Mercer & Company
Without effective execution, strategy is much like lint, it's basically worthless. The execution of strategy is an art, and a commodity, the better you execute on the art of transforming strategy into actionable performance, the more valuable you become.
The Strategic Management Team encourages and supports the development, and dissemination of knowledge relevant to decision-making leaders. Including those who study, shape, or influence the strategy of organizations, and effective teaching & communication of these issues. We actively seek to understand and predict when and why some organizations perform better than others over time. The division covers several topics associated with strategic decision-making processes, their antecedents/context, and their consequences.
Organizational Research & Analytics
Mercer & Company
We are passionate about executing strategy to advance knowledge and understanding of strategy within organizations as something people do and not just something organizations have, and therefore the work involved in the actual execution of strategy.
Empirically the focus is on the day-to-day-work, activities and practices of strategists within organizations, with an interest in how this work socially accomplishes a wide range of individual and organizational outcomes, and also relates to broader societal and institutional trends. The focus extends far beyond concerns with upper echelons and even middle managers to include other influential players such as consultants, non executives and business school gurus, and beyond considerations such as demographics to a consideration of how aspects such as training, knowledge, identity and emotions can affect an individual’s strategy making activity. The focus on the work of strategists includes both understanding at a micro level traditional areas of strategy process and content research and the generic practices (e.g. planning routines, discourse, tool-use) by which strategies are executed.
Some of the major areas of focus that we pursue include:
- Behavioral strategy;
- Boundaries of the firm;
- Corporate governance;
- Corporate strategy & economics of strategy;
- Non-market strategies;
- innovation and strategic renewal;
- Strategic formulation, implementation and planning;
- M&A and other inter- or intra-organizational relationships when they have relevant implications for strategic decisions;
- Business models;
- Competitive and cooperative interactions;
- Industry dynamics;
- Internal resources and capabilities;
- Strategic management of critical inputs;
- Strategic leadership and upper echelons;
- Organizational performance and firm/competitive heterogeneity.