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Organizations often learn vicariously by observing what other organizations do. Our study examines vicarious learning–related communication through which individuals share their observations with other organizational members. Most students and members of present-day organizations would expect that this communication is driven by a prodevelopment logic—that communication serves the purpose of organizational improvement and competitiveness. Our unique historical evidence on learning-related communication over multiple decades shows that the subjective and collective attitude toward prodevelopment communication may be ideologically conditioned. Prodevelopment communication is the norm in capitalist organizations, but competing ideologies may emphasize other goals higher than organizational development. Consequently, increasing challenges to capitalism as the ideological basis of economic organization can have deep impacts on how organizations learn and produce innovations in the future.

Research summary We explore the qualitative differences in entries and exits over time. Using qualitative and quantitative data on 96 firms over 200 years, we study industry evolution from the perspective of individual decision‐making situations. Our historical and statistical analyses reveal the vital role of technology investments in determining firm outcomes, and the technological, institutional and governance dynamics that lead firms to invest or to abstain. Our main theoretical and methodological contribution concerns the importance of the multiplicity of firm‐level rationalities and decisions as fundamentals in theorizing on industry evolution. Managerial summary What determines firm outcomes in terms of acquisition, dissolution and survival? This paper answers this crucial question of strategy and elaborates on the extent to which the outcome is under top management control. Our findings highlight the importance of technology investments and we identify factors that make such investments possible and profitable. Our results emphasize that firms weighing options must assess the economic meaningfulness of generational technology investments which result in narrowing profit margins and intensifying competition. Another insight concerns the management of political risks. Long‐term fluctuations in regulation and foreign trade policy make it hazardous to optimize to the contemporary political regime. Skillful strategists invest in geographical and technological complexity, which in combination increase the chances of survival in rapidly changing political regimes. ; peerReviewed

This study is based on the thesis that Vladimir Propp's (1928/2001) theory of folktale structure functions not only as a morphology of folktales, but also as a structural, deep-level model of any process that includes crisis and recovery. We essentially suggest that corporate decline and turnaround processes can be emplotted into a folktale-like structure that supports Propp's theory and thereby helps uncover deep-level mechanisms governing the process. The developed model describes seven mechanisms that drive the organization from initial strategic harmony to disharmony, and furthermore to the construction of a new strategic harmony, thus creating a perspective for the interpretation of long-term organizational decline and turnaround processes. Theoretical and practical implications are offered.

We analyze historical and longitudinal research focusing on industry decline. Our analysis suggests that the literature's general reliance on a few meta-theoretical arguments has important consequences for how decline is framed and explained. We identify four meta-theoretical clusters in the literature: politics and market dynamics are seen as exogenous factors with deterministic features, whereas technology and management capabilities are framed as firm-internal failures with causally questionable explanations of how firm-level characteristics explain industry-level decline. We propose that it is important to understand the limitations of distinct meta-theoretical arguments for an enhanced theoretical and methodological understanding of what industry decline is, how it takes place, and why. Accordingly, this study contributes to business history research by restructuring and clarifying latent theoretical issues, demonstrating the pros and cons of researchers' choices, and offering guidelines and propositions for researchers interested in industry decline. ; peerReviewed

Prior research on competitive dynamics has failed to offer tools to understand distorted patterns of competition that emerge from distinct institutional and historical contexts. Our analysis suggests that a joint effect of institutional rules, governance structures, and shared cognition plays a pivotal role in firm-level competitive behavior and capability development. We show how globally significant market positions can result from specific institutional arrangements between firms and governments, especially if coupled with interfirm contractual commitments. Our results call for more attention to these interfirm commitments that are built on formal rules and governmental support, but whose impact they yet exceed. ; peerReviewed

International audience ; In this paper, we study the changing explanations of success and failure over the course of a firm's history. We build on a discursive approach that highlights the role of narrative attributions in making sense of corporate performance. Specifically, we analyze how the Nokia Corporation was framed first as a success and later as a failure and how these dimensions of performance were explained in various actors' narrative accounts. In both the success and failure accounts, our analysis revealed a striking black-and-white picture that resulted in the institutionalization of Nokia's metanarratives of success and failure. Our findings also reveal a number of discursive attributional tendencies; and thus warn of the cognitive and politically motivated biases that are likely to characterize management literature.

International audience In this paper, we study the changing explanations of success and failure over the course of a firm's history. We build on a discursive approach that highlights the role of narrative attributions in making sense of corporate performance. Specifically, we analyze how the Nokia Corporation was framed first as a success and later as a failure and how these dimensions of performance were explained in various actors' narrative accounts. In both the success and failure accounts, our analysis revealed a striking black-and-white picture that resulted in the institutionalization of Nokia's metanarratives of success and failure. Our findings also reveal a number of discursive attributional tendencies; and thus warn of the cognitive and politically motivated biases that are likely to characterize management literature.