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Strategy Science June 2026 Issue

  • 1.  Strategy Science June 2026 Issue

    Posted 4 days ago

    Dear Friends of Strategy Science,
    I am pleased to share with you an outstanding June Issue of Strategy Science with six novel and insightful papers. As you are aware, Strategy Science welcomes impactful and accessible modeling papers. This issue begins with an insightful editorial from two of our editors about what it takes to generate an effective modeling paper. The issue additionally features a paper that makes clever use of machine learning to analyze shareholder communications, a paper that explores how aggregating imperfect individual mental models yields distributed representations that overcome individual limits, a paper exploring how firms herd to protect their reputations at the expense of performance, another paper that documents how the advent of broadband paradoxically elevated the survival of small brick and mortal retailers, and a paper exploring how firms deliberately confuse customers to enable industry wide price increases. All told this issue highlights what we value most at Strategy Science - new ideas, insightful theory, novel data. Enjoy!

    The Five Essentials of a Modeling Paper

    by Phebo D. Wibbens and Tobias Kretschmer

    This Strategy Science editorial draws on many years of experience in reviewing and editing modeling papers to provide specific guidance on how to develop an effective and impactful modeling contribution.

    What Drives Employee Strategic Salience in Shareholder Communications? A Machine Learning Approach

    by Nandil Bhatia and Stephan Meier

    Using machine learning on shareholder communications, authors show that employees lag customers and shareholders in strategic salience, but that employee salience rose during the Covid-19 pandemic and exhibits systematic variation across organizational and market contexts.

    The Power and Limits of Distributed Representations in Strategic Decision Making

    by Felipe A. Csaszar and Luke Rhee

    Unlock organizational superpowers. New theory shows how aggregating imperfect mental models creates "distributed representations" that transcend individual limits, offering a blueprint for smarter strategy in uncertain times.

    Unpacking the Conditions of Reputational Herding: Implications and Evidence

     by Liyue Yan

    Decision makers sometimes herd with others to protect their own reputation rather than to enhance the firm's performance. This behavior arises when clear pay-for-performance incentives are absent and when audiences expect true experts to share similar information and opinions. A strong, proven reputation reduces this moral hazard, as does the belief that experts can differ due to information noise.

    Online Information and Offline Competition: The Emergence of Broadband Internet and Brick-and-Mortar Retailer Survival

    by Manav Raj

    This research demonstrates that broadband internet availability (1999–2008) decreased retailer exit by reducing discovery-related search costs, significantly benefiting young, independent, and urban businesses previously facing high visibility barriers.

    Strategic Confusopoly: Evidence from the UK Mobile Telecommunications Market

    by Ambre Elsas-NicolleChristos Genakos, and Tobias Kretschmer

    Firms in competitive, mature markets may strategically introduce complex, dominated products to confuse consumers, reducing transparency and enabling industry-wide price increases, suggesting obfuscation can be a deliberate supply-side strategy.

    Please enjoy these papers and share them with your colleagues.  Also, please connect with us on LinkedIn or follow us on X.


    Sincerely,

    Todd Zenger
    Editor-in-Chief



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    Todd Zenger
    The University of Utah
    Salt Lake City UT
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