Lilla Hortoványi

Strategy Without Templates

Adaptation in Digital Environments

10.6 Enacting Constrained Agency

One of the central implications of this book is that strategic agency does not disappear in template-free environments. It changes form. Firms do not act freely. Their possibilities are shaped by platforms, infrastructures, accumulated routines, and ecosystem dependencies. Yet even under these conditions, meaningful action remains possible. Yet even under these conditions, meaningful action remains possible. The issue is not whether agency is needed, but how it operates under structural constraint. This chapter argues that strategic agency is best understood as purposeful and situated maneuvering within bounded possibility spaces, where firms continuously interpret environmental signals, preserve flexibility, and make selective adjustments through iterative refinement and adaptation.

These structurally constrained spaces do not only limit action; they also define and occasionally open opportunities for movement. In this context, agency remains central. Calibration becomes critical not only for learning, but for maintaining viability and enabling adaptive growth even when performance signals are mediated and only partially interpretable due to underlying opacity

This requires a different understanding of agency. In many classical strategy theory, agency appears as autonomous, decisive, and centered within the firm. Here, agency is better understood as situated, iterative, and relational. Situated agency means that action is always shaped by a specific configuration of constraints and opportunities. Firms do not choose the conditions under which they act. They choose how to navigate within those conditions. Strategic agency, therefore, means constructing a viable path within bounded possibility spaces.

Recent work on ecosystem leadership by resource-constrained firms illustrates this well. Shi et al. (2024) show how Xiaomi, despite limited supply-side control at the outset, established itself as an ecosystem leader by mobilizing demand-side momentum. Rather than beginning from resource abundance, the firm began from a foothold resource and used that position to build an identity movement among underserved users. This created demand-side traction, which then helped attract supply-side resources and partners. The case is revealing because it shows that firms can exercise agency without first commanding a strong internal resource base. Agency can emerge through mobilization, positioning, and orchestration.

Iterative agency is the second feature. Strategic action in template-free environments rarely takes the form of one decisive move followed by implementation. More often, it unfolds through a sequence of adjustments. As Chapters 6 and 7 showed, each action changes the conditions under which the next action becomes possible. Strategy, therefore, emerges through recursive movement rather than through linear execution. Agency lies in the capacity to maintain direction through repeated adjustment.

This has important implications for how strategic decisions should be judged. Decisions cannot be understood only as isolated choices. Their significance depends on how they contribute to or disrupt a broader trajectory. A move that appears weak when viewed alone may prove valuable when seen as one step in a productive sequence. A move that appears efficient in the short run may prove harmful if it narrows future options too sharply. Therefore, strategic judgment must become more trajectory-based and less event-based.

Relational agency is the third feature. Firms in digital environments act through relationships with platforms, partners, customers, suppliers, and users. Their capacity to move depends partly on what these others do and partly on how relations are structured. Therefore, agency is not only about what a firm controls directly. It is also about what it can mobilize, coordinate, and influence through external ties.

Zeng et al. (2022), in their study of Tencent, describe this as dialectic tuning. Managers scale platform-based firms not just by accumulating internal capabilities, but by enacting complementary practices across ecosystem boundaries. This involves managing tensions such as openness versus control and standardization versus customization. Here again, strategic agency is not direct command. It is the ability to shape relational conditions in ways that allow coordinated movement.

Enacting constrained agency also requires sensitivity to windows of opportunity. Constraints are not fixed once and for all. Platform rules change. Technologies mature. Market positions shift. Governance structures tighten and loosen. Firms, therefore, need to detect moments when previously closed options become available. Agency often lies in the timely exploitation of these openings before the window closes again.

A related challenge is the balance between autonomy and dependence. Deep integration into a platform ecosystem may provide access to scale, demand, data, and technical infrastructure. At the same time, it can increase vulnerability and reduce strategic room for maneuver. Firms must, therefore, calibrate dependence. They need to integrate deeply enough to access valuable resources, but not so deeply that they lose all capacity to adapt when conditions change.

The core contribution here is to reconceptualize strategy not as unconstrained choice, but as purposeful movement within structured limits. This makes the theory more realistic for digital environments and also more precise in explaining what firms can actually do.

Tartalomjegyzék

Kiadó: Akadémiai Kiadó

Online megjelenés éve: 2026

ISBN: 978 963 664 204 4

Gazdaság

What happens when understanding comes only after action has already begun?

Traditional strategy rests on the assumption that organizations can understand their environment before deciding how to act. Yet the conditions that once allowed organizations to rely on benchmarking, best practices, and proven strategic templates can no longer be taken for granted. Today, organizations increasingly face situations for which no clear roadmap exists. Established assumptions become less reliable, familiar reference points lose their clarity, and strategic decisions must be made before their consequences can be fully understood.

Strategy Without Templates explores how organizations learn, adapt, and navigate environments in which uncertainty is pervasive and established templates are absent or no longer sufficient. Instead of treating strategy as a process of prediction and planning, the book explores how strategic paths take shape through action, experimentation, adjustment, and learning.

A central insight in the book is that temporary solutions are often necessary. What begins as a practical response to an immediate challenge may gradually shape future possibilities in unexpected ways. Some solutions create new opportunities and sources of advantage. Others become constraints that are difficult to overcome.

Hivatkozás: https://mersz.hu/hortovanyi-strategy-without-templates//

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