Management for change: On strategic change during recession

In many studies of strategic management and change, the importance of the strategic structures of the organization and the cognitive structures of the strategic actors, and the interaction between them, are neglected. The study presented in this article attends to both these dimensions. On a basis of longitudinal studies of strategic change in 10 groups of companies carried out between 1990 and 1995, two driving forces of particular importance to the strategic-change process are identified. These forces are the nature of the strategic situation at a certain point in time and the interaction between the objective and subjective spaces for action. The article looks at these two forces in strategic change and presents two examples illustrating the driving forces in operation. The contribution to the theory of strategic management and change, and the conclusions drawn from the study, ave discussed and summarized. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.