Pozisyon Okulu mu, Kaynaklara Dayalı Yaklaşım mı? Yöneticilerin Stratejik Konulara İlişkin Görüşleri Üzerine Nitel Bir Araştırma
Positioning School or Resource-Based Approach? A Qualitative Research on the Managers’ Views of Strategic Issues

Summary/Abstract: There has been an ongoing debate in the literature of strategic management about how to classify schools of thoughts in the first place and whether it is necessary to fragmentise, integrate or synthesise those schools in the second (Mintzberg, 1988; 1990; Volberda ve Elfring, 2001). Since the beginning of 2000’s an ostensibly consensus amongst scholars has been realized over this issue that the number of schools needed to be reduced and in many studies combining those schools into two main categories, i.e. the Positioning School (TPS) and the Resource-Based Approach (RBA) became mainstream attitude (Geyik, 2005; Herrmann, (2005). Depending on this background, this study aims to determine whether the managers, in their evaluation of strategic issues were akin to the arguments of the TPS or the RBA. For this end, after carrying out a literature review several research questions were developed:a) What content do managers ascribe to the term of strategy?b) Are the discourses of the managers close to the terminologies of TPS or the RBA?c) Do managers use a coherent strategic language when evaluating the strategic management process?d) Is it possible to make inferences from the statements of the managers in support of the attempts to integrate or synthesise TPS and the RBA?In this study a qualitative research approach which makes available to examine the phenomena in focus with a detailed inquiry is preferred (Berg, 2001; Flick, 2009). By using a purposive sampling technique six large-scale companies representing different industries were included into the research. Semi-structured face to face interviews were carried out with seven senior managers who had knowledge regarding the evolution of the companies from their establishment to the present day and are familiar with the strategic decisions were made during this period of time. The data were analysed in accordance with the views of TPO and the RBA by using a qualitative content analysis technique.Several findings were emerged depending on the analysis of the interviews: Firstly, it was evident that the managers attribute different contents and meanings to the strategic and managerial concepts. Secondly, while talking about strategic issues the managers tend to use a dual language the one which they gained from their formal education and the other one which they prefer in their daily professional routines. It is also understood that they tend to use some sophistic strategic terminology to impress the researchers by demonstrating that they are as much capable of using academic terminology as the researchers do. However, when they speak about their firms and real life strategic issues their language transforms to a jargon-like firm/industry specific professional discourse. Thirdly, managers’ formal statements are predominantly affected by the discourse of TPS as this schools’ views dominate the formal higher education business administration curriculums and the strategic management practices in the public and private sectors in Turkey. Finally, it was observed that for managers, desire of consistency in their managerial discourse was not an issue at all as they could easily switch their terminology and language between the views of TPS and the RBA. All in all, it was determined that the opinions of the managers are close to the arguments of TPS. Moreover, the language which the managers preferred was significantly affected by the opinions of TPS. However, it was also evident that in certain situations the managers tend to use a dual language and adopted the discourses of the both approaches. Hence, we suggest that this duality in managerial language should be scrutinized in the future studies. In addition, it was determined that the managers had developed a pragmatist perspective by prioritizing practical results rather than seeking consistency in their discourses.The findings of this study did not provide any concrete proofs to support or reject the arguments of integrating or synthesizing the views of TPS and the RBA. A partial inference can be made from the managers’ attitude of using both approaches’ arguments whenever they found it appropriate. Hence, if the practice comes before the theory then this finding might imply that by following the managerial practices the academics in the strategic management discipline will be able to synthesize the views of the different schools of thoughts and build a grand theory in the foreseen future. In the future studies, we suggest that the data obtained through semi-structured face to face interviews were insufficient to reveal the implicit meanings behind the formal expressions of the managers. For this reason, we strongly emphasise the need of using panel and follow up interviews in order to provide a longitudinal perspective and enrich the data sets that allow the researchers to figure out the implicit messages embedded into the formal statements.

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