Research in Strategic Management Program

The Strategy Research Foundation (SRF) of the Strategic Management Society (SMS) announces its 2025 Research in Strategic Management (RSM) Program. The RSM grant program aims to support research on a rotating set of themes central to the field of strategic management.

The theme for 2025 and 2026 cycle is “Growth in Focus: Strategy Across the Arc of Firm Evolution.” A foundational question in the field of strategic management relates to how firms and strategic decision makers approach choices that fundamentally shape growth trajectories as they evolve and grow, sometimes scaling up around current trajectories, sometimes launching new trajectories altogether. This call for submissions invites research proposals that seek to investigate the topic of growth as a distinct aspect of strategic management decision making and execution. Growth occupies a central space across the arc of firm evolution, exerting its consequential influence on opportunity identification and resource mobilization in entrepreneurial ventures, strategic expansion into new technologies, customer segments, product markets, or geographies in the pursuit of competitive advantage, and the broadening and renewal choices within corporate portfolios. Growth unfolds across multiple levels of analysis, spanning organizational capabilities, individuals, firms, and ultimately industries and ecosystems, making it an interconnected and consequential phenomenon for strategic management scholarship.

By casting growth as a topic in its own right, this call aims to encourage scholars to explore an aspect of firm evolution that is both practically consequential and theoretically rich. Proposals are required to tackle research questions that offer a deeper understanding of growth: its drivers, frictions, strategies, tradeoffs, and outcomes. This may include theoretical work that conceptualizes growth, empirical investigations of how firms traverse growth, or methodological innovations that leverage emerging data to capture the dynamics of growth. All submissions are required to articulate how the proposed research contributes to this theme, to strategic management research.

A few illustrative topics and questions are below:

  • How do firms navigate the “1 to 1000” phase of growth, a stage through which entrepreneurial ventures become consequential organizations? Distinct from the “0 to 1” transition emphasized in entrepreneurship, and the “1000 to 10,000” transition in large established firms, how does this type of growth present unique challenges, as firms transition from entrepreneurial product-market fit consideration to sustained scalable growth?
  • When and why do firms pursue growth? What is conceptually unique to growth, setting it apart from other strategic choices and outcomes? What trade-offs do firms face in balancing growth, profitability, and sustained advantage? What considerations and obstacles emerge as firms grow? When does growth begin to erode rather than enhance firm performance? What are the costs of growth for involved strategic decision makers and stakeholders, and how do these shape subsequent strategic choices?
  • How do firms implement their growth strategy? What role do internal development, capability redeployment, partnerships, acquisitions, human capital recruitment, and other modes of expansion play in successful growth? When and how do these modes, and in what combinations, contribute to or hinder growth? What alternative modes can firms use for reconfiguration and evolution during their growth trajectories? During the process of growth, how do these modes and the resultant structures evolve as firms grow? How do firms evaluate and manage interdependencies across these modes and the resultant structures?
  • How do firms navigate strategic choices regarding whether, when, and how to grow? What types of firms, with underlying capabilities, business-level strategies, and external contexts, are likely to consider different types of growth? What is the interplay between managerial cognitions and the evolving capabilities, routines, and structure of a growing firm? What tools, frameworks, and methods do leaders use to guide growth decisions?
  • How do external trends interact with or shape a firm’s growth decisions and trajectory? What competitive or cooperative dynamics within the industry and ecosystem inform, facilitate, or hinder growth? In the broader environment, how do emerging technologies reshape the growth path for firms in different industries? How do stakeholder expectations matter for firm growth, and how do firms respond to conflicting demands and build legitimacy? How do the political, global, and regulatory aspects matter?
  • How can a new era of data availability transform our ability to study growth? By drawing on rich, high-fidelity, and longitudinal data for a wide range of growth decisions for different levels of analysis across countries and contexts, how can this shift enable robust and rigorous inquiry into the dynamics of growth, allowing for new questions to be asked and old questions to be revisited with stronger empirical foundations?

All applications should articulate how the proposed research contributes to answering this thematic question. Submissions drawing on a variety of theoretical perspectives to address specific research questions are welcome, providing the contribution to strategic management research is evident.

2025 Call for Applications

Target Applicant: A full-time faculty member or post-doctoral researcher affiliated with a university, who is a current member of the Strategic Management Society.

Funding & Key Terms: Grants of up to US$25,000 to support direct research expenses such as data collection and research assistance. No institutional overhead will be paid.

Submission Deadline: October 1, 2025

Grant Period: January 1, 2026 – December 31, 2027

Eligibility

All proposals are required to identify a Principal Investigator (PI). The PI, who leads the research effort and to whom the grant is awarded, must be a full-time faculty member or post-doctoral researcher affiliated with a university and a member of the Strategic Management Society at the time of submission and throughout the grant period. Also, the PI is the sole recipient of a grant even when proposal includes Co-Investigators (CIs).

At any time, a single individual is permitted to serve as a PI or CI on only one proposal across all SRF programs. Thus, individuals named in a previously funded SRF proposal may not submit a new grant application until expiration of the prior grant and submission of all deliverables for their prior grant. Individuals named on a proposal must disclose any prior SRF awards and demonstrate that the project in the current proposal is distinct from their previously funded research. All SRF grants aim to support research that has not been undertaken. Thus, completed work is not eligible for funding.

Funding

The SRF plans to award multiple RSM grants of up to $25,000 each during the 2025 funding cycle. Applicants are expected to request only the amount of funding necessary to support their proposed activities. Proposals requesting less than the maximum will not be disadvantaged in the review process.

The SRF program provides financial support to cover direct research expenses for data collection, research assistance, and other activities that enable the conduct of the research project. Examples of ineligible expenses include conference travel and registration fees, compensation for PI or CI time, teaching buyouts, purchases of software or equipment, and university overhead. As the program aims to foster future research, reimbursement for previous expenditures is not permitted. Determination of eligible and ineligible expenses rests with the SRF.

For proposals accepted for funding, the SRF will prepare an agreement to be executed by the PI detailing the responsibilities of both the PI and the SRF. Grant funds awarded will be disbursed at the start of the two-year grant period beginning January 1, 2026. Recipients are expected to use the awarded funds within the grant period.

Deliverables & Activities

The SRF requires regular progress reports as well as a final report on the project. The PI will submit a progress report every six months of the grant and a final report within three months of the end of the grant. The final report will include an executive summary of the research findings and documentation of expenses incurred.

Submission Guidelines

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Proposals (in English) are to be submitted by the PI through the online submission system. Failure to include all required sections in the application and all the required subsections for the research proposal, timetable, and budget may render your application ineligible for funding, as only complete submissions will be considered. Submissions must include the following:

  • Submission title
  • Amount requested in US Dollars
  • Name and academic affiliation of PI
  • Names of any other CIs and their affiliations
  • Three keywords that characterize the proposed research
  • Summary (500 words) of the proposed research project
  • Research Proposal of up to 10 pages, single spaced, with the following structure:
    1. Specific research question(s) to be addressed, review of the relevant literature
    2. An explanation of how the research project addresses the 2025-2026 RSM program theme
    3. Expected contributions to strategic management research
    4. Research design, including descriptions of proposed data and analysis techniques
    5. Cited references
  • Expected impact of SRF funding on the quality of the research
  • Timetable/schedule (including a description of any work completed to date)
    1. A description of tasks related to the research project that have been completed by the time of grant application
    2. A list and timetable for the remaining tasks for the two-year grant period
  • Detailed and itemized budget in US Dollars, including specific items proposed for SRF funding and sources of support other than SRF. The detailed budget must include, where applicable:
    1. For any data purchases, documentation from the vendor confirming the pricing and coverage details
    2. For research assistants, a description of their specific tasks, estimated hours, hourly rate, and expected level of expertise
    3. For travel, an explanation of its purpose, estimated time window, itemized costs (e.g., airfare, lodging, per diem), and how it supports the proposed research
    4. A rank ordering of budget items from highest to lowest priority, indicating which budget items are most essential to the success of the project
    5. An explanation of other funding sources that have been secured or applied for, beyond SRF support, to enable completion of the research project
  • CVs for the PI and any CI(s)
  • A letter from the Dean’s Office of the PI’s primary academic institution confirming support for the funding application and acknowledging any institutional financial resources provided to the project
  • Disclosure of any personal or business relationship between researchers and organizations providing data, field access, or other assistance that could potentially create a conflict of interest
  • Disclosure of any relationship with SRF Co-Chairs or the RSM Program Director, which may create the perception of a conflict of interest: potential conflicts of interest include, but are not limited to, advising, co-authoring, or consulting relationships

Proprietary Right & Acknowledgements

Grant recipients will retain copyright to all materials prepared in connection with the funded project. However, the SRF will retain an irrevocable, royalty-free license in perpetuity to use such materials for non-commercial purposes furthering the mission of the SRF. The SRF requires that any publication and distribution of the resulting research in articles or other forms includes an acknowledgement that the research was funded in part by the SRF of the Strategic Management Society.

Timetable & Evaluation Process

The SRF submission deadline is October 1, 2025. Notification of RSM grants awarded will be made by January 1, 2026. Submissions will be reviewed using the following criteria:

  • Contribution to strategic management research: Are the frameworks employed, the data to be used, and/or the potential results to be obtained likely to make a new and substantial theoretical or empirical contribution to the academic field of strategic management?
  • Research design and methodological rigor: Are the data appropriate for the theory being
  • developed or tested? Are the procedures appropriate for the research questions? Is the description of the methods to be used adequate? Is validity properly justified?
  • Expected impact of the funding: Is SRF funding likely to make a significant difference to the quality, scope, or other characteristics of the project that will enhance its conceptual or empirical contributions strategic management research?

Important RSM Dates

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JULY 1, 2025 – Submission System Opens
OCTOBER 1, 2025 – Submission Deadline
LATE DECEMBER 2025 – Notification of Review Committee Decisions
JANUARY 1, 2026 – Grant Period Begins
DECEMBER 31, 2027 – Grant Period Ends