Resource mobilization in capabilities for strategic change

Resource mobilization is at the core of strategy and strategic change. Nevertheless, the process of how resources are mobilized in strategy remains undertheorized. The current thesis explains how the entrepreneurial efforts of top and middle managers in strategic initiatives are guided by resource needs and centered on mobilizing the needed resources. Initiatives vary by their resource needs, which brings variance to the unfolding process patterns. Essay 1 argues that strategy process is an interplay of internal and external resource mobilization, where both top and middle managers are active champions of strategic initiatives. Thus far the strategy process literature has considered internal and external resource mobilization always separately and has failed to recognize how the two are intertwined. Resource needs are shaped by an organization's social position and orientation to the industry logic, which decisively influences which resources and resourceholders it prioritizes in its internal and external mobilization efforts. The process varies between narrow vs. broad mobilization, and tendency to either follow or influence the prevailing industry logic. Essay 2 argues that the top managers choose to pursue different types of change initiatives in their efforts to improve performance and gain legitimacy, often either initiatives clearly focused on implementing a new organizational architecture, or initiatives focused on modularly improving performance while maintaining the current organizational architecture. This, in turn, influences the conduct of the initiative in major ways as manifested in the change management practices deployed during the initiative. In architectural change initiatives, a vision of the new organizational architecture is a key vehicle for mobilization, while in modular change initiatives, measurable clear targets are foregrounded instead. Essay 3 shows how resource mobilization is manifested in the capabilities for change implementation. These dynamic capabilities are both an outcome of prior resource mobilization but also a key vehicle to achieve further resource mobilization to support the change. Essay 3 argues further that such capabilities in change management are often rarely used and thus at risk of dissipating in between the initiatives. Therefore some organizations undertake special measures such as team and practice fungibility and rapid capability reassembly to actively maintain these valuable dynamic capabilities.