Lilla Hortoványi

Strategy Without Templates

Adaptation in Digital Environments

11.3.2 Configuration Theory and Dialectical Strategy Revisited

Configuration theory has provided a powerful framework for understanding how organizational elements combine to produce superior performance (Miller, 1996; Meyer et al., 1993). Its central claim is that effectiveness depends on achieving coherent gestalts – configurations in which strategy, structure, processes, and culture align to form internally consistent patterns. Firms that achieve tight fit among their elements outperform those with misaligned or inconsistent configurations. This perspective has generated substantial empirical support and has deeply influenced both research and practice.

Yet configuration theory rests on assumptions that template-free environments challenge. It assumes that environments are stable enough to allow identification of effective configurations. It presumes that firms have enough control over their elements to achieve alignment. It treats inconsistency and contradiction as problems to be eliminated rather than as potentially productive conditions. These assumptions become problematic in environments where stable referents are absent, where external governance constrains what firms can configure, and where partial integration makes complete alignment unachievable.

Recent dialectical approaches to strategy offer an alternative perspective. Farjoun et al. (2021) argue that strategy should embrace rather than resolve contradictions. In unstable environments, firms must learn to operate with multiple logics simultaneously – exploration and exploitation, flexibility and efficiency, centralization and decentralization. Strategic advantage can emerge from managing these tensions productively rather than eliminating them through forced coherence. Bansal et al. (2022) extend this logic to temporal dimensions, showing that organizations operate across multiple time horizons and that misalignment across temporal scales can be a source of resilience rather than a problem.

The template-free framework deepens and specifies this dialectical turn. It shows that in digital environments, contradiction and tension are not merely strategic choices or responses to paradox. They are structural conditions built into the very fabric of organizing. Platform architectures create dependencies that constrain autonomy while demanding responsiveness. Algorithmic governance imposes external control while requiring local adaptation. Ecosystem participation provides access to resources while limiting strategic room for maneuvering. These tensions cannot be resolved through better management or smarter design. They must be sustained and navigated continuously.

The patchwork perspective developed in Chapter 8 provides the organizational logic for managing such tensions. It shows that partial integration is not failed coherence, but a structural form suited to environments where complete alignment is neither possible nor desirable. Firms curate connections among heterogeneous elements, managing interfaces rather than imposing uniformity, tolerating productive inconsistency rather than enforcing singular logic. Effectiveness depends not on achieving fit, but on maintaining enough coherence to preserve operational viability while sustaining enough variation to enable adaptive response.

This reconceptualization has profound implications for how we understand strategic quality. It suggests that researchers should focus less on identifying optimal configurations and more on understanding how firms navigate productive tension. It implies that effectiveness in template-free environments may depend on capabilities for orchestrating heterogeneity rather than achieving coherence. It opens questions about how firms maintain strategic direction when they cannot achieve the internal consistency that configuration theory prescribes.

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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