Christoph Lechner

The premise underlying most of the research on strategic consensus is that a higher degree of consensus has a positive impact on organizational performance. Empirical studies, however, have produced inconsistent results for the strength and direction of this relationship, as well as for the role of potential moderators. With this meta-analysis, we provide empirical support for a positive effect of strategic consensus on organizational performance, and offer evidence for the existence of several moderators of the aforementioned relationship, which we then discuss as fruitful avenues for future research. This study enhances our understand-ing of this important strategy process construct and benefits managerial practice by discussing means for improving the realization and implementation of strategies.

Realising corporate growth remains a challenging task for most firms. In this paper, we examine how multi-unit corporations can effectively coordinate the evolution of their growth initiatives. Based upon research on coordination, we identify four ideal modes that corporations can adopt as a means to dealing with their growth ambitions. We label these four: agenda-setting, context-setting, directing and self-organising. We show how these coordination modes represent different options for corporate management and have different implications for the role split between top managers and managers on subsequent levels. We illustrate them by using primary and secondary data from 51 corporations based in Europe, North America and Asia. Each mode is connected with particular managerial challenges and is most effective in combination with specific context factors. Practitioners can use these insights to deliberately apply an appropriate coordination mode for their growth initiatives.

This study focuses on formal and informal control modes used by organizations to manage their growth initiatives. Drawing on the literature on growth, organizational control, and contingency theory, we develop and empirically test a set of hypotheses aimed at explaining how different types of growth initiatives are controlled to achieve superior performance. Survey data collected from 201 corporations in six industries serve to test the hypotheses. Results of moderated regression analysis highlight the importance of adopting the control mode to the specific type of initiative. An initiative's degree of internal and external risk as well as exploration are found to moderate the relationships between formal and informal control and initiative performance.