Research in strategy–structure–performance construct: Review of trends, paradigms and methodologies

With rising unpredictability of the business environment, the strategy–structure–performance construct is being questioned afresh. But cutting edge research evidence is still difficult to come by. One of the possible reasons is that few researchers are adopting new and innovative methodologies. This paper carries out a paradigmatic and methodological review of research on the topic for the last 10 years after classifying published research into three broad categories of enquiry. The study finds that contrary to expectations, the logical positivistic/empiricist paradigm of enquiry into the one way linear causality in the strategy–structure–performance relationship was still the favorite among researchers and may explain the lack of breakthrough contribution of recent research. This paper makes a case for more research on the challenging two-way causality using innovative designs and archival data, and suggests some future directions for research.