Strategy and Technology Management
About us
The Strategy and Technology Management (STM) Research Cluster focuses on issues that sit at the interface between the use of technology within organisations and the implications that those technologies can have. Researchers in this cluster are considering questions such as:
- What is the role of technology in forming and implementing strategies?
- How do socio-technical systems fail catastrophically and generate organisational crises in the process?
- What are challenges associated with the management of digital transformations within organisations?
- How do technological standards emerge?
- What are the design processes around new business models?
We have a strong commitment to co-producing research aims, questions, contexts and possible outcomes through dialogue with the potential end users of the research. We have developed strong links with a range of appropriate professional bodies and communities of practice. We conduct our research in a variety of settings, including science enterprises, established multi-nationals, high-tech growth ventures, and the public sector.
From a teaching perspective, we ensure that our focus is research-led and in line with the school’s overarching aim of being a research-led and professionally focused business school.
Related links
Impact and engagement
Learn more about ou projects and activities
Professor John Crawford is the Science Director for the Global Soil Health Programme that brings together a consortium of multinational organisations to implement a global framework for the improvement of soil health and the sequestration of carbon in soils. The programme, driven by a strategic partnership between the University of Glasgow and the University of Sydney, aims to deliver soil health at scale in the next 10 years. This will be achieved through a country-by-country coordination by partnering with the UN Global Soil Partnership, connecting the demand and supply sides of the carbon markets across north and south hemispheres. The programme is generating a new and potentially significant supply of nature-based carbon offsets, whilst delivering significant co-benefits related to emissions reduction, biodiversity, and the security of water and food. Professor Denis Fischbacher-Smith is delivering a risk and resilience perspective and providing systems-based expertise to the programme.
Cluster members are active in Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs), a funding scheme that helps UK-based businesses innovate and grow. Dr Stephan von Delft is currently working with Professor Neil Hawkins (Institute of Health and Wellbeing) and Professor Karin Oien (Institute of Cancer Sciences) to assist a Glasgow-based research, development and services lab. The researchers are designing new business models for precision medicine and drug discovery technologies. Dr von Delft previously collaborated with a Scottish insurance broker to develop a new business model for the firm. Both projects received funding from Innovate UK. If you are interested in collaborating with our researchers, please contact our Connections with Practice Team for further information.
Related links
- Dr Stephan von Delft
- Connections with Practice Team
- KTP guidance
- Research paper: Business models in process industries: emerging trends and future research (2021)
- Research paper: The evolution of platform business models: exploring competitive battles in the world of platforms (2020)
- Research paper: Leveraging global sources of knowledge for business model innovation (2019)
Strategic change is as much art as science and can be regarded as a form of social poetry. Professor Donald MacLean’s research focuses on deepening our understanding of how stories and storytelling have played, still play, and could play in organisational life. Specifically, the research explores the role of 21st Century, digitally-enabled storytelling in forming and transforming strategy and strategic behaviour. The research is highly experiential action-research and conducted with a range of partner organisations including a schools membership association in Australia, a UK government science body, public-sector partnerships and community groups.
The concept of medical populism has gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic. It refers to a particular style in which politicians and elected officials without any formal training or expertise respond to health-related crises by contradicting the established expert views of the problem. Professor Denis Fischbacher-Smith has examined this issue through the management and measurement of uncertainty and the role of expertise within an environment of medical populism. His findings highlight concerns about the extent to which trust in state-based organisations and established expert judgement has been eroded over time. It builds on previous work dealing with the role of expertise within policy making around issues of radical uncertainty. In addition, Professor Fischbacher-Smith is also collaborating with colleagues outside of the university in an investigation of the perceptions that different groups hold about the hazards associated with the COVID vaccine.
Publications
2025
Yang, W., Luo, S., Miller, D., Lin, H.-C. (2025) Top management team means-ends diversity and competitive dynamics. Industrial Marketing Management,
2024
Adekola, J., Chia, R. (2024) Stakeholder theory, public engagement, and epistemic injustice: the case of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Scotland’s African, Caribbean, and Black communities. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 15, pp. 552-564. (doi: 10.1007/s13753-024-00572-8)
2023
Zhou, Q., Dekkers, R., Chia, R. (2023) Are James March’s ‘exploration’ and ‘exploitation’ separable? Revisiting the dichotomy in the context of innovation management. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 192, (doi: 10.1016/j.techfore.2023.122592)
Chia, R., Holt, R. (2023) Strategy, intentionality and success: four logics for explaining strategic action. Organization Theory, 4, pp. 1-25. (doi: 10.1177/26317877231186436)
Chia, R. C.H., Mackay, D. (2023) Strategy-In-Practices: A Process-Philosophical Perspective on Strategy-Making. Cambridge University Press
Yuan, L., Chia, R., Gosling, J. (2023) Confucian virtue ethics and ethical leadership in modern China. Journal of Business Ethics, 182, pp. 110-133. (doi: 10.1007/s10551-021-05026-5)
2022
Valentinov, V., Chia, R. (2022) Stakeholder theory: a process-ontological perspective. Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility, 31, pp. 762-776. (doi: 10.1111/beer.12441)
Chia, R., Rasche, A. (2022) Epistemological alternatives for researching strategy as practice: building and dwelling worldviews. Cambridge University Press
2021
MacKay, B., Chia, R., Nair, A. K. (2021) Strategy-in-practices: a process philosophical approach to understanding strategy emergence and organizational outcomes. Human Relations, 74, pp. 1337-1369. (doi: 10.1177/0018726720929397)
2020
Yang, W., Meyer, K. E. (2020) How do local and foreign firms compete? Competitive actions in an emerging economy. International Business Review, 29, (doi: 10.1016/j.ibusrev.2020.101689)
Nayak, A., Chia, R., Canales, I. (2020) Noncognitive microfoundations: understanding dynamic capabilities as idiosyncractically refined sensitivities and predispositions. Academy of Management Review, 45, pp. 280-303. (doi: 10.5465/amr.2016.0253)
2019
Chia, R. (2019) Becoming a learning organisation: A process-philosophical perspective. Oxford University Press
Yang, W., Meyer, K. E. (2019) Alliance proactiveness and firm performance in an emerging economy. Industrial Marketing Management, 82, pp. 226-237. (doi: 10.1016/j.indmarman.2019.01.010)
Yang, W., Meyer, K. E. (2019) How does ownership influence business growth? A competitive dynamics perspective. International Business Review, 28, (doi: 10.1016/j.ibusrev.2018.02.009)
Chia, R. (2019) Before and beyond paradigms in organization studies: back to the ‘rough ground’ Studi di Sociologia, 2019, pp. 57-68. (doi: 10.26350/000309_000051)
Bouty, I., Gomez, M.-L., Chia, R. (2019) Strategy emergence as wayfinding. Management, 22, pp. 438-465.
2018
Yang, W., Meyer, K. E. (2018) Ownership, Competitive Actions and Business Growth.
Yang, W., Meyer, K. E. (2018) How Does Ownership Influence Competitive Actions and Business Growth?
Zhou, Q., Dekkers, R., Chia, R. (2018) How Ambidextrous Are They Actually? An Empirical Test of Exploration and Exploitation as Innovation Capabilities Using Data Envelopment Analysis.
Yang, W., Meyer, K. E. (2018) How Do Local and Foreign Firms Compete? Liability of Foreignness and Competitive Actions under Institutional Voids.
Ferri, P., Gibb, A., Karlsson, P. S., Keenan, P. (2018) Revisiting the one-minute paper in the digital age [blog post]
2017
Chia, R., Nayak, A. (2017) Circumventing the logic and limits of representation: Otherness in east-west approaches to paradox approaches. Oxford University Press
Ferri, P., Karlsson, P.S., Gibb, A., Keenan, P. (2017) Revisiting the One Minute Paper: Analogue Thinking in the Digital Age.
Yang, W., Meyer, K. (2017) Does Private Ownership Always Outperform State Ownership? A Competitive Dynamics Explanation.
Ferri, P., Karlsson, P., Gibb, A., Keenan, P. (2017) Feedback to Improve Teaching - the 1-Minute Paper.
Chia, R. (2017) A process-philosophical understanding of organizational learning as 'wayfinding': process, practices and sensitivity to environmental affordances. Learning Organization, 24, pp. 107-118. (doi: 10.1108/TLO-11-2016-0083)
Yang, W., Lu, X. (2017) Joint venture board structure and firm performance. Research on Economics and Management, 38, pp. 105-112.
2016
Chia, R., Nayak, A. (2016) The art of relevation/revelation: a Whiteheadian approach to management education. Routledge
Bosma, B., Chia, R., Fouweather, I. (2016) Radical learning through semantic transformation capitalizing on novelty. Management Learning, 47, pp. 14-27. (doi: 10.1177/1350507615602480)
Yang, W. (2016) Chinese Strategic Management Research Annual Meeting.
Yang, W. (2016) Doctoral & Junior Faculty Workshop.
Zhou, Q., Dekkers, R., Chia, R. (2016) Exploration and Exploitation: Separable? A Critical Study of This Assumption in The Context of Innovation Management.
Chia, R. (2016) Process, practices, and organizational competitiveness: understanding dynamic capabilities through a process philosophical worldview. SAGE Publications