Lilla Hortoványi

Strategy Without Templates

Adaptation in Digital Environments

10.9 Theoretical Contribution

The eight mechanisms developed in this chapter together form an integrated framework for managing without templates. They should not be interpreted as separate managerial themes, but as interdependent dimensions of a single strategic orientation. This integration yields four theoretical contributions.

First, it develops the concept of strategic orientation as distinct from both strategic planning and best practice implementation. Strategic planning assumes stable enough conditions for foresight, design, and controlled execution. Best practice implementation assumes that useful solutions can be identified elsewhere and transferred into the focal organization. Strategic orientation begins from different assumptions. It assumes uncertainty, constraint, contextual variation, and the need for continuous adaptation.

Second, the chapter shows that experimentation, stabilization, partial integration, and algorithmic calibration should not be treated as separate topics. Instead, they form a recursive and interdependent system of strategic action.

Third, the framework advances theory on strategic agency under constraint. Agency is not eliminated, but transformed into a situated, iterative, and relational process.

Fourth, the chapter develops the idea that SMEs are a particularly revealing domain. Their structural conditions make the dynamics of template-free strategy more observable and analytically transparent.

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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