Micro-Foundations for Strategic Management Research: Embracing Individuals
Microfoundations have become increasingly influential in strategic management research. The basic argument is that individuals and their interaction matter fundamentally to strategic issues. However, if a micro-foundations project is to become viable it needs to grapple with important questions of theory development, operationalization, aggregation, empirical measurement, data collection, and statistical implementation that are currently unresolved. Microfoundations have to make a substantive difference in the way we teach and research strategic management.
We are gathering a range of established scholars and practitioners and we hope that you will join them in Copenhagen. We mix specialist tracks on “strategic decision-making,” “top-management teams,” “entrepreneurship,” “strategic human resources” “methodological issues.”, with panels keynote talks to create an excellent opportunity to examine the challenges to strategic management theory, empirics and teaching represented by microfoundations. What’s more, you’ll experience Wonderful Copenhagen.
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PROPOSALS
The conference invites research that deepens our understanding of the micro-foundation of strategic management. Key questions include the following:
Value-added issues: In which ways do micro-foundations add scientific value-added? While there may be strong philosophical reasons for pursuing micro-foundations, such value-added has to be demonstrated. How does furnishing micro-foundations for, for example, capabilities and absorptive capacity advance strategic management research? How is the understanding of value creation and value furthered by a micro-foundational perspective? How is our understanding of sustained competitive advantage and competitive heterogeneity advanced by this lense?
Disciplinary issues: Two of the source disciplines for strategic management, namely economics and psychology, are inherently micro-foundational. However, the micro-foundations they offer are very different and in many ways difficult to reconcile. How is to be handled? May behavioral economics be useful micro-foundations? Sociological network research has become influential in strategic management research over the past decade. What are the micro-foundational issues that this approach presents researchers with (e.g., the role of cognition and motivation in structural networks)?
Relations to other management fields: A traditional divide in management research is between micro and macro perspectives. Do our established micro fields, notably organizational behavior and human resource management, offer useful micro-foundations for (macro) strategic management research?
Modeling issues: Micro-foundations inherently involve multilevel issues. What does this imply for strategic management research practice in terms of theory building? Are there modeling approaches that are inherently suited to micro-foundational issues? For example, simulation methods allow the analyst to deal with the interaction of entities at different level in a longitudinal perspective; should such an approach be pursued in connection with the understanding of the emergence and change of, for example, firm-level capabilities?
Empirical research issues: Micro-foundational research offers several empirical challenges related to data gathering. Often, collecting data on more than one level is highly difficult and costly. What are the alternatives to costly multilevel sampling? Do micro-foundations provide a new role for longitudinal small-N research, as this approach may be particularly well suited for the actual observation of behaviors and their interaction over time?
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