The strategic importance of top management resistance: Extending Alfred D. Chandler
研究了高层管理对自下而上战略变革的抵制，发现抵制并非总是阻碍，反而可能通过重构、重组和再耦合机制促进变革，对战略研究有重要启示。
We investigate the role of top management resistance against strategic initiatives for bottom-up change. While resistance has been mostly considered leading to inertia and rigidity by maintaining a particular strategic path, some scholars make the counterintuitive point that resistance could also be a facilitator of change. In this essay, we argue that such a generative perspective of top management resistance has important implications for strategy research. To do so, we draw on Alfred D. Chandler’s historic account of the emergence of the M-form at DuPont at the beginning of the 20th century. Based on this case, we illustrate three generative mechanisms of top management resistance for strategic change: the reframing, restructuring and the recoupling of strategic initiatives. We build on these generative mechanisms in order to develop implications for future research.