Thomas Ortner, Christoph Brielmaier, Martin Friesl, Christoph Jandl
{"title":"How to Create Engaged Transparency Among Employees","authors":"Thomas Ortner, Christoph Brielmaier, Martin Friesl, Christoph Jandl","doi":"10.1177/00081256261474506","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00081256261474506","url":null,"abstract":"A core promise of Open Strategy is that strategic transparency translates into superior strategic outcomes. Yet this depends on a fundamental premise: organizational members must actively engage with the information provided. It can be conceptualized as engaged transparency, or the social processes through which transparency is collectively made meaningful. This article shows that engaged transparency rests on four conditions—accessibility, attention, applicability, and authenticity—that can be established through a combination of material and social enablers. Engaged transparency enhances strategic understanding and leads to the formation of informed strategic judgments which should not be confused with strategic alignment.","PeriodicalId":9605,"journal":{"name":"California Management Review","volume":"56 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":10.0,"publicationDate":"2026-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148709609","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Analytical Abundance: Why Ai Makes Strategy Harder","authors":"Marc G. Baaij","doi":"10.1177/00081256261470443","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00081256261470443","url":null,"abstract":"Artificial intelligence is expected to make strategy easier. Yet many leadership teams are finding the opposite. As analytical capability becomes more powerful and widely available, analysis can support multiple credible futures simultaneously—a condition we call analytical abundance. The result is a paradox: more analysis can make strategy harder. We argue that analytical abundance shifts the primary constraint in strategy from generating insight to creating choice and sustaining commitment. To address this challenge, we introduce a three-cycle architecture that separates strategic intelligence, strategic choice, and strategic change. Competitive advantage depends not only on insight, but also on closure and commitment.","PeriodicalId":9605,"journal":{"name":"California Management Review","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":10.0,"publicationDate":"2026-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148587237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How Remote Work Is Reshaping the Office","authors":"Peter Cappelli, Y. Jasmine Wu","doi":"10.1177/00081256261464622","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00081256261464622","url":null,"abstract":"We examine how office work changed with the move to hybrid/remote operations through 38 group interviews covering roughly 760 employees of a multinational company across 3 countries. The most important finding may be a shift in focus of employees toward their own individual tasks and away from help-giving and collaborative tasks. The social ties that made seeking help and giving it a simple, informal process weakened and continue to erode with onboarding challenges and extensive time spent in dysfunctional virtual meetings. Shrinking of office space, “hoteling,” and lack of enforcement over attendance made rebuilding relationships difficult.","PeriodicalId":9605,"journal":{"name":"California Management Review","volume":"57 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":10.0,"publicationDate":"2026-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148499213","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Deploying Stablecoins for Good: Paths to Shared Prosperity with Blockchain","authors":"Jillian Grennan, Jennifer Sturdy","doi":"10.1177/00081256261464630","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00081256261464630","url":null,"abstract":"How can managers, social entrepreneurs, and policymakers seeking to use stablecoins find guidance to advance shared prosperity? Drawing on case studies of Mercy Corps Ventures, Coala Pay, Endaoment, and Regen Foundation, this article demonstrates that stablecoins are most effective when they solve specific coordination and payment problems. The cases illustrate how stablecoins can improve access, reduce transaction costs, strengthen transparency while preserving privacy, and sustain credibility, but only when leaders select high-quality stablecoins and build complementary implementation capabilities, such as digital literacy initiatives and local partnerships for off-ramping. These examples offer a framework for deploying stablecoins in ways that build resilience.","PeriodicalId":9605,"journal":{"name":"California Management Review","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":10.0,"publicationDate":"2026-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148589073","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Innovation Portfolio Management: When Projects Drift From Strategy","authors":"Haijian Si, Christoph Loch, Stylianos Kavadias","doi":"10.1177/00081256261464598","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00081256261464598","url":null,"abstract":"How often does your innovation portfolio (your budgeted innovation projects) fail to deliver strategic change because it consists of incremental initiatives or serves partisan objectives? Senior leaders often think the problem lies in weak strategy or weak organizational creativity. But, based on feedback from seventy CEOs and CTOs of large organizations, this article shows that something else is going on. The problem is often the result of <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">how</jats:italic> innovation portfolios are assembled. The standardized nature of the most widely used innovation portfolio methods leads to portfolio choices that don’t align with the strategy. This study shows how management can take back strategic control.","PeriodicalId":9605,"journal":{"name":"California Management Review","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":10.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148355560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Crown Shyness: Nature’s Blueprint for Thriving Innovation Ecosystems","authors":"Saeed Roshani","doi":"10.1177/00081256261454360","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00081256261454360","url":null,"abstract":"Summary Managing innovation ecosystems requires firms to balance collaboration and competition while maintaining strategic differentiation. Inspired by the natural phenomenon of crown shyness—where trees create structured gaps to optimize resource sharing—this article introduces a governance framework for structuring interfirm boundaries and resource allocation. Through an analysis of real-world business ecosystems, five principles emerge: boundary modulation, structural adaptation, competitive insulation, resource partitioning, and dynamic role orchestration. This framework extends existing theories by offering practical strategies for firms navigating co-opetition, digital transformation, and platform economies. It provides business leaders with actionable insights to foster resilient, high-performing innovation ecosystems.","PeriodicalId":9605,"journal":{"name":"California Management Review","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":10.0,"publicationDate":"2026-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148286552","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Individual as Agent of Organizational Learning","authors":"Victor J. Friedman","doi":"10.1177/000812560204400201.70","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/000812560204400201.70","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":9605,"journal":{"name":"California Management Review","volume":"5 1","pages":"70-89"},"PeriodicalIF":10.0,"publicationDate":"2026-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148286582","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Scaling of a Marketplace Unicorn: Sensing, Seizing, and Transforming Acquisition Opportunities","authors":"Anish Tiwari, Teresa Hogan, Colm O’Gorman","doi":"10.1177/00081256261445450","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00081256261445450","url":null,"abstract":"Once considered rare, unicorn start-ups are now a global phenomenon. This article identifies the key motives for acquisition in unicorns and extends David Teece’s dynamic capabilities framework (CMR, Winter issue 2026) to demonstrate how founders sense, seize, and transform acquisitions to successfully scale in a winner-takes-all platform market. In this context, acquisitions serve a three-pronged purpose: one, to achieve market dominance by growing market share, by diversifying into new markets, and by matching, mitigating, or eliminating rivals; two, to access strategic resources; and three, to resolve complex, idiosyncratic, and temporal trigger points in the scaling process. In terms of organizational scaling, external stakeholders, including rival firms, business partners, and particularly investors, are essential to developing the dynamic capabilities of sensing and seizing acquisitions that drive market expansion. However, it is the founding team that is crucial to transforming the resources acquired through acquisitions to resolve trigger points. They do this by reconfiguring and recombining resources, particularly technology and know-how, and by empowering entrepreneurial teams to create unicorns with unicorns, facilitating autonomous, innovation-driven growth.","PeriodicalId":9605,"journal":{"name":"California Management Review","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":10.0,"publicationDate":"2026-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148286581","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Playbook for Brand Collaborations:Insights from Omega and Swatch","authors":"Andrés Gvirtz, Giana M. Eckhardt","doi":"10.1177/00081256261447309","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00081256261447309","url":null,"abstract":"Brand collaborations are widely used to generate attention, yet many fail to create lasting value. This is because brands focus too much on who to partner with rather than on how to design the collaboration. Using the Omega/Swatch collaboration and drawing on interviews and search data, this article develops a playbook for designing effective collaborations. Successful collaborations require each brand to contribute something unique, brand identities to remain distinct, and added value for both consumer bases. They also need to balance similarity and differentiation to avoid substitution and shift focus from short-term hype to sustained cross-brand spillovers.","PeriodicalId":9605,"journal":{"name":"California Management Review","volume":"247 1","pages":"134-146"},"PeriodicalIF":10.0,"publicationDate":"2026-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148286626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"BYOC: Strategic Choices Along the AI Compute Ownership Spectrum","authors":"Anup Srivastava, Vijay Govindarajan, Luminita Enache","doi":"10.1177/00081256261449804","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00081256261449804","url":null,"abstract":"For almost two decades, digital leaders grew as asset-light firms, scaling on software, data, and talent. The arrival of generative AI changed that logic. Compute and energy are now production inputs, not background utilities. They demand chips, cooling, sites, grids, and permits, and therefore massive capital and operating capabilities. Yet ownership of those assets is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Firms can choose from a continuum: on-demand cloud, committed cloud capacity, dedicated servers, leased data center space, hybrid core-plus-cloud, or full ownership. In this new landscape, how should AI-driven firms, from mid-sized adopters to hyperscalers, secure capacity and what must leaders do next?","PeriodicalId":9605,"journal":{"name":"California Management Review","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":10.0,"publicationDate":"2026-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148286591","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}