Following the Herd or Not? Patterns of Renewal in the Netherlands and the UK

How do large firms conduct their strategic renewal journeys in an increasingly turbulent environment? Are there generic industry patterns, or are these renewal journeys country- or firm-specific? To answer these questions, we examine the relative incidence of external versus internal and explorative versus exploitative renewal actions, and their speed, in leading Dutch and UK financial service companies using longitudinal data. The context, content and process dimensions of strategic renewal are distinguished, and research questions about these attributes are formulated and investigated using new metrics. Findings show that while exploration/exploitation ratios are fairly similar for firms across the entire industry, systematic differences are evident between the external/internal renewal ratios of Dutch and UK firms, and that speed of renewal is largely determined at the firm level. Thus we find that industry-, country- and firm-specific factors all influence journeys of strategic renewal in distinctive and complementary ways.

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