• Develop well-reasoned strategies, or “corporate theories,” for firms by integrating multiple strategy tools to identify competitive advantages and opportunities for new advantages.
• Identify key sources of organizational complexity in firms’ contexts through systematic, comprehensive analysis across field, organizational, and inter-organizational levels.
• Evaluate and refine “corporate theories” (strategies) by integrating organizational complexity, acknowledging the contrasts and synergies between strategy and organization theory.
• Select and apply strategy and organization theory concepts with precision, discussing their relevance across different empirical contexts.

Firms and other organizations operate in increasingly unpredictable and turbulent environments. This course aims to enhance the students’ capabilities in value creation, decision-making, and effective management within complex organizational settings defined by multiple stakeholders and competing demands. The goal is to equip students with the skills to develop and integrate well-reasoned strategies, or “corporate theories,” in organizations, based on comprehensive analyses of organizational complexity in firms’ environments and internally.

The course will introduce the students to key steps in developing corporate theories (strategies) that take organizational complexity into account. We will explore these steps across various sectors and organizational forms, drawing on both classic and cutting-edge scholarship in strategy and organization. The course emphasizes the students’ critical reflection when applying concepts from strategy and organization, encouraging discussion on the assumptions and relevance of these concepts across contexts.

• Classic and basic theory
• New theory
• Teacher’s own research
• Methodology
• Models

• Development of research questions
• Data collection
• Analysis
• Discussion, critical reflection, modelling
• Peer review including Peer-to-peer
• Students conduct independent research-like activities under supervision

Preliminary literature

Barney, J. (1991). Firm resources and sustained advantage. Journal of Management, 17(1), 99–120.

Casciaro, T., & Piskorski, M. J. (2005). Power imbalance, mutual dependence, and constraint absorption: A closer look at resource dependence theory. Administrative Science Quarterly, 50(2), 167–199.

Dyer, J. H., & Singh, H. (1998). The relational view: Cooperative strategy and sources of interorganizational competitive advantage. Academy of Management Review, 23(4), 660–679.

Felin, T., & Zenger, T. R. (2017). The theory-based view: Economic actors as theorists. Strategy Science, 2(4), 258–271.

Furnari, S. (2014). Interstitial spaces: Microinteraction settings and the genesis of new practices between institutional fields. Academy of Management Review, 39(4), 439–462

Grant, R. M. (2018). Contemporary strategy analysis (10th ed.). John Wiley & Sons. (Ch. 5, pp. 108–123; Ch. 7, pp. 162–181; Ch. 10, pp. 252–265; Ch. 12, pp. 298–307).

Greenwood, R., Raynard, M., Kodeih, F., Micelotta, E. R., & Lounsbury, M. (2011). Institutional complexity and organizational responses. Academy of Management Annals, 5(1), 317–371.

Leiblein, M. J., Reuer, J. J., & Zenger, T. (2018). What makes a decision strategic? Strategy Science, 3(4), 558–573.

Levinthal, D. A., & Rerup, C. (2021). The Plural of Goal: Learning in a World of Ambiguity. Organization Science, 32(3), 527–543.

Lounsbury, M., & Gehman, J. (2024). A concise introduction to organization theory: From ontological differences to robust identities. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Nickerson, J. A., & Silverman, B. S. (2003). Why firms want to organize efficiently and what keeps them from doing so: Inappropriate governance, performance, and adaptation in a deregulated industry. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48(3), 433–465.

Pfeffer, J., & Salancik, G. R. (2003). The external control of organizations: A resource dependence perspective (1st ed.). Stanford University Press.

Porter, M. E. (2008). The five competitive forces that shape strategy. Harvard Business Review, 86(1), 78–93.

Rerup, C., Gioia, D. A., & Corley, K. G. (2022). Identity transitions via subtle adaptive sensemaking: The empirical pursuit of the intangible. Academy of Management Discoveries, 8(4), 608–639.

Spencer, B., & Rerup, C. (2024). The dynamics of inferential interpretation in experiential learning: Deciphering hidden goals from ambiguous experience. Administrative Science Quarterly, 69(4), 962–1005.

Wijen, F. (2025). Moving in tandem or failing altogether: Managing resource configurations for responsible practice development. Journal of Management. Advance online publication.

Zenger, T. (2013). What is the theory of your firm? Harvard Business Review, 91(6), 72–78.

Zietsma, C., Groenewegen, P., Logue, D. M., & Hinings, C. R. (2017). Field or fields? Building the scaffolding for cumulation of research on institutional fields. Academy of Management Annals, 11(1), 391–450.