.C. Bruno A. , “Success Among High Technology Firms,” Business Horizons, 20/2 (1977).

Maidique M.A. Hayes R.H. , “The Art of High Technology Management,” Sloan Management Review (Winter 1984), pp. 17–31.

Meyer M.H. Roberts E.B. , “New Product Strategy in Small Technology-Based Firms: A Pilot Study,” Management Science, 32/7 (1986): 806–821.

Burgelman R.A. , “Applying the Methodology of Grounded Theorizing in Strategic Management: A Summary of Recent Findings and their Implications,” in Lamb R. Shrivastava P. , eds., Advances in Strategic Management, Vol. 3 (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1985): 83–99.

Personal Interviews with Company A's President and Vice President of Marketing, May 1987 and April 1984.

Personal Interview with Company A's Executive Vice President, May 1985.

Ibid.

Personal interview with Company B's Vice President of Sales (1974–79), December 1987.

This arrangement made sense from a strategic standpoint, since some of B's major customers were large computer and office system manufacturers in competition with its parent company.

Company B, Strategy Statement 1982, p. 51.

Company B, internal document, November 1982.

Company B, internal projections on the growth of the micro floppy market, May 1983.

See Mintzberg Waters , 1985, op. cit.

Burgelman , 1983, op. cit.

Bahrami H. Evans S. , “Stratocracy in High Technology Firms,” California Management Review, 30/1 (Fall 1987): 51–66.

Burgelman R.A. , “Managing the Internal Corporate Venturing Process: Some Recommendations for Practice,” Sloan Management Review, 25/2 (Winter 1984): 33–48.

Quinn J.B. , “Managing Innovation: Controlled Chaos,” Harvard Business Review, (May/June 1985) pp. 73–84.

For a detailed review of alternate structural designs for nurturing new ventures see Burgelman R.A. , “Designs for Corporate Entrepreneurship in Established Firms,” California Management Review, 26/3 (Spring 1984): 154–166.

This emphasis on the importance of learning has been noted by other studies. In describing the birth of the video recorder industry, Rosenbloom and Cusumano discuss how the development of Betamax and VHS by Sony and Japan Victor Corporation were “the tangible results of fifteen years of learning by trying.” See Rosenbloom R.S. Cusumano M.A. , “Technological Pioneering: The Birth of the VCR Industry,” California Management Review (Summer 1987), p. 66. Similarly, Maidique and Zirger characterize the new product development cycle in high technology firms as a learning process in which innovators learn not only by doing, but also by failing. This in turn results in the development of new alternatives and product concepts. See Maidique M.A. Zirger B.J. , “The New Product Learning Cycle,” Research Policy (December 1985).

Burgelman , 1983, op.cit.

Bower , 1970, op.cit.

Burgelman , 1983, op.cit.

For a detailed account of psychological and organizational factors which account for escalation of commitment see Staw B.M. , “The Escalation of Commitment: A Review and Analysis,” in Staw B.M. , ed., Psychological Foundations of Organizational Behavior, Second edition (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1983), pp. 329–338.

In proposing structural alternatives for new business in established firms, Burgelman suggests that if the degree of “strategic importance” and “operational relatedness” of a new venture is high, it should be “integrated” into the existing organization. See Burgelman , 1984, op.cit.

See Burgelman , 1983, op.cit.; and Bower , 1970, op.cit.

Burgelman , 1984, op.cit., p.4.

Bower , 1970, op.cit., p.71.

Ibid.

Further evidence for the importance of this imperative can be found in a recent study of the microcomputer industry where “decisive action,” “bold moves,” and a continuous consideration of “alternative courses of action” are critical for effective performance. See Bourgeois Eisenhardt , 1987, op.cit.

Bahrami H. Evans S. , “Organizational Structures of High Technology Firms: The Bi-modal Form,” Working Paper, Berkeley Business School, 1988.

Andrews K.R. , The Concept of Corporate Strategy (Homewood, IL: Irwin, 1980).

Burgelman , 1983, op.cit., p. 242.

Quinn J.B. , “Strategic Change: Logical Incrementalism,” Sloan Management Review (Fall 1978), p. 7.

Burgelman , 1983, op.cit.

Mintzberg H. , “Crafting Strategy,” Harvard Business Review (July/August 1987), p. 66.

For two influential perspectives on the role of empiricism in the scientific process, see Popper K.R. , Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (London: Routledge & Kagan Paul, Fourth Edition, 1972) and Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1972); and Feyerabend P.K. , “How to be a Good Empiricist—a Plea for Tolerance in Matters Epistemological,” in Nidditch P.H. , Ed., The Philosophy of Science (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1968).