Emerging Patterns
l Dr. Ranjan Das, Srinivas Ainavolu,
Anirban Banerjee and K. Ramakrishnan

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3. Emerging patterns in Strategy Research -
The Findings
3.1 Geographical bias in the literature
Management research focuses on the context/challenges faced, actions initiated by the firms or the outcomes of the actions of the firms. However, many of these issues are so embedded in the context surrounding the study that generalization beyond the scope of the research becomes questionable. In recent times, especially in the context of research pertaining to the culture and geography-specific studies, the ability to generalize based on these is being increasingly questioned. The geographical research settings of the studies were tabulated and analyzed. The findings are noteworthy. USA dominates the research setting with an astonishing 61 per cent of the studies. In other words, US based firms, their actions, regulations, outcomes of these actions, etc. have been investigated in 183 of the studies referred for this project. 14 of the studies pertained to comparisons between sets of two countries, and 30 of them had multi-national research settings. When it comes to Asia, China and Japan were the focus of researchers, with eight studies carried out with each of these countries as research settings. The importance of emerging markets like Brazil, Mexico and India is not reflected in academic research published in these four journals. None of these countries was the research ground for any study. In percentage terms, the countries covered are graphically illustrated in figure 3.
3.2 Researchers’ place of work
We also found that most of the researchers were based in US/Canada or UK/Europe. This can be seen from figure 4, which shows us that 63 per cent of the authors of the articles surveyed were from the US alone. A clarification to this is that 63 per cent of the authors were based in the US at the time of publication of the articles. They might have moved over to some other country subsequently. Additionally it should be noted that this figure includes studies with multiple authors where each of the multiple authors belongs to the US. Any “joint” work (joint work being that which is written by authors based in different countries) with non-US authors was classified separately. The only other country whose researchers are significantly publishing is UK, from where 24 authors could be traced subject to the above clarification. Canada is the only other country with double-digit number of articles from its authors, with the number being twelve out of this three hundred. The significance of contributions from US based authors will be better appreciated with the knowledge that even among the 50 odd “joint” works identified among this sample, over 70 per cent has one of the authors based in the US.
Another interesting aspect to check for would be correlations between the researcher’s base country and the research method adopted. To explore whether the base country might influence the author to prefer a certain research method we analyzed the data for two countries, which were dominant in terms of research contribution viz. the USA and UK. This analysis was carried out for the top two research techniques employed in the sample, i.e., regression analysis and case study research method. The results were contrasting. While US- based researchers employed regression techniques in more than half the researches (57 per cent), UK-based authors used case study methods in fifty per cent of the papers. On the other hand, case-study research did not appear as a favored one with US-based scholars, with only 10 per cent adopting this technique. Similarly, the UK based authors used regression techniques sparingly, with 21 per cent of the studies reporting their usage.

3.3 The scope of strategy research
Strategic management has to do with the survival and success of firms. Not surprisingly, issues pertaining to these two topics were the areas of focus of most researchers. The topic- wise break up of the articles surveyed (Figure 6) gives an overview of the research agenda of the scholars in this field. Topping the list in terms of the number of articles on the subject is that of cooperative strategies. This records the maximum with 38 of the 300 or nearly 13 per cent of the papers concentrating on some of its aspects. Next on the list are the areas of corporate strategy, corporate restructuring and competitive strategy with over 10 per cent of the papers devoted to each. Leadership/Top Management Team (TMT) is the focus of nearly seven per cent of the articles. Organizational change and learning account for six per cent of the papers studied by us. Corporate governance, executive compensation and strategic decisions are the other areas of interest at about five per cent each. These are followed by international strategic management research at four per cent. These results have to be interpreted with caution as the data pertain to a specific nine-year period taken in its entirety. We have not analyzed intra-period trends, which might exist. Shifts in such trends might be interesting to capture and probe in-depth for possible reflection of the business/internal markets.
When the topic-wise coverage in the different journals was studied, the differences in the areas of focus were brought out clearly. For instance, AMJ has covered corporate strategy, cooperative strategy and TMT topics. Similarly, for ASQ the top four areas of interest appeared to be corporate strategy, organizational change, competitive strategy and learning. JMS appears to have concentrated on the topics of corporate strategy, strategic decision-making, cooperative strategy and corporate restructuring. In the case of SMJ the top three topics were found to be competitive strategy, restructuring and cooperative strategy. The important topic-wise coverage for the journals is tabulated in figure 7.
Dominant topics for strategy research, as reflected in the four journals, were also identified through ranking of the relative frequency of their appearance in these journals. The rankings have been arranged in descending order. This exercise was carried out first by noting down the topic-wise frequencies in each journal and then arranging them in descending order. Of these, articles pertaining to the “miscellaneous” head were removed. We were thus left with 14 areas to be ranked per journal. The most frequently occurring area was ranked 14, with the least frequent one receiving a score of one. Then these scores for each area were summated across all the four journals to get a final score. These final scores were then arranged in the descending order to determine the emphasis placed by the journals on the areas. This rigorous procedure, it is hoped, will reduce the bias in the rankings presented in each of the journals individually. Figure 8 illustrates the importance accorded to the areas on an aggregate level, obtained by using this novel procedure. It can be seen that the results are broadly in agreement with the results depicted in figure 6.

3.4 Type of methodology deployed by the researchers
There is a general apprehension among journal reviewers that management research is moving towards being “cut and dry” and cross-sectional, rather than reflecting comprehensive, context-sensitive rich details. The richer the details more will be the comprehensibility leading to higher applicability. The methodology of the research was thus an important area that we looked at in our survey. We found that in over half of the articles, the technique/method used was predominantly regression analysis in varied forms. Many of them used a few other quantitative techniques too. 15 per cent of the papers surveyed used case study research methods. Other techniques attempted, though to a lesser extent, included factor analysis (6 per cent), structural equation modeling (4 per cent) and event study methods (3 per cent). The multiple-method approach did not appear to be a favored one, with only three per cent studies reporting this as the tool of choice.

3.5 The sample size used for different methods
The purpose of research is knowledge-generation. This is achieved by studying a sample of the population of interest. This sample is determined by the method applied, heterogeneity of the studied population, resource constraints, accessibility of sample elements, etc. Figure 10 provides the median sample size - method-wise - to bring out the differences existing on sample size determination and use amongst various methods of research.
One can see that modeling tops the list with a median sample size of 506. This is followed by structural equation modeling and regression analysis with over two hundred each. Factor analysis and event study methods, each have sample sizes of about hundred and sixty. In contrast, the case study research method has a median sample of four, which is understandable given the rigor of this technique. In recent studies, there has been a growing trend for large sample size inclusion. This is due to the availability of tremendous computing power that modern information technology accords. High quality secondary data sources also provide readily accessible data that can be analyzed in batches of several thousands, if desired.

3.6 Referencing in journal articles
Knowledge generation is an iterative process. The inching forward by scores of researchers, working over a period, can move the field forward. The requirement for this is to learn and acknowledge the works of others and add on to them so that subsequent researchers can take them further ahead. This whole process of iterative knowledge development is reflected in the number of articles cited/referenced in each academic paper. Keeping this aspect in mind we looked into the number of articles referred in the surveyed journal papers. The minimum and maximum number and mean/median number of references in the cited journal articles have been presented in figure 11. As can be seen, the range is quite large with the minimum and maximum at 23 and 162 references per paper. However, both mean and median were over sixty each. This gives a fair idea of the research effort that goes into taking cognizance of the earlier works and building on the same.
Another interesting analysis that was attempted on the references quoted was to calculate the percentage of the cited references that were from the four surveyed journals. This was to gain an understanding of the extent to which cross-referencing exists. The mean and median figures for cross-referencing were at much lower levels of over 20 per cent each (figure 12). What this means is that cross-referencing amongst these four strategy journals is only moderate with almost 80 per cent of the referencing being resorted to among other journals.
A similar exercise was attempted to find out the extent to which the articles referred to were of recent origin. Also determined was the level to which classics were referred to in the articles published in these four journals. Articles appearing before 1985 were assumed classics. This assumption was made since we regard any article that is being quoted/referred to even after a decade of its publication as a classic. Figure 13 shows that on average three fourths of the articles referred to, were those that were published in or after 1985. Only one-fourths could be considered as classic articles.

3.7 Apparent methodological preferences of the journals
Every research journal represents a group of like-minded individuals engaged in serious conversation. The journal facilitates an ongoing and continuous discussion among a group of researchers who engage in scholastic conversation using familiar and suitable techniques/tools. It is important that there be an element of continuity about the whole process. Therefore, looking into the topics/techniques journal-wise should provide interesting insights on the tools of the trade. AMJ, ASQ and SMJ predominantly use econometric methods such as regression analysis. JMS appears to emphasize the case study method of research. The other journal, which gives significant importance to case research, is ASQ with 15 per cent of the papers here using this method.

3.8 Categories of theoretical insights generated
Research in any area aims at extending the frontiers of knowledge. The theoretical focus of the works has been classified into provision of additional insights, confirming existing precepts and providing new insights, i.e., theory-building studies. ‘New’ were those articles, which started from scratch due to the absence of prior theory. The articles were clubbed under ‘additional theoretical insights’ when there was an already existing theory, which they researched, in order to seek an extension of that theory. Confirmatory research sought to validate existing theory. Sixty percent of the articles were of the ‘providing additional insights’ genre. Only eight percent were of offering ‘new insights’. The other 32 per cent were of ‘confirmatory’ nature.

3.9 Emphasis placed on discussing managerial implications
As the field of strategic management is concerned with practice, one expects the research in this field to have managerial implications. In this light, the surveyed articles were classified into those having high, moderate and low managerial implications. A surprising proportion of 65 per cent of the articles was having low/very low managerial implications; 28 per cent had moderate managerial implications, with only about seven per cent of the total having significantly high implications for practice. This information needs to be moderated with the knowledge that the surveyed journals were predominantly academic in nature and their target audiences were predominantly researchers and scholars from the field, and not practitioners.

4. Conclusion
Our study brings to light the general trends that are visible in strategic management research of the last decade. Though the surveyed journals were not exhaustive, they were quite representative of this important field. Topmost among our findings are that most of the research that is being attempted and published has a quantitative technique bias, covers large samples, and has little focus on managerial implications. Most of the research projects were targeted at audiences who were academic scholars in the field. Though the target audience may not have explicitly included managers, the practitioners’ problems and challenges were also the top research themes during the cited period. For instance, the topics that dominated strategy research were mainly in cooperative, corporate and competitive strategy areas. Corporate restructuring, which of late is being pursued by practitioners, was seen as the next important research area. The qualitative approach to research has not been exploited adequately. These aspects, along with the other less focused issues, when attempted and taken care of during research by the strategy scholars, shall not only enrich the research outcomes but also make it more significant to the practitioners who can derive benefit from the entire pursuit.