Lilla Hortoványi

Strategy Without Templates

Adaptation in Digital Environments

6.7 Theoretical Integration: Strategy as Configurational Trajectory

The six mechanisms jointly form an integrated explanation of strategy formation without robust foresight. Their value lies not only in their individual roles, but in how they connect into a coherent process. Epistemic displacement explains why action must increasingly precede knowledge. Generative enactment explains why experimentation becomes a structurally grounded mode of strategy formation. Recursive feedback explains how trajectories emerge over time. Architecture-mediated search explains why experimentation takes place within structured rather than neutral conditions. Inferential navigation explains how firms act and interpret under partial visibility. Finally, the accumulation of repeated adjustments explains how more stable patterns emerge that shape future action.

Together, these mechanisms support a stronger conceptual claim. Strategy under template-free conditions is best understood not as a plan, nor merely as an emergent pattern, but as a configurational trajectory. This refers to a path of action through which firms iteratively build, test, and adjust a workable configuration under conditions where external reference points are weak, environments are structured but differentiated, and feedback is only partially interpretable.

This framing contributes to strategy theory in several ways. It clarifies how strategy can develop without relying on prediction as its primary foundation. It explains why experimentation becomes structurally embedded rather than remaining a discretionary choice. It shows how infrastructures shape not only the environment of action, but also the space of possible variation. It also explains how repeated action gradually produces more stable patterns that both enable coordination and constrain future adaptation. Strategy, therefore, unfolds as a cumulative and path-dependent process rather than as the execution of a predefined design.

While traditional assumptions no longer fully hold in digitally mediated environments, existing theories should not be rejected outright. Rather, they should be applied with caution, as their core assumptions rely on conditions that are often weakened or absent. When transferable templates, shared standards, and stable external reference points no longer provide sufficient guidance, adaptation unfolds through ongoing interaction with the environment. Under these conditions, strategy operates as a process of iterative action, interpretation, and selective retention, through which firms gradually build and adjust a workable configuration over time. In this process, strategists learn through action, continuously refining their understanding as they navigate evolving conditions.

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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