Strategic Management Review > Vol 3 > Issue 1

The State of the Union in the Field of Strategic Management: Great Theories. Imperative Problems

Anita M. McGahan, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Canada, Anita.McGahan@rotman.utoronto.ca
 
Suggested Citation
Anita M. McGahan (2022), "The State of the Union in the Field of Strategic Management: Great Theories. Imperative Problems", Strategic Management Review: Vol. 3: No. 1, pp 25-34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/111.00000042

Publication Date: 07 Feb 2022
© 2022 now Publishers, Inc.
 
Subjects
Stakeholder strategy,  Micro-foundations of strategy,  Leadership and governance,  Strategy process and practice,  Research methodology in strategic management
 
Keywords
Strategic managementtheory foundationsgrand challenges
 

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In this article:
Theoretical Accomplishments and Challenges 
Urgency of the Strategically Important Phenomenological Problems Around Us 
Promising Directions 
A Strategy for the Field of Strategy 
References 

Abstract

The field of strategic management has had great success over the past 50 years. We have developed bodies of theory that are compelling and important. However, these theories are not unified by a common conceptual architecture. As a result, further progress is impeded just at a moment in history when the most important problems of our time — climate change, the pandemic, mass immigration, authoritarianism, economic nationalism, among others — raise the stakes on strategic insights for making progress beyond what our field has ever known. We must take on these challenges together as an intellectual community before it is too late for organizations and institutions to work together to accomplish what is needed to secure the future of democratic capitalism as a system for organizing social and economic life.

DOI:10.1561/111.00000042