A multi-level dialectical-paradox lens for top management team strategic decision-making in a corporate venture

Abstract

This paper aims to critique the process of corporate-owned, high-tech start-up strategizing through an inductive, longitudinal, case study of ‘UK-Research-Tech’. Insights are given through the combined ‘dialectical–paradox’ concept, thereby focusing on where ‘dialectic’ and ‘paradox’ theorizing overlap. This linked iterative, ‘dialogical–dialectic’ research approach also reflects chief executive officer/top management team (CEO/TMT) start-up dynamics over time. These foci fill important gaps that impede better understanding of dialectical, dialogical and paradoxical forces within strategic decision-making. As an interpretative tool, they illuminate CEO/TMT strategizing and changing interrelationships affected by broader, volatile, techno-economic contexts and parent-company influences on ventures. In this case study, it was found that the CEO's relatively autocratic, parent-framed approach combined with TMT members' contradictory reactions to create ‘dialectical–paradox’ oppositional forces, eventually only resolved through ‘eleventh hour’ business strategy changes to rescue the venture. This research contributes to more nuanced understandings of corporate-constrained ventures during early business development from start-up strategic decisions at parent-company level to subsequent conditions of more independent dynamic equilibrium. The ‘dialectical–paradox’ conceptual lens contributes an innovative critique of processes affecting strategic decision-making dynamics. Another important contribution is the empirically inspired conceptual model, developed for use both to guide subsequent case-study research analyses and as a reflective tool for CEO/TMT strategic decision-making, especially within corporate-inspired start-ups.

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ORCID for Laura Costanzo: orcid.org/0000-0002-7197-6778

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