Lilla Hortoványi

Strategy Without Templates

Adaptation in Digital Environments

11.5.6 Methodological Innovation

Advancing research on template-free strategy requires methodological innovation. Traditional research methods – surveys, interviews, archival analysis – remain valuable, but they may need to be supplemented or reconfigured to capture the dynamics the framework identifies.

Real-time data collection methods could capture fast-moving processes that retrospective methods miss. This might include repeated short-interval surveys tracking how firms interpret and respond to feedback, automated collection of digital trace data documenting firm behavior on platforms, and experience sampling methods capturing managerial decision-making as it unfolds.

Computational methods offer new possibilities for analyzing large-scale patterns. Network analysis could map the structure of platform ecosystems and track how ecosystem configurations evolve. Text analysis could examine how firms construct working theories about algorithmic systems through their public communications. Agent-based modeling could simulate how different mechanism configurations produce different strategic outcomes under varying conditions.

Mixed methods approaches combining qualitative and quantitative data could provide both depth and breadth. Qualitative studies could develop rich accounts of how specific mechanisms operate in particular contexts, while quantitative studies could test whether patterns observed qualitatively hold across larger samples and different settings. Sequential designs in which qualitative work informs quantitative measurement, and quantitative findings motivate deeper qualitative investigation, could prove particularly valuable.

Participatory and intervention-based methods might generate insights unavailable through observation alone. Action research partnerships with firms navigating template-free conditions could provide access to real-time strategic processes while generating practical value for participants. Field experiments manipulating specific aspects of firm behavior could help establish causal relationships among mechanisms, practices, and outcomes.

Longitudinal designs are essential for understanding temporal dynamics. Panel studies tracking firms over extended periods could reveal how mechanism configurations evolve, how stabilization processes unfold, and how firms adapt to changing platform governance. Event history analysis could identify critical junctures at which strategic trajectories shift qualitatively. Comparative historical analysis could examine how different firms navigating similar template-free conditions arrive at different strategic outcomes.

These methodological innovations would not merely apply existing methods to new contexts. They would develop new approaches suited to the distinctive characteristics of template-free environments: their opacity, their temporal multiplicity, their emergent dynamics, and their recursive mechanisms. Advancing the framework requires not just new empirical studies, but new ways of conducting empirical research.

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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