When the authors decided to start exploratory field research focused on complex strategic integration in multibusiness companies, systematic research on the subject was virtually nonexistent. They carried out some of the field research jointly during spring 1998, interviewing senior and top executives at several European companies. In parallel with those interviews, Yves Doz and his colleagues José Santos and Peter Williamson carried out detailed field studies at several European and Asian multinational companies, scrutinizing strategic integration among business units, geographic subunits and partners. The research also explored how small entrepreneurial ventures (such as flat-screen developer PixTech) and new venture groups in established companies such as Nokia could mobilize competencies from longer, better-established partners, and achieve complex strategic integration (CSI) in multipartner value-creating webs.
Robert Burgelman’s longitudinal research of Intel Corp.’s strategy-making process highlighted the difficulty of reach-driven strategic integration in a highly focused company. And his field study of Hewlett-Packard highlighted the difficulty of scope-driven strategic integration in a highly fragmented company. The study of the first nine months of Carly Fiorina’s tenure as HP’s new CEO (July 1999 to April 2000) focused on her efforts to create a CSI capability. The research involved interviews with all the members of HP’s newly formed executive council and with several senior and midlevel general managers. Other parts of the research involved case writing about companies such as... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
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