Lilla Hortoványi

Strategy Without Templates

Adaptation in Digital Environments

4.5 The Instability of Positioning: From Location to Orientation

Positioning theory assumes that firms can define and defend relatively stable positions within a competitive landscape (Porter, 1980). This presupposes identifiable industry boundaries, relatively stable competitors, and durable sources of differentiation. Under such conditions, firms can locate themselves within a structured field of competition and align their activities to secure a defensible place.

Digital environments systematically weaken these conditions. Boundaries become fluid as firms operate across overlapping ecosystems rather than within clearly delineated industries (Jacobides et al., 2018). Roles lose their stability because actors may shift between, or simultaneously occupy, complementor, competitor, and intermediary positions in response to ecosystem dynamics. Most importantly, positions become contingent on infrastructural mediation. Visibility, access, and interaction are increasingly shaped by platform governance, ranking systems, and interface design rather than by firm level choice alone (Gawer, 2021).

Therefore, positioning loses its structural stability. A firm’s position is no longer determined exclusively by its internal configuration of activities, but by its location within a dynamically evolving relational system. Platform rule changes, algorithmic ranking shifts, and modifications in ecosystem architecture can alter a firm’s effective position without any corresponding change in its internal activities. Therefore, what appears stable from the firm’s perspective may be highly contingent on external mechanisms outside its control.

Positioning can no longer be understood as the selection of a fixed location within a stable landscape. In digital environments, it becomes a problem of orientation within a shifting system. Orientation is not selection amongst a limited number of factors, but rather a structural condition: the firm’s viability depends on the continuous alignment of its activities, technologies, and relationships across interdependent dimensions shaped by platform mediation and ecosystem dynamics. Under such conditions, positioning ceases to be a discrete strategic choice. It becomes an ongoing process in which firms must adjust how their configurations fit within evolving interaction rules, visibility regimes, and relational structures. The issue is no longer where the firm is located, but whether its configuration remains aligned as the conditions that define relevance, access, and interaction continuously change. Therefore, strategy cannot secure stability through position but must sustain coherence under conditions of ongoing reconfiguration.

The shift from location to orientation redefines the logic of competitive action. A location-based strategy assumes that competitive advantage derives from occupying and defending a place within a structured field. An orientation-based strategy assumes that advantage depends on maintaining viable alignment while the structure of the field itself is continuously reconstituted.

Instability is not a condition to be resolved through positioning, but a defining feature of the competitive environment that strategy must engage with. The role of strategy in digital environments is, therefore, to ensure that the firm continues to function as conditions shift, while also exploring those shifts as potential sources of new strategic opportunities.

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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