How do firms build competitive advantage as technology, geopolitical relationships and stakeholder expectations change? What can research tell us about the choices leaders face—and how can those choices inform future research?
SMS has launched a refreshed version of the Six Big Questions in Strategic Management—the “Big Six”—to explore these connections between scholarship and practice. The framework has been updated to reflect changes in business and technology and the strategic challenges facing organizational leaders today.
Why Revisit the Big Six?
When SMS introduced the Big Six in 2023, sustainability commitments, digital disruption, remote work and deglobalization pressures were prominent in strategic conversations.
Since then, these issues have evolved. Artificial intelligence has become central to questions about how firms build competitive advantage when powerful tools are widely available. Shifting geopolitical relationships are reshaping markets and supply chains, creating opportunities as well as risks. Stakeholder expectations have become more contested, adding complexity to decisions about how firms create lasting value.
What Has Changed?
The updated framework explores the implications of these developments for how firms compete, make decisions and organize work. It gives greater attention to the capabilities firms need to turn access to technology into lasting advantage, navigate competing stakeholder demands, and balance efficiency, resilience and flexibility.
It also looks more closely at how firms create and capture value beyond their own boundaries through alliances, platforms and ecosystems. Across all six questions, the supporting lines of inquiry have been refined to connect these developments with the strategic decisions facing organizational leaders.
A Yearlong Collaborative Effort
The update was a yearlong effort of the Practitioner Strategy Committee of the SMS Board of Directors, led by Chair Rodolphe (Rudy) Durand. Several rounds of committee review and discussion, along with feedback from external stakeholders, including practitioners, shaped the final version.
The Big Six will help guide topics across SMS conferences, webinars, SMS Explorer and the Strategy Imagination Forum, creating opportunities to connect research with the challenges leaders face and identify questions that warrant further study.
Explore the Questions. Join the Conversation.
For scholars, the Big Six offer starting points for research and teaching focused on consequential strategic challenges. For practitioners, they provide a way to connect organizational decisions with relevant research, insights and tools.
Explore all six questions and their supporting questions on the Strategic Insights webpage, and share your perspective on SMS Member Circle: Which questions resonate most with your work? How do they connect with the strategic challenges you face or the research you pursue? Upcoming SMS conferences, webinars and the Strategy Imagination Forum offer further opportunities to explore these questions with fellow scholars and practitioners.
