We advance a theory of how business models can be innovated proactively in the absence of exogenous changes, through processes of generative cognition. We contribute to the cognitive perspective in strategy by analyzing business models as schemas that organize managerial understandings about the design of firms' value‐creating activities and exchanges and by theorizing how they can be innovated through processes for proactive schema change. Drawing on cognitive psychology research on two major cognitive processes through which individuals change their schema to cope with novelty, analogical reasoning and conceptual combination, we theorize firm‐level strategic processes for designing innovative business models. Copyright © 2015 Strategic Management Society.

In this study we use a social embeddedness perspective to investigate the paradoxical role that individual-level embedded relationships have on the dissolution of interorganizational ties. Prior studies have found that managers who form close interpersonal relationships with clients can stabilize market ties, but these relationships can also be a source of increased market tie dissolution in the event of an exchange manager's departure from the firm. Using data on all state-level lobbyists and clients in the Texas lobbying industry from 2001 to 2009, we confirm that a client is more likely to remain with a firm than to follow a departing manager to a new firm, but the depth, focus, and shared ownership of a manager's client relationship moderate the impact of his or her mobility on market tie dissolution. We find that the tenure of the relationship with a manager, the number of clients on a manager's roster, the level of attention received from a manager, and the presence of an additional manager relationship at the same firm all influence where a client places its business when a manager departs. Our results suggest that embeddedness explanations strongly predict interpersonal market tie dissolution when managers are stationary but lose their predictive power when managers move to new firms. We propose that an alternative logic of interorganizational market ties, based on power and resource dependence, may be at play in such situations.

No abstract

No abstract

This research explores organizational trauma and the phenomenon of organizational posttraumatic growth (OPTG). Many organizations experience traumatic events, events that disrupt core organizational activities. While some affected organizations never recover their prior level of well-being, others surpass their pretrauma state. This research explores this phenomenon by examining how one organization, which was traumatized by a substantial theft committed by a senior leader, emerged transformed and stronger. In the exploration of this intriguing phenomenon, we extend individual-level trauma research to the organization level to address how OPTG occurs. We draw on these findings to chart paths for future research on OPTG and organizational change and consider their implications for development and change practitioners in organizations experiencing trauma.