AIMS

Baum and Lampel address the emergence of research perspectives, alternatives to the current North American field which is considered dominant in strategic management today. As introduction, the editors present a narrative of the emergence of strategic management that defines its contours (objects, appropriate methods) and thus, gives it legitimacy. This narrative, which considers the 1977 Pittsburgh conference as a founding event for the field, contributes to the consecration of North American research, and with it a definition of strategy as a sequential process (formulation, implementation), an object to be studied using the canons of logical empiricism.
Yet, it is this relatively limited definition of strategic management, along with online access to European publications (in particular, Organization Studies, Journal of Management Studies) that gave rise to increasing research debate. As this growing debate is located outside North American borders, the publishers do not hesitate to speak of a “globalization of strategic management research”, despite the essentially European origins of the contributors.1
In order to justify the necessity of alternative perspectives, Baum and Lampel underline the variety of strategic discourse employed by the authors united in this work, yet also observe a certain fragmentation in the field of strategic management. This fragmentation would undermine dialogue among researchers, dialogue that this work intends to regenerate.