Juha-Antti Lamberg

This study investigates strategic consistency in competitive behavior. We construct a logically consistent evolutionary model, providing a causal argument to link a level of strategic consistency to long‐term organizational survival. According to our results, strategic consistency seems to be related to both organizational survival and the most efficient change over time concerning the key elements of a firm's strategy. One of the benefits of the model is that some of the components and processes may be manipulated through experimental or simulation interventions. This means that the model can be formally tested in future studies and managers can use it to fine‐tune patterns of competitive behavior. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In this study, we analyze the Finnish retail industry in 1945–1995. Triangulating the major developments in society, technology, and firm-level strategic choices, we identified extensive variation in the sources of competitive advantage over time. We found that the structural and cognitive-cultural dimensions of firms that offered opportunities for success in some specific historical situations turned to be disadvantageous in other situations. We propose a research framework that parcels managerial cognition into the elements of structure, ideology, and systemic and technical properties of the firm. Especially the notion of ideology is novel in the context of path dependence and cognition.