Lilla Hortoványi

Strategy Without Templates

Adaptation in Digital Environments

8.1 The Inadequacy of Classical Integration Theories

Classical integration theories, rooted in Porterian fit, configuration theory, and system coherence perspectives, share a common commitment: they treat organizations as entities whose performance depends on the degree of alignment among their constituent parts. Porter (1996) argued that competitive advantage arises from activity systems in which choices reinforce one another, creating a coherent strategic position. Configuration theorists extended this logic by proposing that organizations achieve superior performance by adopting internally consistent gestalts that align structure, strategy, and environment (Miller, 1996). Systems theory, meanwhile, emphasized the importance of feedback loops, boundary management, and homeostatic mechanisms that maintain organizational coherence (Katz & Kahn, 1978).

These theories share three assumptions that become problematic in digital environments. First, they assume that integration is achievable through deliberate design. Second, they assume that integration, once achieved, can remain sufficiently stable to generate durable benefits. Third, they assume that integration is inherently desirable, while fragmentation and inconsistency are treated mainly as deficiencies to be corrected. The problem is not that these assumptions are always wrong. The problem is that they no longer provide a sufficient or generalizable account of organizational viability under the conditions examined in this book.

Recent empirical work challenges all three assumptions. Bailey et al. (2022) demonstrate that emerging technologies are not stable objects that can simply be inserted into existing organizational systems. Rather, they are evolving relations that continuously reshape organizing practices. Their relational perspective shows that technology and organization co-constitute one another through ongoing interaction, making the image of a fixed, integrated system analytically unstable. Similarly, Sesay et al. (2024) show that IT implementation consequences emerge through multi-phased processes of individuation, composition, and actualization, producing nested assemblages at successively larger scales. This emergence cannot be reduced either to pre-existing macro structures or to isolated micro interactions, which undermines the assumption that integration can be secured through top-down design.

The inadequacy of classical integration theories becomes especially visible when we examine how digital firms actually organize. Giustiziero et al. (2022) document that digital firms exhibit a paradoxical combination of hyper-specialization and hyper-scaling. They are simultaneously broader in reach and narrower in functional scope than traditional firms. This pattern runs against classical integration logic, which would predict that larger firms should internalize and coordinate more activities in order to capture economies of scope. Instead, highly scalable digital resources create substantial opportunity costs of broad integration, making it profitable to remain specialized while relying on external complements. The result is not a unified system but a distributed configuration of specialized components coordinated through platforms and market interfaces.

Similarly, Karanasios et al. (2025) show that microenterprises pursue digitalization through digital bricolage, an adaptive approach in which firms make use of available digital resources rather than investing in tightly integrated technology systems. This mechanism enables development without full system unification and reveals that integration is often neither achievable nor necessary for operational viability. The dominant emphasis on advanced technologies and deliberate integration strategies, they argue, obscures the reality that many organizations function through improvisation and partial connection.

These findings extend beyond identifying exceptions to an ideal integration. They suggest that the ideal itself is increasingly misaligned with how digital organizations are formed, maintained, and adapted. Therefore, classical integration theories do not simply need refinement at the margins. They are better understood as boundary-condition theories whose applicability depends on stability, predictability, and designability, the conditions often absent in digital environments.

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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