Choice, Chance, and Unintended Consequences in Strategic Change: A Process Understanding of the Rise and Fall of NorthCo Automotive
通过一家汽车公司的详细案例研究，挑战了战略变革由有意识选择或环境选择主导的观点，强调偶然性、环境不确定性和选择的意外后果在解释企业衰亡中的关键作用。
Strategic change is frequently viewed as emanating from the purposeful choices of organizational actors intent on achieving a prespecified goal against a backdrop of existing environmental forces. Conversely, population ecology advocates maintain that change is a consequence of species populations being subjected to environmental selection. Either way, change is deemed epiphenomenal to social entities (i.e., actors, organizations, environments, etc.); change processes involve the doings of/to things. This reflects an “owned” view of change processes. We present a detailed empirical study of an automotive company's efforts to adapt to “relentless” change. We argue that an “unowned” view of process that elevates chance, environmental uncertainty, and the unintended consequences of choice in accounting for strategic change is a more processual way of understanding the eventual demise of NorthCo Automotive.