Reasons for the Fragmentation in the Strategy Field

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: A+, Trinity College Dublin (BESS), course: Advanced Strategic Management, language: English, abstract: The question to examine in this essay has evolved from a statement made by Elfring and Volberda (2001, p.1) which reads as follows: 'In the evolution of strategy research, a diversity of partly competitive and partly supplementary paradigms have emerged.' The task is now to look behind the statement and to ask why this fragmentation happened and how we can make sense of all these different perspectives. Firstly, it is important to examine the roots of the strategy field in order to understand why strategy matters at all and why academics spend so much time and effort on defining their view of 'the right' corporate strategy. Following this, I will give an overview of the most common perspectives and schools which emerged along the way. Finally, I will conclude with the reasons behind this diversification and give an outlook into the future of the strategy research. Before starting up it is essential to underline the fact that there is no such thing as the 'one and only' strategy which has developed over time but that with practically every new decade (starting with the 1960's) there was a new focus and a new way of seeing strategy. The field of strategy is one of the most integrated research areas which exists and for that reason scientists from many different academic backgrounds contributed to the mainstreams of strategy. The point that Elfring and Volberda (2001, p.2) argue is to walk away from inventing new directions and rather look back to pull ideas together for creating a new academic basis to build on.