Completed research projects

Big data and analytics (BDA) refers to the technological possibilities of uncovering hidden information about customers and organizational business activities from large volumes of data and powerful algorithms and creating new value-added processes. Current business research is primarily focused on efficiency gains through BDA. The relationship to competitive advantages or even corporate success is then often assumed as a consequence of this or claimed in simplified terms from the possession of valuable data in analogy to platform companies such as Google. From a strategic perspective, however, this relationship is anything but clear. Important questions that arise from this and currently remain unanswered are, for example, the following:

• How can BDA support strategic decision-making processes? What are the risks if creative thought processes are naturally supplemented/replaced by algorithmic processes of past pattern recognition in strategy development? How can we reconcile the fact that successful strategies typically break patterns instead of seeking them?
• How can BDA lead to disruptive business model innovations? What risks arise when business models converge through the replication of technological best practices?
• How can BDA support established competitive advantages and/or create new competitive advantages? What are the risks if competition increasingly shifts towards 'price' as a result of similar BDA strategies and increasing efficiency?

We are addressing these and other questions as part of the TUHH lighthouse project "Business analytics - optimization potential and strategic risks for maritime logistics systems". The aim of the project is to examine both the optimization potential and the strategic risks of using BDA from the perspective of various disciplines in an integrative manner. The focus is on a holistic perspective, which also includes a critical assessment of the topic. The latter is currently still very much neglected. The participating professorships come from computer science/OR, mathematics, logistics and corporate management. The project is therefore highly interdisciplinary. The project is related to maritime logistics. The industry is currently undergoing major changes and is particularly affected by technological change. The established companies in this sector are facing intense competition for costs and efficiency and are under great pressure to develop BDA solutions in order to remain competitive. In addition, the industry is facing the entry of new market players, including established technology companies with advanced BDA skills (e.g. Amazon, Alibaba) as well as start-ups developing highly specialized BDA solutions.

The project is part of the TUHH's i3 strategy and is funded from April 2019 to March 2022 by the Hamburg Ministry of Science, Research, Equality and Districts (BWFGB). You can find more information about the i3-Lab here.

Publications and conference contributions:

Wrona, T., & Reinecke, P. (2020). Strategy in Discovery Mode – Wie Big Data & Analytics strategisches Denken verdrängen kann, in: WiSt - Wirtschaftswissenschaftliches Studium.

Wrona, T., & Reinecke, P. (2019). The "Dark Side" of Big Data Analytics - Uncovering Path Dependency Risks of Big Data Analytics Investments. In Proceedings of the 27th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), Stockholm & Uppsala, Sweden, June 8-14, 2019. Available online at the following link.

Wrona, T., & Reinecke, P. (2019). Wie strategisch sind Algorithmen? Die Rolle von Big Data und Analytics im Rahmen strategischer Entscheidungsprozesse. In: Schröder, M., & Wegner, K. (Eds.). Logistik im Wandel der Zeit: Von der Produktionssteuerung zu vernetzten Supply Chains, Festschrift für Wolfgang Kersten zum 60. Geburtstag, Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden 2019. Available online at the following link.

Wrona, T., & Reinecke, P. (2019). Strategic Risks of Big Data and Analytics - A Path Dependency Perspective. HICL 2019. Hamburg International Conference of Logistics. (Conference paper)

Rückert, N., Fischer, K., Wrona, T., Reinecke, P., & Pache, H. (2019). Big Data Analytics in Maritime Logistics: Benefits and Risks for Container Flow Optimization. The 9th International Conference on Logistics and Maritime Systems: Smart Analytics for Maritime and Logistics Systems, Singapore, August 14-16, 2019. (Conference paper)

Reinecke, P. (2018). Strategic Management Issues in Big Data and Analytics: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Identify Strategic Opportunities and Threats in Maritime Logistics. Annual Meeting of Organizational Research, Frankfurt/Oder, Germany. (Conference paper)

In the context of globalization and digitalization, businesses are increasingly confronted with tensions arising from conflicting objectives. In addition to the economic goals imposed by their business models, various stakeholders demand that they also meet ecological and social objectives. For example, within globalization, the focus is on working conditions and environmental impacts along global supply chains, the achievement of which often conflicts with financial goals. In the context of digitalization, tensions arise from digital business models and responsible digitalization. To deal with such tensions, managers use various practices of organizational paradox management. In this project, we examine these practices and derive recommendations for companies to proactively deal with paradoxical tensions arising from globalization and digitalization.

Publikationen und Konferenzbeiträge:

Carmine, S., Andriopoulos, C., Gotsi, M., Charmine, E.J.H., Krzeminska, A., Mafico, N., Pradies, C., Raza, H., Raza-Ullah, T., Schrage, S., Sharma, G., Slawinski, N., Stadtler, L., Tunarosa, A., Winther-Hansen, C., & Keller, J. (2021). A Paradox Approach to Organizational Tensions during the Pandemic Crisis of COVID-19, in: Journal of Management Inquiry (online first). DOI: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1056492620986863.

Schrage, S., & Rasche, A. (2021). Inter-Organizational Paradox Management: How National Business Systems Affect Responses to Paradox Along a Global Value Chain, in: Organization Studies (online first), DOI: journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0170840621993238.

Corporate strategy projects are often developed with the involvement of management consultancies. Consultants can take on very different roles here - from pure "process consultant" to "solution finder" (see Bamberger/Wrona 2012). Such role models are based on an idealization of the relationship between the consultant and the client. On the one hand, the influence of the consultant is sometimes seen as very strong and the position of the client as rather weak (e.g. a consultant comes to the client, professionally analyzes the situation and can give a well-founded strategy recommendation). On the other hand, consultants are sometimes viewed purely functionally (e.g. in terms of the "toolbox" they bring with them) and contrasted with micropolitically powerful clients. However, it can be assumed that in concrete consulting projects both aspects come together, possibly with a time delay, and that the result of the consulting task of "strategy development" strongly depends on how the discourse between consultant and client is organized, which practices take place here, etc.

This research project will now focus on the strategically relevant discourses between consultants and clients in order to achieve a deeper understanding and empirical decoding of the situational interaction of the participants with regard to the formation and control of strategic discourses. In this regard, relevant strategic discourses and the mechanisms of influence are analyzed using a communicative-constructivist strategy-as-discourse perspective. Audio recordings of a strategically relevant workshop series in a multinational organization as well as expert interviews are used as empirical material. The material is analyzed according to grounded theory methodology.

Dealing with and developing opportunities seems to be of utmost importance for all businesses. Why? – Because the recognition and exploitation of opportunities is one of the biggest steps in every business. Despite its importance, the focus on opportunities and their recognition has been neglected so far. Specifically, previous one-dimensional explanations lack a deeper understanding and investigation of the entrepreneurial process in a connected world. Conducting a qualitative multiple case study, we aim for a realistic depiction of the circular process between the environment and the entrepreneur along the entire entrepreneurial process, from opportunity up to an active business. By providing real-life insights on business model developments emerging from a continuous and dual interaction, we contribute to management research and entrepreneurship research particularly.

Management research is based on findings that are obtained through the use of certain methods. Our perspective is that the reality to be investigated is co-constructed through the use of such methods: it is not objectively in front of us, but by deciding to use a certain method, we look at reality in a very specific way. In the context of research, we deal, for example, with questions of progress within qualitative research (cf. Wrona 2006), the role and functions of empirical methods within international management research (cf. Wrona 2008), the combination of research methods (cf. Wrona/Fandel 2010) or the possibilities of an integrative embedding of prior theoretical knowledge in the entire qualitative research process (Wrona/Gunnesch 2016; Wrona 2018; Wrona/Zapf/Reinecke i.V.).

The main objective of the project is to analyze exporters' strategies from the perspective of several theoretical approaches and different research methods. In particular, the following detailed objectives should be achieved in the course of the project:

(1) Empirical analysis of determinants of strategy and performance results of German exporters with special consideration of the institutional characteristics of the target countries and the design of the business model, as well as under consideration of possible withdrawals from export activities;

(2) Investigation of the adaptation behavior of exporters to different institutional environments;

(3) Examination of the decision-making processes of exporters and their consequences.

The project builds on a quantitative survey of German exporters from the manufacturing sector to investigate the relevant determinants of export performance outcomes in different institutional contexts. On the other hand, a qualitative field study will be conducted to build a better understanding of exporters' adaptation to foreign markets and to develop a typology of related decision-making processes. The project is carried out by the guest researcher Prof. Dr. Piotr Trąpczyński (Poznań University of Economics, Poland) in cooperation with isim.

The importance of cognitive strategy research stems from the assumption that strategies initially arise in the minds of managers. Processes of cognitive perception and processing of information and its "feeding" into the organization are therefore upstream of formal strategy development. This perspective is becoming increasingly important in the field of strategic management. Our research here focuses, for example, on the tension between culture and management cognitions or the relationship between cognitions and strategic processes (see Wrona/Ladwig/Gunnesch 2013).

The research project deals with the question of how small and medium-sized enterprises perceive strategic problems and which factors influence or explain this process. In contrast to research that deals with problem solving, this project starts one step earlier. The starting point is the observation that "strategic" problems do not reach management "quasi-automatically", but that there is a high degree of ambiguity about the problem itself and its nature and characteristics. There are examples in practice, for example, of highly successful companies not recognizing a strategic problem at all or underestimating its high strategic relevance for a long time (such as the music industry in connection with digitalization).

This project examines this question using the example of small and medium-sized enterprises, as these have a number of additional interesting contextual conditions, such as their management structures. Theoretically, the project is based on individual and organizational cognition theories as well as performative approaches (cf. Wrona/Ladwig 2012). Methodologically, we pursue a qualitative research approach with narrative interviews and the creation of cognitive maps on an individual and collective level (cf. Wrona/Ladwig/Gunnesch 2013).

The research project focuses on the question of how multinational corporations react to the social, political and legal context with which they are confronted in the course of internationalization in emerging markets. The focus is on the systematic consideration of non-market strategies, which we understand as the targeted, coordinated execution of global activities in a social, political and legal context in order to achieve corporate goals.

Qualitative field research in selected emerging markets is an integral part of the research project. The analysis of different types of non-market strategies is to be underpinned by theory-based statements on determinants of the internal corporate context and the external corporate environment. With the help of a strategic content perspective, key factors influencing strategy formation will be identified and integrative approaches to strategy formulation will be considered.

In management research, retreats have so far often been understood as simple reversal processes of failed growth strategies. The aim of this research project is to show that withdrawals, which are not purely reactive or passive, but follow their own strategic logic, can be a very important and success-critical dimension of repositioning for companies. We understand withdrawals very broadly, i.e. in addition to complete withdrawals from product/market combinations, market positions alone (market leadership) or forms of activity (joint venture) can also be given up or reduced, which do not necessarily have to lead to a divestment. By looking at different "varieties" of withdrawals, a comprehensive theoretical consideration of the phenomenon is to be achieved, while at the same time expanding the organizational repertoire of action from a practical perspective.

A strategic process perspective is adopted, which traces the actual decision-making process for retreats. When describing and explaining strategic retreats, particular attention is paid to the role of the actors involved at various management levels and their cognitive processes as well as the significance of the internal and external context.

Using grounded theory methodology, the withdrawal process can be reconstructed and contrasted qualitatively using different cases.