Dennis P. Slevin’s research while affiliated with University of Pittsburgh and other places

The phenomenon of leadership has been the focus of systematic social science research since the early 1930s. However, it wasn't until approximately the mid‐1980s that social scientists began to widely recognize the distinctive‐ness and significance of that portion of the leadership domain known today as strategic leadership, defined by Hitt, Ireland, and Hoskisson (2001: 489) as “the ability to anticipate, envision, maintain flexibility, and empower others to create strategic change as necessary.” It's not that the “new” phenomenon of strategic leadership emerged in the mid‐1980s. Rather, the unique domain of strategic leadership started to clarify during this time period. Specific ways in which general managers must be leaders, not simply administrators, were increasingly recognized and debated.

Entrepreneurial leadership is a social influence process intended to facilitate the discovery, evaluation, and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities. By contrast, entrepreneurial management is more appropriately conceptualized as a style, process, or system of operating through which entrepreneurial resources are identified, acquired, configured, and/or deployed in the interests of facilitating the discovery, evaluation, and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities. Entrepreneurial leadership can be exhibited in any form of enterprise including, for example, profit-seeking and not-for-profit organizations, small sole proprietorships to large global corporations, and recently founded ventures to mature business organizations. Such leadership can also be exhibited before a venture's operating organization has been formally created. Entrepreneurial leadership is not the sole responsibility of any given individual or set of individuals. Rather, entrepreneurial leadership can be exercised throughout the organizational hierarchy by managers and non managers at any organizational level. Finally, entrepreneurial leadership is frequently evident in the actions of venture founders as well as established firm CEOs. However, other units of analysis beyond the individual – such as teams, organizational subunits, and entire organizations – can also exhibit entrepreneurial leadership.

Emergent strategy can be defined as internally consistent patterns of competitive actions and reactions that spontaneously arise over time as organizations navigate within their operating environments. This definition recognizes that emergent strategies may occupy one end of a deliberate–emergent continuum which represents different fundamental behaviors concerning the strategic process. Deliberate strategies involve a well-articulated and formalized planning process. Emergent strategies, in contrast, are more sporadic, have short time-frame, reactive, and show opportunistic responses to environmental conditions.

Purpose – As companies grow and evolve, they inevitably face an influx of new personnel and changing responsibilities of existing staff members, often resulting in an increasingly complex organizational design. During periods of rapid organic growth, new layers of management and labor may be created as a reactionary, rather than a planned activity. This often results in redundancy of responsibility and confusing communication channels within the company, ultimately impacting financial performance. The purpose of this paper is to describe a case study of significant organizational change that was accomplished using assessment center philosophy, combined with web‐based technology. Design/methodology/approach – Concurrent Technologies Corporation (CTC), a research and development professional services organization that rapidly grew its workforce to over 1,400 was faced with these challenges, resulting in direct labor billings losses. Upon strategically designing a new organizational structure, CTC was faced with making critically important staffing changes. A modified assessment center approach using web‐based technology was employed to rapidly select the best candidates for these new positions. Findings – It is the authors' contention in this paper and practice in the implementation of this organizational realignment that practicing managers who have extensive experience with middle managers can effectively evaluate them on assessment center dimensions without observing them in assessment center simulations. These enlightened assessments leveraged web‐based technology, while avoiding the costly and time‐intensive simulation and exercise phases of the traditional assessment center. Originality/value – Based on the authors' experience with CTC, combining this modified assessment center approach (evaluating managers on competencies without using simulations and exercises) with web‐based technology can provide organizations with a powerful tool for implementing fast and effective organizational change. This new and original approach can support executives in evaluating managerial talent and realigning organizational structure.

We evaluate the contributions to entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in three articles: Wales, Monsen, and McKelvie; Wiklund and Shepherd; and Morris, Webb, and Franklin, commenting on key findings and their implications for further development of EO. We outline the potential for a multiplicative construct of EO and future directions for research in the field of international entrepreneurship: cross‐border internationalizing firms and comparative studies.

Strategy formation mode refers to the way organizations devise their strategies. While some organizations do so through an explicit, formalized, and planned method, other organizations unintentionally create patterns in their strategic decisions--a strategy formation route that is more emergent in nature. This research explores the relationship between strategy formation mode and firm growth. Further, this article explores two strategic processes--forecasting and long-range objective setting--and their efficacy in association with particular strategy formation modes. Primary and secondary data collected from 103 manufacturing firms were used to test the hypotheses. Results indicate that the relationship between strategy formation mode and firm growth is curvilinear (inverted-U shape). Further, a three-way interactive effect is found between strategy formation mode, forecasting, and long-range objective setting on firm growth.

An extensive amount of research has been conducted regarding the various advantages and disadvantages posed by engaging in market pioneering behavior at the product level. However, relatively little research examines factors that facilitate the relationship between a firm’s overall pioneering orientation and firm growth. This article investigates pioneering as an orientation that a firm adopts in pursuing a proactive introduction of new products to the market across product lines. In doing so, this study examines organizational and industry factors that impact the relationship between pioneering orientation and firm growth and proposes that this main effect relationship will be curvilinear (inverted U shaped). Further, this study hypothesizes that an organization’s ability to strategically learn will positively moderate the relationship between pioneering orientation and firm growth. Additionally, this study hypothesizes that the greater the technological sophistication of the industry, the more positive the relationship between pioneering orientation and firm growth. Hierarchical regression analysis was utilized to examine the hypotheses as observed within a grouping of 101 select firms. Findings indicate that all hypotheses are supported, except for that regarding strategic learning, which is shown to negatively moderate the relationship between pioneering orientation and firm growth. The authors conclude with a discussion of the findings and the potential implications of the study.

This research explores the relationship between strategic learning capability—a firm's proficiency at generating, and then acting on, strategic knowledge—and entrepreneurial orientation (EO). While theory posits the inevitably of building strategic learning capability from behaving entrepreneurially, there is little empirical research to validate this proposition and even less understanding of how and why EO contributes to strategic learning capability. Empirical results from 110 manufacturing firms confirm the direct effect of EO on strategic learning capability, and support is found for three constructs—structural organicity, market responsiveness, and strategy formation mode—that fully mediate the EO-strategic learning capability relationship. Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society.

This study investigates managerial and organizational factors associated with engaging in a market pioneering strategy. Specifically, top management risk taking and the firm-level capability of market responsiveness are hypothesized to be associated with market pioneering. Additionally, strategic learning self efficacy is hypothesized to moderate the effects of top management risk taking and market responsiveness on market pioneering. Moderated regression analysis based on data collected from 111 manufacturing firms supports the hypotheses. Top management risk taking and market responsiveness positively predict the use of a pioneering strategy. Strategic learning self efficacy makes market pioneering more palatable to risk-averse top managers who might not otherwise engage in pioneering. Finally, strategic learning self efficacy strengthens the relationship between market responsiveness and market pioneering. Implications for future theory, practice, and research are discussed.

A great deal of literature has pointed to the importance of trust as a facilitator of positive relationships among project stakeholders. Trust is argued to enhance a variety of intra-organizational relationships, including project team dynamics, top management support, and coordination across functional departments. Likewise, trust is argued to improve the inter-organizational relationships among principal actors in project development, such as contractors, owners, and suppliers. This paper reports on the results of an empirical study that investigated the impact of trust between project owners and contractors in a number of large construction projects in Canada. We operationalized trust along the Hartman [Hartman FT. The role of trust in project management. In: Slevin DP, Cleland DI, Pinto JK, editors. The frontiers of project management research. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute; 2002, p. 225–35] dimensions as incorporating both competence and integrity and compared the perspectives of project contractors and owners. Using regression and path analysis, we analyzed the differential effects of competence and integrity trust on enhanced owner/contractor relationships and project success. Our findings indicate that trust has different meanings for contractors and owners, as its impact on satisfaction with the relationship and positive project outcomes varies depending upon which group is surveyed.