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Strategy Without Templates

Adaptation in Digital Environments

10.4 Curating Patchwork Coherence

Chapter 8 argued that digital organizations often function as patchwork systems rather than as fully integrated wholes. They are marked by partial integration, uneven coupling, and local accommodations among heterogeneous elements. This challenges the classical view that organizational effectiveness depends on unified internal coherence. In template-free environments, full integration is often unrealistic, and in some cases it may even be counterproductive. Therefore, the strategic task is not to remove fragmentation altogether, but to curate enough coherence to preserve operational viability. Rather than eliminating fragmentation, the task is to maintain functional coherence within inherently heterogeneous and partially integrated systems.

This calls for a shift from integration logic to assemblage logic. Under an integration logic, managers try to align all organizational elements into a unified architecture. Under an assemblage logic, managers focus on keeping connections workable even when elements remain different. This means making sure that heterogeneous components can still function together despite varied origins, purposes, temporalities, and operating assumptions. Three practices are particularly important here: interface management, modular thinking, and tolerance for inconsistency.

Interface management concerns the quality of the connections between organizational elements. In patchwork systems, parts of the organization may rely on different technologies, processes, or decision logics. These parts cannot always be fully harmonized because they were not designed to fit into one uniform architecture. Still, they can often be connected through workable interfaces that translate across differences. These interfaces may be technical, procedural, or social. Their role is to mediate between systems, coordinate across boundaries, and preserve functionality despite heterogeneity.

Schreieck et al. (2023), in their work on multi-platform integration strategies, identify sequential, parallel, and nested forms of integration. Each creates different interface challenges. Sequential integration requires smooth transitions across platforms and processes over time. Parallel integration requires coordination across systems that operate simultaneously but do not fully connect. Nested integration requires careful management of dependencies when one platform is embedded within another. These distinctions matter because they show that patchwork coherence does not emerge in the same way everywhere. The relevant interface work depends on how the system is assembled.

Modular thinking is the second practice. Modularity means designing elements so that they can be changed, repaired, or replaced without forcing the entire system to be rebuilt. In digital environments, this matters because complete redesign is often too costly, too slow, or simply impossible. A more modular architecture allows organizations to localize change and learn incrementally. Yet modularity is not only a technical property. It also depends on organizational practices that preserve boundaries, manage dependencies, and coordinate changes across modules.

Research on modularity in digital industries highlights both its strengths and its limits. Thun et al. (2022) show that high modularity can support innovation and customization, but it can also generate coordination difficulties and system fragmentation. The implication is not that firms should choose either complete modularity or complete integration. Rather, they must balance the two. They need enough modularity to remain adaptable and enough coordination to remain operationally coherent. This balance is dynamic. It changes as the organization evolves and as the external environment shifts.

The third practice is tolerance for inconsistency. This is perhaps the most counterintuitive element of patchwork coherence because it directly challenges the classical management preference for uniformity. In patchwork systems, different units or processes may operate under different logics because they face different constraints, serve different customers, or draw on different histories. Attempts to impose uniformity across all these contexts often weaken effectiveness rather than strengthen it. Local inconsistencies may in fact be functional.

Pirrone et al. (2024), in their study of lean and digitalization programs, show that organizations often face a choice between integration and separation. Bringing these programs together may create synergies, but it may also produce conflict between different improvement logics. Keeping them apart protects local integrity but may sacrifice coordination benefits. The best option depends on the specific organizational setting and cannot be determined in advance by abstract prescription. This is why tolerance for inconsistency should not be seen as passive acceptance. It is active management of productive tension.

Curating patchwork coherence also requires emergent coordination. In such systems, coherence cannot be fully designed from above. It arises through ongoing interaction among organizational elements and actors. Managers, therefore, need to create conditions under which coherence can emerge. Shared protocols matter. Boundary objects matter. Communities of practice matter. So do repeated interactions that gradually produce mutual adjustment across difference.

The contribution of this section is to show that coherence in digital environments should not be equated with total integration. Coherence can be partial, provisional, and uneven, yet still strategically effective. That is a central departure from the classical idea that organizational quality depends mainly on unified fit.

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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