Lilla Hortoványi

Strategy Without Templates

Adaptation in Digital Environments

10.2 Orchestrating Experimentation as Capability

Chapter 6 showed that experimentation in template-free environments is not an optional activity but a structural necessity. Recognizing this, however, is only the starting point. Experimentation can easily become chaotic, costly, or destabilizing when it is not managed well. Therefore, the central challenge is to orchestrate experimentation as an organizational capability. In other words, experimentation must be organized, bounded, and cumulative rather than ad hoc.

Recent work on pioneering digital platform ecosystems illustrates how this can happen. Wormald et al. (2022) show that early platform pioneers used iterative experiments with partners and customers to identify segments, discover unmet needs, and refine services. Experimentation was not an isolated project. It became part of the ongoing capability base that supported ecosystem emergence. Importantly, these firms also developed more enduring partner relationships through the process. Therefore, experimentation was tied not only to local learning, but also to the formation of a broader ecosystem position.

This research points to three principles for orchestrating experimentation as capability. The first is continuous experimentation. Experiments need to be embedded in ongoing operations rather than confined to occasional innovation projects. This requires structures that support iteration, feedback processes that provide timely signals, and norms that make intelligent failure legitimate rather than stigmatized (Narduzzo & Forrer, 2024). Continuous experimentation does not mean disorder. It means maintaining a regular flow of bounded variation that can generate insight without undermining the organization's ability to function.

The second principle is bounded experimentation. Experiments must be small enough to contain downside risk, but substantial enough to produce meaningful information. This is where the tension between exploration and exploitation becomes concrete. If experimentation is too open-ended, firms may destabilize core operations and overuse scarce resources. If experimentation is too narrow, it produces little real learning. Therefore, appropriate boundaries matter. These boundaries depend on resource conditions, environmental volatility, the architecture of the systems being changed, and the strategic significance of the issue at hand. Over time, firms need to develop judgment about experimental scope. That judgment becomes part of the firm's capability base rather than an ad hoc decision.

The third principle is cumulative learning. The value of experimentation does not lie only in the result of any single trial. It lies in the accumulation of insights across multiple iterations. This requires mechanisms for capturing outcomes, making sense of ambiguous signals, and integrating lessons into organizational memory. Ehrig et al. (2022) argue that firms can systematically generate knowledge at the edge between the known and the unknown by using provisional theories to guide experimentation. These theories are never final. They are tested, revised, and refined through action. The result is a recursive cycle of action, observation, inference, and adaptation.

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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