Business Unit Strategy, Managerial Characteristics, and Business Unit Effectiveness at Strategy Implementation.

1984/03/01 by A. K. Gupta, Anil K. Gupta, V. Govindarajan +1 · 1,357 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Engineering · Psychology · #Business #Business Strategies and Innovation #Business Strategy and Innovation #Computer science #Engineering #Innovation and Knowledge Management #Knowledge management #Marketing #Operations management #Process management #Psychology #Strategic business unit #Strategic management #Unit (ring theory)

paper · doi:10.2307/255955

published in Academy of Management Journal 27(1), 25-41 (Academy of Management)

openalex publication_date 1984/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Data from 58 strategic business units (SBUs) reveal that greater marketing/sales experience, greater willingness to take risk, and greater tolerance for ambiguity on the part of the SBU general manager contribute to effectiveness in the case of "build " SBUs but hamper it in the case of "harvest " SBUs. Despite the widespread acceptance of strategy's role in mediating an or-ganization's interaction with its environment (Andrews, 1971; Ansoff, 1965; Chandler, 1962; Child, 1972; Miles & Snow, 1978), the scope of research on strategy "implementation " has remained quite narrow. Following Chandler (1962), the concern has been predominantly with how a firm's organizational structure and control system are, or might be, related to the degree and nature of its product and geographic diversification (Fouraker

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