The expanding domain of strategic management research and the quest for integration

TLDR

The expanding scope of strategic management creates risk of incoherence and fragmentation, hindering its usefulness for guiding managerial decisions. This essay aims to delineate the domain’s boundaries, identify forces driving fragmentation, and explore how the special issue and research reviews can foster convergence and broader integration across theories, phenomena, and the scholarly community. The authors analyze domain boundaries and fragmentation forces, proposing that the special issue and its reviews promote convergence within the field. Reviews included in the issue can build an integrated, empirically validated knowledge base essential for informing management practice. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract

Research summary : This special issue of Strategic Management Journal was motivated by concern that the growing scope and diversity of the strategic management field creates the risk of incoherence and fragmentation and the belief that research reviews could contribute to synthesis and integration. In this introductory essay, we address the expanding domain of strategic management, consider where its boundaries lie, identify the forces engendering fragmentation, and discuss how this special issue—and research reviews in general—can assist convergence within the field of strategy. We conclude by addressing the potential for integration more broadly in relation to the theories we deploy, the phenomena we investigate, and cohesiveness of our scholarly community . Managerial summary : The expanding domain of strategic management reflects the widening range of strategic issues that practising managers face. However, the fragmentation that has accompanied this broadening scope impedes the usefulness of strategic management research in guiding strategic decision making. We argue that reviews of strategic management research, such as those included within this special issue, can support the accumulation of an integrated, empirically-validated knowledge base which is essential to informing management practice . Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.