Encouraging emergence of cross-business strategic initiatives

Canales, J. I. and Caldart, A. (2017) Encouraging emergence of cross-business strategic initiatives. European Management Journal, 35(3), pp. 300-313. (doi: 10.1016/j.emj.2016.10.003)

Abstract

We explore how strategic initiatives emerge at the business unit level in the context of multi-business firms. Findings show that such initiatives create cross-business synergies in the absence of any direct intervention from the headquarters. Four factors appeared to foster the development of autonomous cross-business collaboration: a sense of urgency at the level of the firm, the existence of a few broad but strong corporate strategic guidelines, the existence of a set of cross-business integration mechanisms, and an organizational culture promoting collaboration. Our findings suggest that, in addition to developing and enforcing top-down cross-business initiatives, headquarters would benefit from acknowledging the importance of business units' local knowledge by creating an organizational environment characterized by the four conditions identified in this paper.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Canales, Professor J Ignacio
• Authors: Canales, J. I., and Caldart, A.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > Adam Smith Business School > Management
• Journal Name: European Management Journal
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 0263-2373
• ISSN (Online): 1873-5681
• Published Online: 04 November 2016
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd.
• First Published: First published in European Management Journal 35(3):300-313
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher