Robert Demir

• PhD
• Senior Associate Professor at Linköping University

Frontline Strategy Work has recently evolved into an important phenomenon in Strategy-as-Practice (SAP) research, particularly concerning frontline employees (FLEs). FLEs are non-managerial staff with distinct roles, identities, and organisational tasks. They are typically divided into two categories: frontline workers, who handle operational, supp...

Strategising Underground refers to autonomous, unsanctioned, or illegitimate initiatives by small groups or individuals within an organisation that often drive strategic change by enhancing efficiency, effectiveness, or innovation. For these individuals, such initiatives exceed formal job requirements, are unrewarded by contracts, and may occur wit...

Resourcing is a dynamic, context-dependent process where individuals actively transform potential assets or objects (e.g., PowerPoint, technology) into valuable resources through purposeful actions and interactions. Rather than viewing resources as static entities with fixed properties, resourcing emphasises their mutability and use in practice. In...

Small and medium-sized firms are increasingly adopting digital technologies to transform themselves. Yet, the ability of top-management teams to embark on strategic transformations depends on entrepreneurial ideas and initiatives that arise across the firm. We conducted a qualitative pre-study of manufacturing companies to understand their challeng...

During the new product development (NPD) process, exploitation and exploration are important, especially for small manufacturing firms (SMFs). However, limited resources and a lack of internal knowledge capacity have forced SMFs to work with knowledge-intensive professional service firms (KIPSFs). This article investigates the impact of SMFs’ netwo...

This paper focuses on unsanctioned practice innovations (UPIs) and how they are generated and realised by those outside the senior ranks of an organisation. Through a longitudinal in-depth qualitative study of a multinational firm between 2001-2014, we discovered how deviance from formal procedural frameworks had diverse and often creative and prod...

A pressing management issue exists to understand how firms can develop dynamic capabilities (DC) through processes such as open innovation (OI). Our study aims to expand knowledge in this area by explicating the underlying mechanisms of OI that contribute to a firm's DC. Adopting a microfoundations perspective, we examined three separate new produc...

This study advances the debate on the global integration–local responsiveness imperative and theorises the contingency effects of vertical and horizontal coordination mechanisms to unfold the benefits of strategic agility and internationalisation speed. We offer a comprehensive picture arguing that strategic agility and internationalisation speed a...

In an attempt to respond to recent calls for better understanding the coexistence of multiple business models, we develop the concept of ‘multidexterity’ – the ability to develop, nurture, and execute several distinctive BM strategies simultaneously across different levels and functions of the MNC and its host markets. To illustrate this approach,...

Our research examines how open innovation can contribute to the firm’s dynamic capabilities, by helping to restore a focal firm's capability proximity with it's environment. Through the application of an in-depth multiple case approach examining the NPD process in a UK manufacturing SME, we were able to establish the relationship between OI and the...

Research question: While the literature on sponsorship of sport has gained interest among scholars in diverse fields such as management, marketing, and psychology in recent years, scant attention has been paid to the extent in which sponsoring may serve as a strategic lever that is mutually beneficial for sponsors and sponsees. We, therefore, ask:...

This study addresses the question of how strategy actors instil strategic behaviour in everyday strategic activity despite their physical absence. To do this, I draw on ecological psychology and introduce the concept of bundled affordances, multiple spatiotemporally distinct yet co-performing action possibilities offered to strategists in single st...

Process approaches are increasingly applied in qualitative studies in many fields within social sciences. Yet, few studies have seriously elaborated on the ontological premises of process theorizing. This study addresses this void by suggesting a process philosophical framework. The framework is ontologically grounded with the concepts of causality...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to address the limitations of prior views regarding knowledge source exploitation by proposing a phenomenological approach to managerial attention and the antecedents of exploiting knowledge sources within the multinational corporations (MNC) network. Design/methodology/approach A phenomenological approach to a...

Extant research on knowledge transfer within multinational corporations has increasingly focused on knowledge flow, but ignored the process of knowledge translation. Building on translation theory, this article seeks to explain how the translation of relational practices by local Chinese managers occurs in a Swedish multinational corporation subsid...

This article discusses the geographical flows of the global knowledge economy and their unstable and rapidly changing nature. We use the development of activities in ICT (information and communication technology) in India and its connections to Sweden to illustrate changes in international business. The article explores the ways in which transforma...

This position paper presents the outline for a study of the changes in geography and organisation of the global knowledge economy and how the development of outsourcing and localisation of firms from the “global south” in the “global north” within ICT industry is supported by ICT tools.

Recent Chinese growth and development has had a tremendous impact on the world economy, especially in terms of the absorption of a significant amount of global foreign direct investment (FDI). Most of this FDI has taken the form of joint ventures between local and foreign firms. Some researchers typically see this as a race by local firms to learn...