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Unlike most of the social sciences, the field of strategy originated in the United States and arrived in Europe later. Did this trajectory lead to an "Atlantic divide" in strategy research? Does such a divide exist? The papers that follow debate the issue and the effects that such a potential divide may have on the growth of the field.

Is "the field of management's devotion to theory too much of a good thing?" [Hambrick, D. C. 2007. The field of management's devotion to theory: Too much of a good thing? Acad. Management J. 50(6) 1346–1352]. In his paper, Hambrick criticizes the practice employed by many journals in the management field that requires that papers submitted for publication make a strong theoretical contribution. I argue that part of the problem is caused by the misunderstanding and misuse of the term "theory." To clarify the status of theory, I review three modes of research formulation in the organizational sciences: theories, models, and conceptual frameworks. Language plays an important role in scientific research. I therefore discuss two research languages that are used in research in management that appear to be the farthest apart: mathematics, which is the language of precision; and narratives, which is the language that provides rich data. I provide a discussion of the use of mathematics in theory development and the use of narratives in research development. The two languages and three modes of research formulation are needed for contribution to knowledge, which should be the main goal of research in organization science.

We extend the variable risk preferences model of decision making to a competitive context in order to develop theory about how competition affects both focus of attention and risk taking. We hypothesize and find support for leader–follower differences in the channeling of attention to an aspiration or survival point. Our results indicate that leaders focus on their aspiration point, whereas followers' focus of attention shifts between their aspiration and survival points. By identifying and elaborating on the different cognitive loads and social expectations related to the positions of leader and follower, we show that leaders are prone to take excessive risks to maintain their leadership position. We refer to this phenomenon as the liability of leading. Our study context is a naturally occurring experiment in strategic decision making, the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions.

The concept of strategic surprise has been used by writers on military strategy to explore the successful amplification of resources during battle. This paper applies the same concept to subcontracting relationships and develops a cognitive framework to explain the phenomenon of strategic surprises, using buyer-supplier relations as an example. We first examine the factors that produce vulnerability to strategic surprise in cooperative situations. Then, we explore the reasons why firms are caught by surprise in spite of their vigilance. We present a model representing false alarms and strategic surprises as judgmental errors. We argue that judgmental errors cause misinterpretation of evidence and a consequent sense of false security. Interactive norms, which exist in some industries and may be taken as proxies for enduring relationships, may increase the likelihood of misjudgment and strategic surprises.