Lilla Hortoványi

Strategy Without Templates

Adaptation in Digital Environments

4.3.1 The Problem of Structural Coupling

The implicit assumption of classical strategy theory about structural coupling has already been established in Chapter 4.2. In particular, strategic forms remain transferable under conditions where the environment is sufficiently stable. Firms align internal choices with external conditions, and because those conditions remain broadly comparable, successful strategies can be transferred and imitated. The firm is treated as a bounded system interacting with an external environment through relatively standardized interfaces: markets, supply chains, channels, and contracts. This makes strategy appear modular, that is, analyzable, comparable, and transferable.

But in digitally mediated environments, the nature of coupling becomes different. Modularity no longer holds, meaning that outcomes are no longer determined by strategic actions in isolation but by how those actions are positioned within a specific historical, infrastructural, and relational configuration. Strategic effectiveness becomes inseparable from the firm’s specific position within a wider technological and relational architecture. Consequently, identical actions may be interpreted, ranked, and amplified differently depending on prior interaction histories, infrastructural dependencies, and platform-mediated relationships, such as algorithmic ranking systems, visibility allocation, and access rules that are continuously adjusted by platform governance. This means that a firm may move from high visibility to marginal exposure without changing its strategy, simply because the underlying evaluative and ranking mechanisms have been reconfigured. As a result, strategy no longer operates as a detachable model, but as a configuration whose effectiveness is strongly mediated by where and how it is embedded.

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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