Strategic Management Journal

Strat. Mgmt. J., 38: 3 (2017)

Published online EarlyView in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/smj.2606
Received 24 October 2016

INTRODUCTION

REVIEWS OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT RESEARCH

SENDIL K. ETHIRAJ,1 ALFONSO GAMBARDELLA,2 and
CONSTANCE E. HELFAT3*
1
Strategy and Entrepreneurship Area, London Business School, London, U.K.
2
Department of Management & Technology, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy
3
Strategy and Management Group, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, Hanover,
New Hampshire, U.S.A.

SMJ welcomes high-quality reviews of strategic management research that not only synthesize
existing research, but also seek to stimulate new research. As the field of strategic management
has matured, many new research streams and perspectives have emerged. Reviews contribute
to greater shared understanding and can promote cross-fertilization across different streams of
research. Copyright 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Reviews of prior literature serve an important
purpose of integrating often disparate research con-
versations. But effective reviews go furtherthey
add to the literature by providing fresh perspec-
tives and identifying potentially fruitful avenues
for future research. SMJ welcomes high-quality
reviews of strategic management research that not
only synthesize existing research, but also seek to
stimulate new research.
This special issue on Reviews of Strategic Man-
agement Research showcases high-quality reviews
of several different literatures. As the special issue
editors indicate in their introductory article, each
of the reviews helps to integrate and push for-
ward research in one or more of the following
ways by: integrating multiple theoretical streams of
research, reconciling different views of the same
phenomena, applying a single theoretical approach
to separate but related phenomena, extending and
combining existing knowledge to analyze new
phenomena, and building more precise and system-
atic theory.
Keywords: research reviews; review articles
*Correspondence to: Constance E. Helfat, Tuck School of Busi-
ness at Dartmouth, 100 Tuck Hall, Hanover, NH 03755, U.S.A.
E-mail: constance.helfat@dartmouth.edu
As the field of strategic management has
matured, many new perspectives and streams of
research have emerged. Reviews such as those
in this special issue can help to promote shared
understanding of different research trajectories,
and provide a basis for bringing different streams
of research into closer contact. Cross-fertilization
across different areas of research, if realized, may
promote not only shared interests but also new
understanding of the many facets of strategic
management.
In their introductory article to this special issue,
the guest editors provide a thoughtful analysis
of the state of the field of strategic management
and the importance of retaining a core identity, even
as the field benefits from a diversity of perspectives.
Reviews clearly have a role to play in facilitating
coherence. We are grateful to the editors of this
special issue for the very large amount of effort
that they put in, from working through the nearly
200 proposal submissions, to handling the many
full paper submissions, to bringing the special
issue to completion. Building on their work, SMJ
intends to publish high quality review articles on
a regular basis, and is looking forward to your
submissions.

Copyright 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.