16435: Facts in Strategy: What Do We Know? What Do We Not Know?

Inspired by Hans Rosling’s work (Rosling, 2018), the symposium organizers have identified over two dozen salient “management facts.” These facts include simple statistical observations and correlations related to historically fundamental questions in the field (e.g., Rumelt, Schendel, and Teece, 1994) and well-cited research. For example, one of our current questions asks, “The study of competitive advantage implies significant variation in performance across firms. How did profitability, as measured by Return on Assets, vary among S&P 500 companies between 1999 and 2019?” Another question references the classic variance decomposition literature and asks, “The extent to which business, industry context, and corporate diversification choices affect firm performance is frequently debated. What percentage of variance in firm profitability is due to business, industry, and corporate effects in S&P 500 firms between 1999 and 2019?” We aim to assess whether and to what extent academics and practitioners agree on factual responses to these questions and discuss how any variation in responses affects the future of management research in organization theory, strategic management, and technology management. Prior to the annual meeting, we will survey a cross-section of academics (and possibly practitioners). We will use questions such as those listed above and, after each question, provide multiple-choice responses designed to gauge respondents' understanding of the relevant facts, empirical findings, and the variation in responses to the question prompt.