Strategy dynamics in multilayered networks: Investment, location, and internationalisation decisions during systemic shocks
研究了系统性冲击下企业如何同时调整国内与国际战略，通过分析加拿大银行在1900-1919年间的分支网络数据，揭示了多因素集聚力如何塑造异质性战略响应。
Understanding firms’ strategy dynamics during systemic shocks has gained renewed importance following recurrent financial crises since the early 20 th century. Explaining how firms simultaneously adjust domestic and international strategies in response to global disruptions requires approaches that integrate subnational spatial heterogeneity with the multidimensional nature of strategic responses – a capability not yet captured by established strategic management theories. Systemic shocks reshape firms’ strategic trajectories by altering the relative advantages of locally embedded agglomeration forces. Building on this mechanism, this study develops a framework that conceptualises firms’ multidimensional strategy dynamics as the outcome of interacting global disruptions and multi-factor agglomeration forces, integrating investment, location, and internationalisation decisions as interdependent processes within multilayered firm networks. By digitising multiple archival data sources, I reconstruct microgeographic evidence on the strategic behaviour of Canadian banks’ branch and interbank networks during consecutive periods of regulatory change and financial stringency (1900–1919). The novel longitudinal dataset traces intra- and inter-firm network dynamics, by disentangling banks’ new branch investments and de-investments, new city entries and exits, and cross-border interbank linkages. Modelling strategy dynamics as a system of simultaneously evolving micro-processes reveals pronounced regional heterogeneity in banks’ strategic responses to global and local shocks. Multidimensional scaling of branching strategies further demonstrates that regulatory change and financial crises produce divergent strategic trajectories across subnational regions. These findings advance strategy research by introducing a complex-systems perspective on interdependent strategic adaptation under systemic shocks and demonstrating how multi-factor agglomeration forces shape heterogeneous strategic responses to global disruptions.