Strategic Management and Corporate Governance (SIMA)

To Go Digital Or Not To Go Digital? The Influence of Board’s Digital Expertise on Strategic Change of the Firm

Chiara Acciarini, Paolo Boccardelli, Enzo Peruffo

The ability of an organization to adapt its resources and also to change its strategy in line with the conditions of the external environment is a crucial issue of analysis (Pfeffer, 1972). Strategic change represents a significant shift in direction, vision, and values or a substantial shift in priorities and goals (Hofer and Schendel, 1978; Tushman and Romanelli, 1985; Gioia et al., 1994; Rajagopalan and Spreitzer, 1997; Carpenter, 2000; Zhang and Rajagopalan, 2010).

On the one hand, previous studies investigated the relationship between strategic change and environmental modifications to explain under which conditions, according to specific environmental changes, new strategies emerge (Child, 1972; Schendel, Patton and Riggs, 1976; Tushman and Romanelli, 1985). On the other hand, in time of transformative events and critical periods, research on strategic change is associated with board composition which is considered a prominent factor in influencing strategic change’s decisions. (Hambrick and Mason, 1984; Goodstein, Gautam, and Boeker, 1994; Hillman, Cannella, and Paetzold, 2000; Westphal and Fredrickson, 2001; Oehimichen et al., 2017). In this case, we focus on the voluntaristic perspective of strategic change, considered as a result of managerial choices (Müller and Kunisch, 2018); in fact, managers interpret the environmental modifications they face according to their experiences, values, and treats, thus affecting the strategic change of the firm.

#board expertise #implementation #initiation #strategic change