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The temporal development of strategy: patterns in the UK insurance industry
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Webb, David Langston (1999) The temporal development of strategy: patterns in the UK insurance industry. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b1366671~S1
Abstract
Much writing in the field of strategic management remains an exercise in comparative statics. Cross sectional research methods are combined with the notion of stable equilibria to analyse the fit between the positioning or resource base of the firm and its performance However, the inadequacies of this tradition are increasingly being recognised even by the scholars who created it (Porter 1991). Strategy can no longer be conceived through the static language of states or positions and must be understood as an innovation contest where the bureaucratic and inflexible will not survive (Webb and Pettigrew 1999).
This study takes up the challenge to explore the dynamics of strategy development. The empirical focus of the paper is the UK insurance industry in the 1980s and 1990s, a period of considerable upheaval. By means of an innovative cross-correlational time series analysis, we are able to show the ebb and flow of strategic change in the industry and the patterns of initiation and imitation as certain firms lead in areas of strategy and others follow A comparative case study analysis enabled the micro processes and internal contexts of consistent early and late adopters of strategy to be investigated The findings of our case studies were interrogated and interpreted by developing theoretical ideas from three literatures which historically have not talked to one another These are the literatures on innovation, institutionalism and contextualism
The empirical results show firms pursuing multiple strategies at one point in time and altering the strategic agenda over time Our analysis of nine firms reveals the existence of leaders and laggards in the development of a variety of strategic initiatives The comparative case studies indicate that the ‘strategic agility’ of a firm depends both on management having the ability to act and the context in which such action occurs being receptive
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HF Commerce | ||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Strategic planning, Insurance companies -- Great Britain, Management, Organizational change -- Great Britain, Insurance -- Great Britain -- Statistics | ||||
Official Date: | October 1999 | ||||
Dates: |
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Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
Theses Department: | Warwick Business School | ||||
Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Pettigrew, Andrew M.(Andrew Marshall),1944- | ||||
Sponsors: | Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain), IBM Business Consulting Services | ||||
Extent: | x, 394 leaves: illustrations | ||||
Language: | eng |
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