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For decades, scholars have used the notion of "competency trap" to theorize how prior organizational competencies induce rigidity and stasis and thus serve as liabilities facing radical technological changes. I explore a counter pathway in which incumbent organizations' prior competencies, far from being liabilities, serve as core assets to address their adaptation challenges. I theorize this process through an in-depth historical case analysis of Japan-based multinational company Fujifilm, the only company from the analog photography industry to increase revenues since the triumph of the digital revolution by continuously entering non-photography markets. I relied on proprietary archival data and interviews to trace this transformation. The research uncovers antecedents and mechanisms facilitating this reorientation, emphasizing the dynamic reevaluation and flexible application of competencies in response to market changes. The study highlights the process of creating collective meanings of core competencies within firms and their consequences on subsequent social interactions, extending beyond the conventional focus on top management's cognitive decision-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The shareholder revolution dominant in the U.S. since the 1980s has been theorized to hamper innovation efforts, but R&D activities have become more prominent among U.S. businesses in the past few decades. This study offers a new explanation for this paradoxical surge of innovation efforts by distinguishing between two different innovation strategies—exploitation and exploration. We examined approximately 1.3 million patents filed by 4,420 U.S.-headquartered firms and their subsidiaries, representing about 50% of all utility patent grants of U.S. origin between 1980 and 2015. We dissect a clear, decade-spanning shift in firm orientation from explorative innovation to a more exploitative approach that capitalizes on existing knowledge—a trend echoing the growing influence of institutional investors. We theorize a mechanism of market coupling linking the market logics, institutional investors, and firm innovation strategies and suggest that quasi-indexed investors, such as indexed funds and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), are grave suspects of this historical transformation towards exploitation and away from exploration in the US. This highlights a need to rethink a model that promotes long-term, sustainable innovation crucial to the economy and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nationalism has become a major social and political issue in recent years, and its importance to strategic and managerial fabrics of organizations has never been greater. Organizational and strategy scholars have studied nationalism from diverse angles, but discussions have been fragmented, and an integrated perspective is to emerge. This symposium has two goals. The first goal is to showcase nationalism research in organizational theory, strategy, and international business to spark more studies on this increasingly important topic. The second goal is to aggregate these studies to understand better nationalism's effects on business organizations and broader corporate landscapes. Civic, economic, techno-nationalistic, and other nationalism topics will be discussed during this symposium. Furthermore, the latest research methodologies and analytical frameworks are brought together. This scholarly exchange at the forefront of nationalism research in management and strategy seeks to enhance our understanding of the ever-changing nationalism-business relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]