Relevant AOM Divisions/Interest Groups: STR, SAP, TIM, OMT, MC
This track invites theoretically rigorous and empirically grounded research that examines how service organisations formulate and enact strategy in increasingly complex, digitalised, and sustainability-driven environments. We welcome work that moves beyond static views of strategy to explore strategy as a situated, emergent, and practice-based phenomenon within hospitality, tourism, healthcare, retail, education, and professional service contexts, with particular relevance to hospitality and tourism enterprises navigating seasonality, climate risk, shifting tourist behaviour, digital platforms, and sustainability imperatives.
Illustrative Sub-Themes
- Strategy-as-practice and micro-strategizing in service settings, including the everyday activities, tools, routines, and sensemaking processes through which strategy is accomplished.
- Platform and ecosystem strategies in services, with attention to orchestration, complementor governance, value co-creation, and digital infrastructure.
- Dynamic capabilities, agility, and organisational resilience, particularly how service firms adapt to technological disruption, market volatility, and social–ecological uncertainty.
- Sustainable sources of competitive advantage, including the strategic integration of ESG imperatives, stakeholder pressures, and long-term value creation logics.
Indicative Research Questions
- How do strategizing practices unfold in real-time within service organisations?
- How do service firms design and govern platform-based and multi-actor ecosystems?
- What organisational capabilities enable sustained resilience under conditions of disruption and uncertainty?
- How do ESG pressures reshape competitive positioning, resource allocation, and advantage in service industries?