Middle managers' collaboration with social movements in strategy execution: role of collaborative embeddedness and first-mover advantage
Author: Leesi Gabriel Gborogbosi
Publisher:
Published: 2018
Total Pages: 176
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPrior research has documented the engagements between firms and social movements, and how such interactions influence firm’s practices, policies, and behaviour. However, there has been less focus on the collaboration between firms and social movements in the area of the strategy process. This study evolves the concept of collaborative embeddedness which, we argue, arises when trust is embedded in the collaboration between firm’s managers and social movements. We test this theory within the context of the oil and gas industry in Nigeria. This study addresses the questions of: (1) whether firm’s middle managers who collaborate with social movements create a higher performance for the firm compared to firms whose middle managers do not collaborate, (2) how trust in the personal ties between the parties is embedded in the collaboration between them, and (3) whether early collaboration by firms’ middle managers create an early-mover advantage and improves firm performance in a non-market environment. We use social movement, embeddedness, and first-mover advantage theoretical lenses to investigate the role of trust, repeated interaction, switching costs, entry timing and early collaboration in the relationship between social movements and firm’s middle managers. Using responses from firms’ middle managers and social movements, we adopt exploratory study and regression modeling to analyze how the collaborative relationships create mutual benefits and early-mover advantages. Our findings show that firms’ middle managers who engage in collaboration with social movements and build trust in their relationship outperform firms whose middle managers take a more hostile stance and do not collaborate. Based on the trusting relationship, social movements appear more willing to provide support that enables firms’ middle managers to deliver strategy implementation within costs and schedules. The findings also indicate that middle managers of firms who collaborate early with social movements add an early-mover advantage to their firms.
