Strategic Reality Today: Extraordinary Past Success, but Difficult Challenges Loom

After quickly reviewing the early history and the subsequent extraordinary success of Strategic Management, we suggest that research in our field today shows signs of settling into a premature institutional equilibrium regarding some vital issues. This equilibrium is inconsistent with strategic reality today on important topical and methodological imperatives the field faces. We suggest that these “strategic realities” must be extensively and thoroughly addressed to ensure our continued success in the future. We also suggest addressing these realities is key to improving our research efforts and their managerial usefulness as we move forward in a rapidly changing world. In other words, they represent important research challenges the business and academic environments present us today. We assert that substantial progress on any subset of these strategic realities over the next 20 years could be an important step toward continued success of our field. We also note that such progress will likely be very difficult.