Strategy

Central to strategy are the major intended and emergent initiatives which involve the allocation of resources and are taken by top management to improve the performance of firms in their external environment.

With regard to this topic, we study organisations' performance and renewal successes. We seek to explain this by the organisation's portfolio of resources and (dynamic) capabilities and its positioning in the external environment, but also specifically by studying how strategic decisions are made and thus how strategies come to be. This includes:

• Studying why some firms choose for certain strategic decisions,
• The consequences of these decisions with regard to the organisation’s performance
• The manner in which the interests and requirements of various stakeholders and other constituents are included in strategic decision-making

The significance of deliberation and stakeholder participation for dealing effectively with issues of sustainable development and innovation is widely recognised. The way such issues are addressed depends on how the particular issue is defined; a problem can (and is) often defined in multiple ways by various actors in the policy arena.