Management Review ›› 2022, Vol. 34 ›› Issue (5): 202-217.

• Organization and Strategic Management • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Context Awareness and Phase Shift of Strategic Logic: The Evolution Path of Enterprise Innovation Choice in Emerging Field

Han Wenhai1, Su Jingqin2   

  1. 1. School of Management, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300384;
    2. School of Economics and Management, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024
  • Received:2020-02-13 Online:2022-05-28 Published:2022-06-17

Abstract: The particularity of China's transition economy context and the pattern of enterprise innovation behaviors in emerging field are important issues of "China Management Theory". By analyzing the strategic logic differences caused by context-awareness with the case study of DIDI, this research aims at revealing the innovation choice evolution curve of enterprises in emerging field under the background of transition economy. First, under the background of transition economy, the context awareness of enterprises derives from the embedding degree of state logic and market logic in the field. Second, according to the logic embedding degree, external context awareness can be subdivided into four stages:"technology embedding", "market embedding", "institutional embedding" and "dynamic embedding". Thirdly, different stage of context awareness leads to "phase shift" of strategic logic in psursuit of consistence between strategy and context. The "phase shift" of strategic logic influences the innovation choice in the four stages, which follows the evolution path from "capability logic" to "complexity logic" to "guerrilla logic" and to "hybrid logic". In addition, this research also recommends the concept of "Post-Lewin Change" to explain the evolution mechanism of innovation choice:through the spontaneous strategic change of "unfreezing-changing-refreezing-unfreezing", enterprises can lead, adapt to or prevent the context change, and maintain the consistency of strategic logic and strategic context. This research provides insightful reference for the industry governance of emerging fields in the context of China's transition economy, and the innovation and entrepreneurship management of Internet enterprises in the context of Big Data. By focusing on the rarely involved state logic, in the existing studies of institutional logic, this research reveals the particularity of China's transition economic context compared to western countries, and the key role of state logic influence in the evolution of innovation choice.

Key words: context awareness, phase shift, state logic, market logic, strategic logic