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How to Write an “Implications of Research” Section

4-minute read

• 24th October 2022

When writing research papers , theses, journal articles, or dissertations, one cannot ignore the importance of research. You’re not only the writer of your paper but also the researcher ! Moreover, it’s not just about researching your topic, filling your paper with abundant citations, and topping it off with a reference list. You need to dig deep into your research and provide related literature on your topic. You must also discuss the implications of your research.

Interested in learning more about implications of research? Read on! This post will define these implications, why they’re essential, and most importantly, how to write them. If you’re a visual learner, you might enjoy this video .

What Are Implications of Research?

Implications are potential questions from your research that justify further exploration. They state how your research findings could affect policies, theories, and/or practices.

Implications can either be practical or theoretical. The former is the direct impact of your findings on related practices, whereas the latter is the impact on the theories you have chosen in your study.

Example of a practical implication: If you’re researching a teaching method, the implication would be how teachers can use that method based on your findings.

Example of a theoretical implication: You added a new variable to Theory A so that it could cover a broader perspective.

Finally, implications aren’t the same as recommendations, and it’s important to know the difference between them .

Questions you should consider when developing the implications section:

●  What is the significance of your findings?

●  How do the findings of your study fit with or contradict existing research on this topic?

●  Do your results support or challenge existing theories? If they support them, what new information do they contribute? If they challenge them, why do you think that is?

Why Are Implications Important?

You need implications for the following reasons:

● To reflect on what you set out to accomplish in the first place

● To see if there’s a change to the initial perspective, now that you’ve collected the data

● To inform your audience, who might be curious about the impact of your research

How to Write an Implications Section

Usually, you write your research implications in the discussion section of your paper. This is the section before the conclusion when you discuss all the hard work you did. Additionally, you’ll write the implications section before making recommendations for future research.

Implications should begin with what you discovered in your study, which differs from what previous studies found, and then you can discuss the implications of your findings.

Your implications need to be specific, meaning you should show the exact contributions of your research and why they’re essential. They should also begin with a specific sentence structure.

Examples of starting implication sentences:

●  These results build on existing evidence of…

●  These findings suggest that…

●  These results should be considered when…

●  While previous research has focused on x , these results show that y …

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You should write your implications after you’ve stated the results of your research. In other words, summarize your findings and put them into context.

The result : One study found that young learners enjoy short activities when learning a foreign language.

The implications : This result suggests that foreign language teachers use short activities when teaching young learners, as they positively affect learning.

 Example 2

The result : One study found that people who listen to calming music just before going to bed sleep better than those who watch TV.

The implications : These findings suggest that listening to calming music aids sleep quality, whereas watching TV does not.

To summarize, remember these key pointers:

●  Implications are the impact of your findings on the field of study.

●  They serve as a reflection of the research you’ve conducted.              

●  They show the specific contributions of your findings and why the audience should care.

●  They can be practical or theoretical.

●  They aren’t the same as recommendations.

●  You write them in the discussion section of the paper.

●  State the results first, and then state their implications.

Are you currently working on a thesis or dissertation? Once you’ve finished your paper (implications included), our proofreading team can help ensure that your spelling, punctuation, and grammar are perfect. Consider submitting a 500-word document for free.

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• Manuscript Preparation

What are Implications in Research?

• 3 minute read
• 89.4K views

Table of Contents

Manuscripts that do not mention the implications of the study are often desk-rejected by journals. What constitutes the ‘implications’ of research, and why is it important to include research implications in your manuscript?

Research implications: An overview

Once you have laid out the key findings in your paper, you have to discuss how they will likely impact the world. What is the significance of your study to policymakers, the lay person, or other researchers? This speculation, made in good faith, constitutes your study’ implications.

A research paper that does not explain the study’s importance in light of its findings exists in a vacuum. The paper may be relevant to you, the author, and some of your co-workers. But it is unclear how others will benefit from reading it.

How can the findings of your study help create a better world? What can we infer from your conclusion about the current state of research in your field or the quality of methods you employed? These are all important implications of your study.

You cannot predict how your study will influence the world or research in the future. You can only make reasonable speculations. In order to ensure that the implications are reasonable, you have to be mindful of the limitations of your study.

In the research context, only speculations supported by data count as valid implications. If the implications you draw do not logically follow the key findings of your study, they may sound overblown or outright preposterous.

Suppose your study evaluated the effects of a new drug in the adult population. In that case, you could not honestly speculate on how the drug will impact paediatric care. Thus, the implications you draw from your study cannot exceed its scope.

Practical implications

Imagine that your study found a popular type of cognitive therapy to be ineffective in treating insomnia. Your findings imply that psychologists using this type of therapy were not seeing actual results but an expectancy effect. Studies that can potentially impact real-world problems by prompting policy change or change in treatments have practical implications.

It can be helpful to understand the difference between an implication of your study and a recommendation. Suppose your study compares two or more types of therapy, ranks them in the order of effectiveness, and explicitly asks clinicians to follow the most effective type. The suggestion made in the end constitutes a ‘recommendation’ and not an ‘implication’.

Theoretical implications

Are your findings in line with previous research? Did your results validate the methods used in previous research or invalidate them? Has your study discovered a new and helpful way to do experiments? Speculations on how your findings can potentially impact research in your field of study are theoretical implications.

The main difference between practical and theoretical implications is that theoretical implications may not be readily helpful to policymakers or the public.

How to Write Implications in Research

Implications usually form an essential part of the conclusion section of a research paper. As we have mentioned in a previous article, this section starts by summarising your work, but this time emphasises your work’s significance .

While writing the implications, it is helpful to ask, “who will benefit the most from reading my paper?”—policymakers, physicians, the public, or other researchers. Once you know your target population, explain how your findings can help them.

Think about how the findings in your study are similar or dissimilar to the findings of previous studies. Your study may reaffirm or disprove the results of other studies. This is an important implication.

Suggest future directions for research in the subject area in light of your findings or further research to confirm your findings. These are also crucial implications.

Do not try to exaggerate your results, and make sure your tone reflects the strength of your findings. If the implications mentioned in your paper are convincing, it can improve visibility for your work and spur similar studies in your field.

For more information on the importance of implications in research, and guidance on how to include them in your manuscript, visit Elsevier Author Services now!

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Implications in research: A quick guide

Last updated

11 January 2024

Reviewed by

Implications are a bridge between data and action, giving insight into the effects of the research and what it means. It's a chance for researchers to explain the  why  behind the research. 

When writing a research paper, reviewers will want to see you clearly state the implications of your research. If it's missing, they’ll likely reject your article. 

Let's explore what research implications are, why they matter, and how to include them in your next article or research paper. 

• What are implications in research?

Research implications are the consequences of research findings. They go beyond results and explore your research’s ramifications. 

Researchers can connect their research to the real-world impact by identifying the implications. These can inform further research, shape policy, or spark new solutions to old problems. 

Always clearly state your implications so they’re obvious to the reader. Never leave the reader to guess why your research matters. While it might seem obvious to you, it may not be evident to someone who isn't a subject matter expert. 

For example, you may do important sociological research with political implications. If a policymaker can't understand or connect those implications logically with your research, it reduces your impact.

• What are the key features of implications?

When writing your implications, ensure they have these key features: 

Implications should be clear, concise, and easily understood by a broad audience. You'll want to avoid overly technical language or jargon. Clearly stating your implications increases their impact and accessibility. 

Implications should link to specific results within your research to ensure they’re grounded in reality. You want them to demonstrate an impact on a particular field or research topic. 

Evidence-based

Give your implications a solid foundation of evidence. They need to be rational and based on data from your research, not conjecture. An evidence-based approach to implications will lend credibility and validity to your work.

Implications should take a balanced approach, considering the research's potential positive and negative consequences. A balanced perspective acknowledges the challenges and limitations of research and their impact on stakeholders. 

Future-oriented

Don't confine your implications to their immediate outcomes. You can explore the long-term effects of the research, including the impact on future research, policy decisions, and societal changes. Looking beyond the immediate adds more relevance to your research. 

When your implications capture these key characteristics, your research becomes more meaningful, impactful, and engaging. 

• Types of implications in research

The implications of your research will largely depend on what you are researching. 

However, we can broadly categorize the implications of research into two types: 

Practical: These implications focus on real-world applications and could improve policies and practices.

Theoretical: These implications are broader and might suggest changes to existing theories of models of the world. 

You'll first consider your research's implications in these two broad categories. Will your key findings have a real-world impact? Or are they challenging existing theories? 

Once you've established whether the implications are theoretical or practical, you can break your implication into more specific types. This might include: 

Political implications: How findings influence governance, policies, or political decisions

Social implications: Effects on societal norms, behaviors, or cultural practices

Technological implications: Impact on technological advancements or innovation

Clinical implications: Effects on healthcare, treatments, or medical practices

Commercial or business-relevant implications: Possible strategic paths or actions

Implications for future research: Guidance for future research, such as new avenues of study or refining the study methods

When thinking about the implications of your research, keep them clear and relevant. Consider the limitations and context of your research. 

For example, if your study focuses on a specific population in South America, you may not be able to claim the research has the same impact on the global population. The implication may be that we need further research on other population groups. 

• Understanding recommendations vs. implications

While "recommendations" and "implications" may be interchangeable, they have distinct roles within research.

Recommendations suggest action. They are specific, actionable suggestions you could take based on the research. Recommendations may be a part of the larger implication. 

Implications explain consequences. They are broader statements about how the research impacts specific fields, industries, institutions, or societies. 

Within a paper, you should always identify your implications before making recommendations. 

While every good research paper will include implications of research, it's not always necessary to include recommendations. Some research could have an extraordinary impact without real-world recommendations. 

• How to write implications in research

Including implications of research in your article or journal submission is essential. You need to clearly state your implications to tell the reviewer or reader why your research matters. 

Because implications are so important, writing them can feel overwhelming.

Here’s our step-by-step guide to make the process more manageable:

1. Summarize your key findings

Start by summarizing your research and highlighting the key discoveries or emerging patterns. This summary will become the foundation of your implications. 

2. Identify the implications

Think critically about the potential impact of your key findings. Consider how your research could influence practices, policies, theories, or societal norms. 

Address the positive and negative implications, and acknowledge the limitations and challenges of your research. 

If you still need to figure out the implications of your research, reread your introduction. Your introduction should include why you’re researching the subject and who might be interested in the results. This can help you consider the implications of your final research. 

3. Consider the larger impact

Go beyond the immediate impact and explore the implications on stakeholders outside your research group. You might include policymakers, practitioners, or other researchers.

4. Support with evidence

Cite specific findings from your research that support the implications. Connect them to your original thesis statement. 

You may have included why this research matters in your introduction, but now you'll want to support that implication with evidence from your research. 

Your evidence may result in implications that differ from the expected impact you cited in the introduction of your paper or your thesis statement. 

5. Review for clarity

Review your implications to ensure they are clear, concise, and jargon-free. Double-check that your implications link directly to your research findings and original thesis statement. 

Following these steps communicates your research implications effectively, boosting its long-term impact. 

Where do implications go in your research paper?

Implications often appear in the discussion section of a research paper between the presentation of findings and the conclusion. 

Putting them here allows you to naturally transition from the key findings to why the research matters. You'll be able to convey the larger impact of your research and transition to a conclusion.

• Examples of research implications

Thinking about and writing research implications can be tricky. 

To spark your critical thinking skills and articulate implications for your research, here are a few hypothetical examples of research implications: 

Teaching strategies

A study investigating the effectiveness of a new teaching method might have practical implications for educators. 

The research might suggest modifying current teaching strategies or changing the curriculum’s design. 

There may be an implication for further research into effective teaching methods and their impact on student testing scores. 

Social media impact

A research paper examines the impact of social media on teen mental health. 

Researchers find that spending over an hour on social media daily has significantly worse mental health effects than 15 minutes. 

There could be theoretical implications around the relationship between technology and human behavior. There could also be practical implications in writing responsible social media usage guidelines. 

Disease prevalence

A study analyzes the prevalence of a particular disease in a specific population. 

The researchers find this disease occurs in higher numbers in mountain communities. This could have practical implications on policy for healthcare allocation and resource distribution. 

There may be an implication for further research into why the disease appears in higher numbers at higher altitudes.

These examples demonstrate the considerable range of implications that research can generate.

Clearly articulating the implications of research allows you to enhance the impact and visibility of your work as a researcher. It also enables you to contribute to societal advancements by sharing your knowledge.

The implications of your work could make positive changes in the world around us.

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What Are Implications in Research? | Examples & Tips

As a researcher, you know you need to provide a background for your study and a clear rationale and to formulate the statement of the problem in a way that leaves no doubt that your work is relevant and important. You also need to guide the reader carefully through your story from beginning to end without leaving any methodological questions unanswered. 

But many authors, when arriving at the end of their paper, run out of steam or lose the thread a bit and struggle with finding an ending for their work. Something can then appear missing, even if the discussion section summarizes the findings clearly, relates them back to the questions raised in the introduction section , and discusses them in the context of earlier works. A tired author who just made it to the end can often not see these missing elements and may finish off their paper with a conclusion section that is more or less a repetition of what has already been stated. After all, what more is there to be said? 

But as sure as the sun will rise again the day after you finally submitted, you will get your paper back from your supervisor or the reviewers with a comment that says, “implications are missing.” For a reader who is not as invested in every little detail of your design and analyses, the main questions that a paper has to answer are “why was this study necessary?” and “why are the findings of this study significant, and for whom, and what are we supposed to do with them now?” The latter are the implications of your work. 

Didn’t I explain the implications in my introduction section?

You will hopefully have already explained why and for whom your study is important. But you now also need to clearly state how you think your actual findings (which might differ from what you expected to find at the beginning) may be relevant and/or can be used in practical or theoretical ways, for future research, or by policymakers. These implications need to be based on your study’s parameters and results, and potential limitations of your methodology or sample should be taken into account to avoid overgeneralization. 

If you make the reader guess what the significance of your work might be or let them assume you don’t think that your work will be important for anyone except yourself and your colleagues who share your enthusiasm because they are working on the same topic, then an editor or reviewer might easily see that as a reason for a desk-reject. To avoid this, in the following, we will give you an overview of the different types of implications that research findings can have, provide some examples for your inspiration, and clarify where your implications should go in your paper. 

Table of Contents:

• Types of Implications in Research

Recommendations Versus Implications 

• Research Implications Examples 
• Where Do the Implications Go in Your paper?

Types of Implications in Research 

Depending on the type of research you are doing (clinical, philosophical, political…) the implications of your findings can likewise be clinical, philosophical, political, social, ethical—you name it. The most important distinction, however, is the one between practical implications and theoretical implications, and what many reviewers immediately notice and flag as an issue is when there is no mention of any kind of practical contribution of the work described in a paper. 

Of course, if you study a mathematical theory, then your findings might simply lead to the debunking of another theory as false, and you might need to do some mental gymnastics if you really wanted to apply that to a real-world problem. But chances are, in that case, your reviewers and readers won’t ask for a real-world implication. In most other cases, however, if you really want to convince your audience that your work deserves attention, publication, prizes, and whatnot, then you need to link whatever you did in the lab or found in the library to real life and highlight how your findings might have a lasting effect on your field (for example, methodologically), common practices (e.g., patient treatment or teaching standards), society at large (maybe the way we communicate), or ethical standards (e.g., in animal research). 

The question is not whether your findings will change the world, but whether they could if they were publicized and implemented—according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary , the essential meaning of implication is a “possible future effect or result”. This possible result is what you have to identify and describe. And while being creative is certainly allowed, make sure your assumptions stay within realistic expectations, and don’t forget to take the limitations of your methodology or your sample into account. 

If you studied the genetic basis of a disease in some animal model, then make sure you have good reason to draw conclusions about the treatment of the same disease in humans if you don’t want to put off the editor who decides whether to even send your manuscript out for review. Likewise, if you explored the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on higher education institutions in your country, then make sure the conclusions you draw hold in the context of other countries’ pandemic situations and restrictions and differences across education systems before you claim that they are relevant in a global context. 

Implications, as we already explored, state the importance of your study and how your findings may be relevant for the fine-tuning of certain practices, theoretical models, policymaking, or future research studies. As stated earlier, that does not necessarily mean that you believe your findings will change the world tomorrow, but that you have reason to believe they could have an impact in a specific way. Recommendations, on the other hand, are specific suggestions regarding the best course of action in a certain situation based on your findings. If, for example, you used three different established methods in your field to tackle the same problem, compared the outcomes, and concluded that one of these methods is, in fact, insufficient and should not be used anymore, then that is a recommendation for future research. 

Or if you analyzed how a monetary “Corona support program” in your country affected the local economy and found that most of the money the government provided went to Amazon and not to local businesses, then you can recommend that your government come up with a better plan next time. Such specific recommendations should usually follow the implications, not the other way around, because you always need to identify the implications of your work, but not every study allows the author to make practical suggestions or real-world recommendations.

Research Implications Examples

Clinical implications  .

Let’s say you discovered a new antibiotic that could eliminate a specific pathogen effectively without generating resistance (the main problem with antibiotics). The clinical implications of your findings would then be that infections with this pathogen could be more rapidly treated than before (without you predicting or suggesting any specific action to happen as a result of your findings). A recommendation would be that doctors should start using this new antibiotic, that it should be included in the official treatment guidelines, that it should be covered by the national health insurance of your country, etc.—but depending on how conclusive your findings are or how much more research or development might be needed to get from your findings to the actual medication, such recommendations might be a big stretch. The implications, however, since they state the potential of your findings, are valid in any case and should not be missing from your discussion section, even if your findings are just one small step along the way.

Social implications 

The social implications of the study are defined as the ability or potential of research to impact society in visible ways. One of the obvious fields of research that strives for a social impact through the implementation of evidence that increases the overall quality of people’s lives is psychology. Whether your research explores the new work-life-balance movement and its effect on mental well-being, psychological interventions at schools to compensate for the stress many children are experiencing since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, or how work from home is changing family dynamics, you can most likely draw conclusions that go beyond just your study sample and describe potential (theoretical or practical) effects of your findings in the real world. Be careful, however, that you don’t overgeneralize from your sample or your data to the general population without having solid reasons to do so (and explain those reasons).

Implications for future research

Even if your findings are not going to lead to societal changes, new educational policies, or an overhaul of the national pension system, they might have important implications for future research studies. Maybe you used a new technique that is more precise or more efficient or way cheaper than existing methods and this could enable more labs around the world to study a specific problem. Or maybe you found that a gene that is known to be involved in one disease might also be involved in another disease, which opens up new avenues for research and treatment options. As stated earlier, make sure you don’t confuse recommendations (which you might not be able to make, based on your findings, and don’t necessarily have to) with implications, which are the potential effect that your findings could have—independently of whether you have any influence on that. 

Where Do the Implications Go in Your Paper? 

The implications are part of your discussion section, where you summarize your findings and then put them into context—this context being earlier research but also the potential effect your findings could have in the real world, in whatever scenario you think might be relevant. There is no “implication section” and no rule as to where in the discussion section you need to include these details because the order of information depends on how you structured your methods and your results section and how your findings turned out to prove or disprove your hypotheses. You simply need to work the potential effects of your findings into your discussion section in a logical way.

But the order of information is relevant when it comes to your conclusion at the very end of your discussion section: Here, you start with a very short summary of your study and results, then provide the (theoretical, practical, ethical, social, technological…) implications of your work, and end with a specific recommendation if (and only if) your findings call for that. If you have not paid attention to the importance of your implications while writing your discussion section, then this is your chance to fix that before you finalize and submit your paper and let an editor and reviewers judge the relevance of your work. 

Make sure you do not suddenly come up with practical ideas that look like they were plucked out of the air because someone reminded you to “add some implications” at the last minute. If you don’t know where to start, then go back to your introduction section, look at your rationale and research questions, look at how your findings answered those questions, and ask yourself who else could benefit from knowing what you know now.

Consider Using English Editing Services 

And before you submit your manuscript to your target journal’s editor, be sure to get professional English editing services from Wordvice, including academic editing and manuscript editing , which are tailored to the needs of your paper’s subject area. If you need instant proofreading while drafting your work, check out our online AI text editor , Wordvice AI, which is trained on millions of words of academic writing data and tailored for research writers.

For more advice on how to write all the different parts of your research paper , on how to make a research paper outline if you are struggling with putting everything you did together, or on how to write the best cover letter that will convince an editor to send your manuscript out for review, head over to the Wordvice academic resources pages, where we have dozens of helpful articles and videos on research writing and publications.

Implications or Recommendations in Research: What's the Difference?

• Peer Review

High-quality research articles that get many citations contain both implications and recommendations. Implications are the impact your research makes, whereas recommendations are specific actions that can then be taken based on your findings, such as for more research or for policymaking.

Updated on August 23, 2022

That seems clear enough, but the two are commonly confused.

This confusion is especially true if you come from a so-called high-context culture in which information is often implied based on the situation, as in many Asian cultures. High-context cultures are different from low-context cultures where information is more direct and explicit (as in North America and many European cultures).

Let's set these two straight in a low-context way; i.e., we'll be specific and direct! This is the best way to be in English academic writing because you're writing for the world.

Implications and recommendations in a research article

The standard format of STEM research articles is what's called IMRaD:

• Introduction
• Discussion/conclusions

Some journals call for a separate conclusions section, while others have the conclusions as the last part of the discussion. You'll write these four (or five) sections in the same sequence, though, no matter the journal.

The discussion section is typically where you restate your results and how well they confirmed your hypotheses. Give readers the answer to the questions for which they're looking to you for an answer.

At this point, many researchers assume their paper is finished. After all, aren't the results the most important part? As you might have guessed, no, you're not quite done yet.

The discussion/conclusions section is where to say what happened and what should now happen

The discussion/conclusions section of every good scientific article should contain the implications and recommendations.

The implications, first of all, are the impact your results have on your specific field. A high-impact, highly cited article will also broaden the scope here and provide implications to other fields. This is what makes research cross-disciplinary.

Recommendations, however, are suggestions to improve your field based on your results.

These two aspects help the reader understand your broader content: How and why your work is important to the world. They also tell the reader what can be changed in the future based on your results.

These aspects are what editors are looking for when selecting papers for peer review.

Implications and recommendations are, thus, written at the end of the discussion section, and before the concluding paragraph. They help to “wrap up” your paper. Once your reader understands what you found, the next logical step is what those results mean and what should come next.

Then they can take the baton, in the form of your work, and run with it. That gets you cited and extends your impact!

The order of implications and recommendations also matters. Both are written after you've summarized your main findings in the discussion section. Then, those results are interpreted based on ongoing work in the field. After this, the implications are stated, followed by the recommendations.

Writing an academic research paper is a bit like running a race. Finish strong, with your most important conclusion (recommendation) at the end. Leave readers with an understanding of your work's importance. Avoid generic, obvious phrases like "more research is needed to fully address this issue." Be specific.

The main differences between implications and recommendations (table)

Now let's dig a bit deeper into actually how to write these parts.

What are implications?

Research implications tell us how and why your results are important for the field at large. They help answer the question of “what does it mean?” Implications tell us how your work contributes to your field and what it adds to it. They're used when you want to tell your peers why your research is important for ongoing theory, practice, policymaking, and for future research.

Crucially, your implications must be evidence-based. This means they must be derived from the results in the paper.

Implications are written after you've summarized your main findings in the discussion section. They come before the recommendations and before the concluding paragraph. There is no specific section dedicated to implications. They must be integrated into your discussion so that the reader understands why the results are meaningful and what they add to the field.

A good strategy is to separate your implications into types. Implications can be social, political, technological, related to policies, or others, depending on your topic. The most frequently used types are theoretical and practical. Theoretical implications relate to how your findings connect to other theories or ideas in your field, while practical implications are related to what we can do with the results.

Key features of implications

• State the impact your research makes
• Helps us understand why your results are important
• Must be evidence-based
• Written in the discussion, before recommendations
• Can be theoretical, practical, or other (social, political, etc.)

Examples of implications

Let's take a look at some examples of research results below with their implications.

The result : one study found that learning items over time improves memory more than cramming material in a bunch of information at once .

The implications : This result suggests memory is better when studying is spread out over time, which could be due to memory consolidation processes.

The result : an intervention study found that mindfulness helps improve mental health if you have anxiety.

The implications : This result has implications for the role of executive functions on anxiety.

The result : a study found that musical learning helps language learning in children .

The implications : these findings suggest that language and music may work together to aid development.

What are recommendations?

As noted above, explaining how your results contribute to the real world is an important part of a successful article.

Likewise, stating how your findings can be used to improve something in future research is equally important. This brings us to the recommendations.

Research recommendations are suggestions and solutions you give for certain situations based on your results. Once the reader understands what your results mean with the implications, the next question they need to know is "what's next?"

Recommendations are calls to action on ways certain things in the field can be improved in the future based on your results. Recommendations are used when you want to convey that something different should be done based on what your analyses revealed.

Similar to implications, recommendations are also evidence-based. This means that your recommendations to the field must be drawn directly from your results.

The goal of the recommendations is to make clear, specific, and realistic suggestions to future researchers before they conduct a similar experiment. No matter what area your research is in, there will always be further research to do. Try to think about what would be helpful for other researchers to know before starting their work.

Recommendations are also written in the discussion section. They come after the implications and before the concluding paragraphs. Similar to the implications, there is usually no specific section dedicated to the recommendations. However, depending on how many solutions you want to suggest to the field, they may be written as a subsection.

Key features of recommendations

• Statements about what can be done differently in the field based on your findings
• Must be realistic and specific
• Written in the discussion, after implications and before conclusions
• Related to both your field and, preferably, a wider context to the research

Examples of recommendations

Here are some research results and their recommendations.

A meta-analysis found that actively recalling material from your memory is better than simply re-reading it .

• The recommendation: Based on these findings, teachers and other educators should encourage students to practice active recall strategies.

A medical intervention found that daily exercise helps prevent cardiovascular disease .

• The recommendation: Based on these results, physicians are recommended to encourage patients to exercise and walk regularly. Also recommended is to encourage more walking through public health offices in communities.

A study found that many research articles do not contain the sample sizes needed to statistically confirm their findings .

The recommendation: To improve the current state of the field, researchers should consider doing power analysis based on their experiment's design.

What else is important about implications and recommendations?

When writing recommendations and implications, be careful not to overstate the impact of your results. It can be tempting for researchers to inflate the importance of their findings and make grandiose statements about what their work means.

Remember that implications and recommendations must be coming directly from your results. Therefore, they must be straightforward, realistic, and plausible.

Another good thing to remember is to make sure the implications and recommendations are stated clearly and separately. Do not attach them to the endings of other paragraphs just to add them in. Use similar example phrases as those listed in the table when starting your sentences to clearly indicate when it's an implication and when it's a recommendation.

When your peers, or brand-new readers, read your paper, they shouldn't have to hunt through your discussion to find the implications and recommendations. They should be clear, visible, and understandable on their own.

That'll get you cited more, and you'll make a greater contribution to your area of science while extending the life and impact of your work.

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• A Research Guide
• Research Paper Guide

How to Write Implications in Research

• Implications definition
• Recommendations vs implications
• Types of implications in research
• Step-by-step implications writing guide

Research implications examples

What the implications of the research definition?

• Theoretical implications stand for all the new additions to theories that have already been presented in the past. At the same time, one can use a totally new theory that provides a background and a framework for a study.
• Practical implications are about potential consequences that show the practical side of things.

Recommendations VS Implications

• Implied content versus proposed writing. It means that an implication should provide an outcome from your study. The recommendation is always based on the outcome, along with your words as a personal opinion.
• Potential impact a study may have versus a specific act. When you are composing your research paper, your implications have the purpose of discussing how the findings of the study matter. They should tell how your research has an impact on the subject that you address. Now, unlike the implications section of the research paper, recommendations refer to peculiar actions or steps you must take. They should be based on your opinion precisely and talk about what must be done since your research findings confirm that.

What are the types of implications in research?

• Political implications. These are mostly common for Law and Political Sciences students basing implications on a certain study, a speech, or legislative standards. It is a case when implications and recommendations can also be used to achieve an efficient result.
• Technological implications. When dealing with a technological implication, it serves as special implications for future research manuals where you discuss the study with several examples. Do not use a methodology in this section, as it can only be mentioned briefly.
• Findings related to policies. When you have implemented a special policy or you are dealing with a medical or legal finding, you should add it to your policy. Adding an implications section is necessary when it must be highlighted in your research.
• Topical (subject) implications. These are based on your subject and serve as a way to clarify things or as a method to narrow things down by supporting the finding before it is linked to a thesis statement or your main scientific argument.

Step-by-step implications in research writing guide

Step 1: talk about what has been discovered in your research., step 2: name the differences compared to what previous studies have found., step 3: discuss the implications of your findings., step 4: add specific information to showcase your contributions., step 5: match it with your discussion and thesis statement..

Green energy can benefit from the use of vertical turbines versus horizontal turbines due to construction methods and saving costs. 

The use of AI-based apps that contain repetition and grammar-checking will help ESL students and learners with special needs. 

Most studies provide more research on the social emphasis that influences the problem of bullying in the village area. It points out that most people have different cultural behavior where the problem of bullying is approached differently.

If you encounter challenges in terms of precise replication, you can use a CR genetic code to follow the policies used in 1994. Considering the theoretical limitations, it is necessary to provide exact theories and practical steps. It will help to resolve the challenge and compare what has been available back then. It will help to trace the temporal backline. 

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• What Does Implications Mean? | Definition & Examples

What Does Implications Mean? | Definition & Examples

Published on October 25, 2022 by Eoghan Ryan . Revised on March 13, 2023.

Implication is a noun that refers to the act of implying (i.e., suggesting something without explicitly stating it) and to something that is implied or suggested. It’s also used to refer to the act of implicating (i.e., proving someone’s involvement in a crime) and to the state of being implicated.

Implications is often used in academic writing to refer to the possible impact and influence of a study or to what conclusions can be drawn from a particular result.

The implications of this study for further research are discussed in the final chapter.

I resent the implication that my comment was facetious !

Table of contents

Implications vs. effects, frequently asked questions.

“Implications” is often used interchangeably with “ effects .” However, they don’t mean the same thing.

• Implications are the possible conclusions that can be drawn as a result of a cause or action.
• Effects are the consequences or results of a cause or action.

This study examines the effects of long-term stress on memory.

The presidential scandal has major political implications .

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There are numerous synonyms for the multiple meanings of implication .

There are numerous antonyms and near antonyms for the multiple meanings of implication .

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Evans D, Coad J, Cottrell K, et al. Public involvement in research: assessing impact through a realist evaluation. Southampton (UK): NIHR Journals Library; 2014 Oct. (Health Services and Delivery Research, No. 2.36.)

Public involvement in research: assessing impact through a realist evaluation.

Chapter 9 conclusions and recommendations for future research.

• How well have we achieved our original aim and objectives?

The initially stated overarching aim of this research was to identify the contextual factors and mechanisms that are regularly associated with effective and cost-effective public involvement in research. While recognising the limitations of our analysis, we believe we have largely achieved this in our revised theory of public involvement in research set out in Chapter 8 . We have developed and tested this theory of public involvement in research in eight diverse case studies; this has highlighted important contextual factors, in particular PI leadership, which had not previously been prominent in the literature. We have identified how this critical contextual factor shapes key mechanisms of public involvement, including the identification of a senior lead for involvement, resource allocation for involvement and facilitation of research partners. These mechanisms then lead to specific outcomes in improving the quality of research, notably recruitment strategies and materials and data collection tools and methods. We have identified a ‘virtuous circle’ of feedback to research partners on their contribution leading to their improved confidence and motivation, which facilitates their continued contribution. Following feedback from the HS&DR Board on our original application we did not seek to assess the cost-effectiveness of different mechanisms of public involvement but we did cost the different types of public involvement as discussed in Chapter 7 . A key finding is that many research projects undercost public involvement.

In our original proposal we emphasised our desire to include case studies involving young people and families with children in the research process. We recruited two studies involving parents of young children aged under 5 years, and two projects involving ‘older’ young people in the 18- to 25-years age group. We recognise that in doing this we missed studies involving children and young people aged under 18 years; in principle we would have liked to have included studies involving such children and young people, but, given the resources at our disposal and the additional resource, ethical and governance issues this would have entailed, we regretfully concluded that this would not be feasible for our study. In terms of the four studies with parental and young persons’ involvement that we did include, we have not done a separate analysis of their data, but the themes emerging from those case studies were consistent with our other case studies and contributed to our overall analysis.

In terms of the initial objectives, we successfully recruited the sample of eight diverse case studies and collected and analysed data from them (objective 1). As intended, we identified the outcomes of involvement from multiple stakeholders‘ perspectives, although we did not get as many research partners‘ perspectives as we would have liked – see limitations below (objective 2). It was more difficult than expected to track the impact of public involvement from project inception through to completion (objective 3), as all of our projects turned out to have longer time scales than our own. Even to track involvement over a stage of a case study research project proved difficult, as the research usually did not fall into neatly staged time periods and one study had no involvement activity over the study period.

Nevertheless, we were able to track seven of the eight case studies prospectively and in real time over time periods of up to 9 months, giving us an unusual window on involvement processes that have previously mainly been observed retrospectively. We were successful in comparing the contextual factors, mechanisms and outcomes associated with public involvement from different stakeholders‘ perspectives and costing the different mechanisms for public involvement (objective 4). We only partly achieved our final objective of undertaking a consensus exercise among stakeholders to assess the merits of the realist evaluation approach and our approach to the measurement and valuation of economic costs of public involvement in research (objective 5). A final consensus event was held, where very useful discussion and amendment of our theory of public involvement took place, and the economic approach was discussed and helpfully critiqued by participants. However, as our earlier discussions developed more fully than expected, we decided to let them continue rather than interrupt them in order to run the final exercise to assess the merits of the realist evaluation approach. We did, however, test our analysis with all our case study participants by sending a draft of this final report for comment. We received a number of helpful comments and corrections but no disagreement with our overall analysis.

• What were the limitations of our study?

Realist evaluation is a relatively new approach and we recognise that there were a number of limitations to our study. We sought to follow the approach recommended by Pawson, but we acknowledge that we were not always able to do so. In particular, our theory of public involvement in research evolved over time and initially was not as tightly framed in terms of a testable hypothesis as Pawson recommends. In his latest book Pawson strongly recommends that outcomes should be measured with quantitative data, 17 but we did not do so; we were not aware of the existence of quantitative data or tools that would enable us to collect such data to answer our research questions. Even in terms of qualitative data, we did not capture as much information on outcomes as we initially envisaged. There were several reasons for this. The most important was that capturing outcomes in public involvement is easier the more operational the focus of involvement, and more difficult the more strategic the involvement. Thus, it was relatively easy to see the impact of a patient panel on the redesign of a recruitment leaflet but harder to capture the impact of research partners in a multidisciplinary team discussion of research design.

We also found it was sometimes more difficult to engage research partners as participants in our research than researchers or research managers. On reflection this is not surprising. Research partners are generally motivated to take part in research relevant to their lived experience of a health condition or situation, whereas our research was quite detached from their lived experience; in addition people had many constraints on their time, so getting involved in our research as well as their own was likely to be a burden too far for some. Researchers clearly also face significant time pressures but they had a more direct interest in our research, as they are obliged to engage with public involvement to satisfy research funders such as the NIHR. Moreover, researchers were being paid by their employers for their time during interviews with us, while research partners were not paid by us and usually not paid by their research teams. Whatever the reasons, we had less response from research partners than researchers or research managers, particularly for the third round of data collection; thus we have fewer data on outcomes from research partners‘ perspectives and we need to be aware of a possible selection bias towards more engaged research partners. Such a bias could have implications for our findings; for example payment might have been a more important motivating factor for less engaged advisory group members.

There were a number of practical difficulties we encountered. One challenge was when to recruit the case studies. We recruited four of our eight case studies prior to the full application, but this was more than 1 year before our project started and 15 months or more before data collection began. In this intervening period, we found that the time scales of some of the case studies were no longer ideal for our project and we faced the choice of whether to continue with them, although this timing was not ideal, or seek at a late moment to recruit alternative ones. One of our case studies ultimately undertook no involvement activity over the study period, so we obtained fewer data from it, and it contributed relatively little to our analysis. Similarly, one of the four case studies we recruited later experienced some delays itself in beginning and so we had a more limited period for data collection than initially envisaged. Research governance approvals took much longer than expected, particularly as we had to take three of our research partners, who were going to collect data within NHS projects, through the research passport process, which essentially truncated our data collection period from 1 year to 9 months. Even if we had had the full year initially envisaged for data collection, our conclusion with hindsight was that this was insufficiently long. To compare initial plans and intentions for involvement with the reality of what actually happened required a longer time period than a year for most of our case studies.

In the light of the importance we have placed on the commitment of PIs, there is an issue of potential selection bias in the recruitment of our sample. As our sampling strategy explicitly involved a networking approach to PIs of projects where we thought some significant public involvement was taking place, we were likely (as we did) to recruit enthusiasts and, at worst, those non-committed who were at least open to the potential value of public involvement. There were, unsurprisingly, no highly sceptical PIs in our sample. We have no data therefore on how public involvement may work in research where the PI is sceptical but may feel compelled to undertake involvement because of funder requirements or other factors.

• What would we do differently next time?

If we were to design this study again, there are a number of changes we would make. Most importantly we would go for a longer time period to be able to capture involvement through the whole research process from initial design through to dissemination. We would seek to recruit far more potential case studies in principle, so that we had greater choice of which to proceed with once our study began in earnest. We would include case studies from the application stage to capture the important early involvement of research partners in the initial design period. It might be preferable to research a smaller number of case studies, allowing a more in-depth ethnographic approach. Although challenging, it would be very informative to seek to sample sceptical PIs. This might require a brief screening exercise of a larger group of PIs on their attitudes to and experience of public involvement.

The economic evaluation was challenging in a number of ways, particularly in seeking to obtain completed resource logs from case study research partners. Having a 2-week data collection period was also problematic in a field such as public involvement, where activity may be very episodic and infrequent. Thus, collecting economic data alongside other case study data in a more integrated way, and particularly with interviews and more ethnographic observation of case study activities, might be advantageous. The new budgeting tool developed by INVOLVE and the MHRN may provide a useful resource for future economic evaluations. 23

We have learned much from the involvement of research partners in our research team and, although many aspects of our approach worked well, there are some things we would do differently in future. Even though we included substantial resources for research partner involvement in all aspects of our study, we underestimated how time-consuming such full involvement would be. We were perhaps overambitious in trying to ensure such full involvement with the number of research partners and the number and complexity of the case studies. We were also perhaps naive in expecting all the research partners to play the same role in the team; different research partners came with different experiences and skills, and, like most of our case studies, we might have been better to be less prescriptive and allow the roles to develop more organically within the project.

• Implications for research practice and funding

If one of the objectives of R&D policy is to increase the extent and effectiveness of public involvement in research, then a key implication of this research is the importance of influencing PIs to value public involvement in research or to delegate to other senior colleagues in leading on involvement in their research. Training is unlikely to be the key mechanism here; senior researchers are much more likely to be influenced by peers or by their personal experience of the benefits of public involvement. Early career researchers may be shaped by training but again peer learning and culture may be more influential. For those researchers sceptical or agnostic about public involvement, the requirement of funders is a key factor that is likely to make them engage with the involvement agenda. Therefore, funders need to scrutinise the track record of research teams on public involvement to ascertain whether there is any evidence of commitment or leadership on involvement.

One of the findings of the economic analysis was that PIs have consistently underestimated the costs of public involvement in their grant applications. Clearly the field will benefit from the guidance and budgeting tool recently disseminated by MHRN and INVOLVE. It was also notable that there was a degree of variation in the real costs of public involvement and that effective involvement is not necessarily costly. Different models of involvement incur different costs and researchers need to be made aware of the costs and benefits of these different options.

One methodological lesson we learned was the impact that conducting this research had on some participants’ reflection on the impact of public involvement. Particularly for research staff, the questions we asked sometimes made them reflect upon what they were doing and change aspects of their approach to involvement. Thus, the more the NIHR and other funders can build reporting, audit and other forms of evaluation on the impact of public involvement directly into their processes with PIs, the more likely such questioning might stimulate similar reflection.

• Recommendations for further research

There are a number of gaps in our knowledge around public involvement in research that follow from our findings, and would benefit from further research, including realist evaluation to extend and further test the theory we have developed here:

• In-depth exploration of how PIs become committed to public involvement and how to influence agnostic or sceptical PIs would be very helpful. Further research might compare, for example, training with peer-influencing strategies in engendering PI commitment. Research could explore the leadership role of other research team members, including research partners, and how collective leadership might support effective public involvement.
• More methodological work is needed on how to robustly capture the impact and outcomes of public involvement in research (building as well on the PiiAF work of Popay et al. 51 ), including further economic analysis and exploration of impact when research partners are integral to research teams.
• Research to develop approaches and carry out a full cost–benefit analysis of public involvement in research would be beneficial. Although methodologically challenging, it would be very useful to conduct some longer-term studies which sought to quantify the impact of public involvement on such key indicators as participant recruitment and retention in clinical trials.
• It would also be helpful to capture qualitatively the experiences and perspectives of research partners who have had mixed or negative experiences, since they may be less likely than enthusiasts to volunteer to participate in studies of involvement in research such as ours. Similarly, further research might explore the (relatively rare) experiences of marginalised and seldom-heard groups involved in research.
• Payment for public involvement in research remains a contested issue with strongly held positions for and against; it would be helpful to further explore the value research partners and researchers place on payment and its effectiveness for enhancing involvement in and impact on research.
• A final relatively narrow but important question that we identified after data collection had finished is: what is the impact of the long periods of relative non-involvement following initial periods of more intense involvement for research partners in some types of research, particularly clinical trials?

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• Cite this Page Evans D, Coad J, Cottrell K, et al. Public involvement in research: assessing impact through a realist evaluation. Southampton (UK): NIHR Journals Library; 2014 Oct. (Health Services and Delivery Research, No. 2.36.) Chapter 9, Conclusions and recommendations for future research.
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Implications for Future Research

• Open Access
• First Online: 30 March 2021

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• Xiu-bao Yu 2  

Part of the book series: Management for Professionals ((MANAGPROF))

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On the basis of the three elements of strategy, this chapter puts forward some follow-up research questions and prospects mainly from the following aspects. The first is the study of factors that have influences on the quality of strategic decision. Factors include individual aspects of decision-maker, strategic decision-making information factors, approaches of strategic decision-making, etc. The second is about normative studies. They are about how the world ought to be or how strategy decisions ought to be in given situations. Outcomes of the studies can provide guidance to industry decision makers when facing development issues. Future research includePerhaps the impact of strategic decision-makers on the quality of strategies is far beyond our imagination.

• Research questions
• Strategic decision-making model
• Competitive strategy
• Corporate strategy

Perhaps the impact of strategic decision-makers on the quality of strategies is far beyond our imagination. We will only see the glory and greatness of a good strategy when its idea has been reflected, which cannot do without the decision-maker.

You have full access to this open access chapter,  Download chapter PDF

10.1 Introduction

This book probes into some of the most fundamental questions in strategy. For instance, what is strategy? What are the fundamental elements of the strategy concept? What are their internal links between the elements? How come strategy has more than 90 definitions? What is the relationship between strategy and tactic? What is the key extension of the strategy concept (or the crucial principle of making a strategy)? How can a strategy be evaluated based on the three elements? Etc.

The goal-oriented strategy and problem-oriented strategy presented in this book help us understand the origins of strategy. Strategy we generally refer to is goal-oriented. However, in reality, whenever the economy is sluggish, the latter may outnumber the former, and that’s why they are practically instructive in helping companies dig into the origin of strategic problems and take a positive stand against them.

The theoretical model of three elements of the strategy concept hopes to put an end to the controversial discussion over what is strategy in the discipline of strategic management for nearly half a century. The traditional understanding of strategy concept is linear thinking. It comprises two basic elements—the goal element and the guideline element for achieving the goal. However, studies in this book show that the strategic decision-making, whether it concerns military wars or business competition, it needs to identify the major problems in the way of achieving the target, while the guideline element is a programmatic general ideology on dealing with the major problems, providing guidance as to which direction should the specific tactics go. Hence, the strategy concept is comprised of three core fundamental elements . In other words, strategy is non-linear .

Chapter 1 introduces concerns of the literature about the concept of strategy. The discipline of strategic managementsuffers from having too many definitions, Footnote 1 semantic and ambiguous meanings in the literature of the strategy concept, of which Chap. 2 analyzed the reason and the interpretation. Studies of the book reveal that the reason lies in the complex strategic issues companies actually face, and in the limited ways some scholars take to view the concept. But it also shows that the strategy concept with too many definitions and meanings reflects the multiple practical strategies that companies hold. The key extension is also included in the definitions of strategy concept by many pieces of literature, thus making the confusion even worse. The most important extension is to make matching strategies regarding the resources and environment of a company, which I induce into the basic principles of making a strategy.

Which basic elements should be included in the definition of strategy? Or what is strategy and what is a strategic decision anyway? Chapters 3 and 4 in this book explain and answer these questions from the theoretical and practical angles respectively. They also propose the theory of three elements, and that the strategy shall be incomplete without any one of the three elements. Many books on strategy do not have chapters on what strategy is or the concepts of strategy. Contents in these two chapters make up for this gap in strategic management field.

The relationship between tactics and strategies is vital to understanding strategies. To some extent, understanding the relationship is the prerequisite for the comprehending of the strategy concept. Chapter 5 elaborates on the relationship between various strategies and tactics. The book also suggests that some strategies, such as the competitive ones, should include specific competitive tactics in order to form a comprehensive corporate competitive strategy. If strategy is thinking, then tactics are plans under the guidance of strategic thinking . Many strategic books do not have contents on tactic and its relationship with strategy, which is first discussed in this chapter of the book.

The sixth chapter introduces various strategies and their three elements. It proposes that the strategic names of the corporate level do not contain the expected guiding ideology. Therefore, to make the strategy of this level have the strategic attribute, the decision makers need to propose the guidelines to solve the development problem of the company, and provide guidance for tactics. Taking the principle of strategic matching into account, Chap. 7 puts forward such concepts as the internally blind (or externally biased) strategy, externally blind (or internally biased) strategy and dually blind strategy, etc., which help us understand the various biased errors that may occur in making real strategic decisions. Chapter 8 introduces some internal and external information needed for strategic decision-making.

Strategic evaluation is helpful for us to re-examine whether the strategy proposed by the company conforms to the requirements of the company’s resources and capabilities and the market development after the strategic decision, so as to evaluate the risk of the strategic decision. Chapter 9 tries to put forward the strategic evaluation based on the three elements of strategy concept and the principles of strategy formulation, including the evaluation of elements of “long-term goal”, “development problem”, and “general guiding ideology or guideline". It helps to assess the risks of strategic decision after re-examining whether the company’s strategy matches its resources and capabilities or meets the requirements of market development.

The three elements of strategy concept and the extension principle are of great importance to the future research in the strategy field.

Positives and normative studies in strategy area

Positive studies concern research questions about how the world is and its research statements and outcomes are descriptive. It explains the reasons contributing to the outcomes. From positive study point of view, research questions with regard to the reality of company strategic decisions or contributing factors to its outcomes, no matter it is good or not good would be of interesting to us.

We know that a high-quality strategic decision needs to be made under the comprehensive consideration of the company’s internal and external situation, which is to meet the basic principles of strategic decision-making. But in fact, a lot of strategic decisions are blind or biased as the decision-makers are human beings that may misjudge situations. Therefore, it will be of great help for us to understand the relationship between strategic decisions and decision makers, and other factors influence quality of decisions if we can figure out the factors that affect the decisions. Thus, from positive research point of view, the strategic decision-making model that reflects the mechanism of factors that have impacts on the outcome of a decision can be developed and studied.

Normative studies are about how the world ought to be. Its statements are prescriptive. Outcomes of normative studies in strategic management field could provide normative guidance to industry managers who make strategic decisions.

One type of normative study is about the general guideline contained in each individual strategy such as that of the competitive strategies and of the corporate strategies. As mentioned before, competitive strategy contains rather mature thinking, but it still awaits us to further explore the corporate group-level strategies on the guideline contents that can provide guidance for companies’ practical use of strategies. For example, if a given company (with specific information in size, financial strength, R&D capability, employee characteristics, etc.) encounters a bottleneck in its development (assuming it is technology), given the economic and political environment, as well as the industry characteristics, is it possible to summarize some basic principles of decisions from a wide range of cases in order to provide guidance for the company’s practical strategic decision-making.

Besides above, the study on the risk of strategic decision-making will also be interesting to us. Strategic decision-making is about investment and about the future trend, so there are risks. How do decision-makers weigh the risks? What kind of strategic decisions are considered to be highly risky or less risky? How do decision-makers prevent risks? These questions are of both academic and practical value in strategic management field.

Now let’s look at these questions and content detailed that can be studied in future.

10.2 Research on the Three Elements

The content and basic types of “Long-term goal”

To maintain profit stability or growth is almost the financial goal of most companies, but the profits will not come out of nothing. So the key to forming a strategy is the overall ideology through which the company is going to achieve profit growth in the future. Therefore, the company needs to develop a good strategy, achieve the strategic goals and therefore gains market shares and fulfills its profit targets.

Strategic goals and financial targets are different, for example, the previously mentioned acquisition of Volvo by Geely is driven directly by “technology” and “brand". By acquiring high-end technology and brand, Geely is able to sell its products to the Chinese market so as to obtain market shares and profits. Thus, from the perspective of direct strategic goals, some aim for technology and brand, while others consider social responsibility (including consumer, community, employee benefits, etc.) in making strategic goals.

Different strategic goals sometimes represent different directions, which beg the following questions:

From strategic point of view, what are the major types of companies long term goals?

Does each goal have segmented targets or sub-goals?

Are strategic goals different for different companies (industry, size, age, etc.)?

Study on the types of strategic goals can help us thoroughly and systematically understand the long-term development goal which is one of the three elements of strategy concept, and know whether companies of different types (or features) or in different environments would make various types of strategic goals. If, yes, how the goals are differing?

How far will a Long-term goal go?

As far as it goes, how far will a company’s strategic goal go (or point to)? By “far” I mean two things. One, time. In other words, for how long will a strategic goal remain effective (five, ten, or twenty years).

Second, quantity or quality. This concept can be explained by the following example. If a young man of 20 or so is to make a long-term goal, he might plan to make 400,000 RMB (a certain quantity) a year after ten years (a certain time). He might also expect to be an intermediate or even senior manager (a certain quality) or to own a self-employed company (a certain quality) a decade later. Ten years is the time limit for realizing the target while the raise of salary or rank, or one’s own company are the quality and quantity of the target.

There exist notions of “time” and “quantity/quality” in the goal element in strategic decision-making, i.e. how long will the goal take and what outcomes will the goal achieve? The study of the questions is of significance to our understanding of the strategy goal. On the basis of the time and quantity/quality, it can be known whether the strategy goals made by companies of different types (or features) or in different environments vary in time, quantity and quality?

The element of major issues in development

Geely was in need of core technologies when it tried to develop into the high-end market, and this problem was fixed by the acquisition of Volvo. BenQ was short of distribution channels and good brand image when it first entered the mobile-phone market, so it tried to obtain what is needed by purchasing Siemens. Baoneng (a local Chinese company) had land resources but lacked of experience or brand image in the real estate industry, that is why it wanted to hold the shares of Vanke, who was prestigious in the industry in China. All these are challenges and strategies made accordingly during the development of companies, and there are too numerous cases to mention.

Mintzberg has compared companies’ major development issue to jumping over the hedge in his writings about the 5Ps of strategy. It is known that a short child has difficulty in passing over a rather high hedge (suppose his aim is to do so), but for a tall grown man, this is not a problem, or we could say it’s not a major issue for him. Companies in a certain industry are different in size, cost control, management or R&D capabilities. A certain major issue might be the obstacle of one company but not of another.

Therefore, we can study the following questions:

What are the major issues during the development of small-and medium-sized companies or the young ones?

What major issues might come across the leading companies in their development?

When the economy is developing rapidly, what are the development problems companies might face?

In a sluggish (or downward) economic environment, what are the development problems companies have to deal with then?

Will there be different major issues in different industries?

What shock would new technologies or business models enforce on companies of the relevant industries? How would they cope with the new things? Would they make the different overall strategies when they differ in ownership, size or capital, etc.?

In the past, at present and in the future, which industries were, are or will be seriously hindered or even devastated by the development of the Internet?

Studying the above-mentioned questions can help us foresee the obstacles in companies’ development.

Study on the element of guideline

From a military standpoint, when facing the invading enemy, if one does not have a good guiding ideology, there are two possibilities, either to escape beforehand or being besieged by the enemy forces. It’s the same story in business. If the decision-makers fail to put forward proper guiding ideologies (and tactic plans) when companies have major issues in development, the goals would not be achieved.

The guideline or overall ideology of the three elements aims at solving the major issues companies face in development, the study of which serves as the core of the strategy discipline . The outcomes of the study could provide industry executives with normative guidance for the strategic decision-makings of their companies. For example, suppose a company has a plan to enter into an unrelated diversification. Which industry to enter? The company’s decision makers will be certainly benefited from adopting a theory (or a mature overall ideology) in this respect. The contribution of the theory will depend very much on research outcomes.

In general, study on the element of guideline or overall ideology can be conducted by taking into account the above-mentioned issues that are related to the element of major issues. The research questions are as following.

What guidelines or overall ideologies would the small- and medium-sized companies or the young ones adopt when they come across all sorts of major problems in development?

What guidelines or overall ideologies would the leading companies make when they face various major issues in development?

Would companies take different overall ideologies respectively to deal with the development issues in booming or sluggish (or downward) economic environments? How guidelines or the ideologies differ from each other?

When some companies are battered by new technologies or business models, what overall ideologies would the others adopt?

Some industries are seriously hindered or even devastated by the development of the Internet. What overall ideologies would the relevant companies usually resort to?

Under what circumstances (internal or external) might the companies baffled by major issues are unable to find the suitable ideologies or solutions?

Studying of these questions means a lot to us for apprehending the element of guideline or overall ideology. And if there are outstanding results in the future study, we could establish the core theories of the strategic management discipline, and thus provide guidance for various companies in their strategic decision-making.

The measurement of the three elements

A complete strategy has three basic elements. The quality of a strategy is directly determined by the fact that whether the corresponding decisions on the three elements match the company’s actual condition, and whether they are in line with the external environment. To know the overall quality of a strategic decision, study on whether the senior executives can make the right decisions on the “long-term goal”, “major development problem” and “overall guiding ideology” should be carried out. Thus, it is necessary to develop the items to measure the three elements respectively, which will be the basis of studies on the core meaning of strategy concept.

The development of the measurement scale is not always easy as the strategic decision-making predicts the future. In this case, we can investigate in the three elements by referring to the real business cases of strategic decision-making or (liberal) disciplines of decision-making, or depending on the satisfaction brought by decisions of three elements.

The theory of three elements unveils strategic decision-making, and the measurement scale of three elements helps uncover all the elements, i.e., to make us understand more of the strategic decision-making and to know the profound mystery within.

10.3 A Strategic Decision-Making Model and the Related Questions

The traditional model of strategic decision-making explains the method of making strategic decisions, which is to evaluate the internal and external environments of a company and then come to the matching strategy. In reality as we can see from wars and cases of companies making strategic decisions that some strategic decisions are practical while some are not.

What factors influence and how they influence the quality of a strategic decision? A theoretical model of strategic decision-making is required to have an answer to this question. It involves the process, the mechanism and the influential factors on the result of strategic decision-making. The mechanism concerns about the positive or empirical aspects of strategic decision-making. The understanding of the mechanism is thus also the core of the strategy discipline. It will tell us when a strategic decision is good and when it is not good.

On the basis of the traditional model and the three elements, this section tries to create a model that wishes to explain the mechanism of strategic decision-making. Besides that, the factor of the decision-makers is also considered in the model so as to explain its influence on the process and result of decision-making, or why different people make correct, partial or incorrect strategic decisions.

Three groups of factors influence the quality of a strategic decision. They are the quality of decision information, (the maturity of) the decision maker and the practice of a company’s strategic decision-making.

The decision qualities of the three elements

Previous chapters have discussed that one strategic decision should be made by the integration of three decisions bearing on the destiny of the company, i.e., one on the long-term development goal or direction of the company, one on the identification of major issues or obstacles, and one on the general ideology that guiding the solve major issues. The appropriateness of each decision will affect the quality of the complete strategic decision-making.

For example, although Kodak realized that the digital camera might be a shock to the traditional roll film (i.e. the decision at the lower left corner of the strategic triangle is correct), its overall thinking (or decision) to address this key problem was generally wrong, so the overall decision Footnote 2 thus formed came as a disappointment. As another example, at the early stage of Chinese Revolution, Commander Wang Ming made the decision of confronting the enemy in regular warfare (the overall ideology), which was a misleading estimation of Communist Party’s military power and the “major issues” at the lower left corner of the triangle.

As a result, it’s evident that the three decisions involved in the three elements and their qualities (whether they are right or wrong) directly influence the overall outcome of the strategic decision.

Hence the relationship between the strategic decision-making of the three elements and the overall quality of the strategic decision will be worth of studying.

The influence of the quality of the internal and external information

In the part of strategic principles in this book, it has been noted that the strategic decision will not be correct when the internal and external information of a corporate, as well as the situation, is not considered thoroughly. So the strategic decision could only be integrated by taking the internal and external information into full account. Strategic decisions are mainly made on the basis of the macro-environment (population, regional GDP growth rate, per capita GDP, etc.), the industry situation (present stage of development, size, competitive situation, etc.) and the company’s unique resources and capabilities (size, nature, financial strength, R&D capabilities etc.) and other information. If a decision-maker is so slothful as to know nothing about the industry or the real situation of the company, he/she could hardly make any strategic decisions that are in line with the actual situation. The only way to win a war is to try to know your rival completely. However, in the age of information explosion, various massages are flooding people’s life, and tons of information will not lend a hand in decision-making (Speier et al. 1999 ).

Therefore, here comes the model of relationship between the quality of decision-making information (the macro-environment, industry situation, and the firm resources and capabilities) and the quality of a strategic decision (Fig.  10.1 ).

Information quality and strategic decision quality

Strategic decision-making needs information, data and the forecast of the future. The quality of the information, as well as the precision of the prediction directly affect the quality of the strategic decision. But it is known that there are hundreds and thousands of pieces of information concerning environment, industry and corporate internal situation, among which:

What information would be used as the external information of strategic decision-making?

What information would be applied as the internal information of strategic decision-making?

Does information used in strategic decision-making process vary in different industries?

How to measure the quality of the macro-environment and industry information known by the decision-makers?

How to measure the quality of the information of the corporate resources and capabilities collected by the decision-makers?

How do the quality of the macro-environment and industry information known by the decision-makers affect their evaluation on the macro-environment and industry situation?

How does the quality of the internal information of an organization obtained by the decision-makers affect their evaluation on the company’s resources and capabilities?

Further research can be carried out to study the above questions.

The influence of the individual factors of decision-makers

Judgments are needed in making strategic decisions. They are made by decision-makers who differ from one another in age, personality, and cognitive ability, past experience, social network and resources he or she posse, all of which will affect one’s judgment and the result.

For example, in the early days of the Chinese Revolution, Chairman Mao and other revolutionaries made the right judgment on the situation at that time, and also more practical military policy compared with that of Wang Ming. Therefore, even in the same situation (or in command of the same information), different people will make different judgments (Barr et al. 1992 ; Bourgeois 1985 ; Tripsas and Gavetti 2000 ) or even opposite ones on the environment. Beach, Connolly ( 2005 ) and Kim et al. ( 2006 ) also noted that different levels of judgment ability with respect to the information for decision-making lead to different strategic decision choices.

One’s judgment is closely related to his or her cognitive ability. Cognition refers to the process by which people recognize and understand the outside world, interpret the information that the external things act on the sensory organs of human beings, and acquire knowledge by the use of the psychological activities such as concept, perception, judgment and imagination. As early as 1963, Cyert and March ( 1963 ) introduced the concept of cognition into decision-making. Haynie and Shepherd ( 2009 ) developed the measurement scale of meta-cognition which shows that the stronger one’s cognitive ability is, the fewer decision errors he or she will make (Mitchell et al. 2011 ).

Take the war of Longwan between Zhu Yuanzhang and Chen Youliang as another example. When Chen sent troops to attack Yingtian (Nanjing today), most of Zhu’s counselors advised to escape because the hostile forces were much powerful while Liu Bowen insisted garrison. Escape and defense were two decisions made by judgment. During this process, Liu Bowen and other counselors made the same decision (or identification) of the three elements on the major issue, but disagreed on goals (other counselor’s goal was “to give up Yingtian”, while Liu’s was “to station troops to defend”) and overall ideology (other counselors’ was “to escape” while Liu’s was “to ambush”). It can be seen that with the same situation and judgment (the enemy is too strong to fight), the responsive strategies (here referring to guiding idelogy) are different. In other words, different decision-makers would make different decisions under the same circumstances. History has seen the right decision of Liu Bowen as Longwan War ended up with the triumph of Zhu Yuanzhang side which not only defended Yingtian, but also beat Chen Youliang side to bite the dust.

In this sense, the factor of individual decision-maker affects the relationship between the decision information and result of a strategic decision. Or individual factors moderate the relationship between quality of decision information and quality of strategic decision. We thus could have the following model (Fig.  10.2 ).

The influence of the decision-makers on the strategic decision quality

Questions concerning the model can be further studied:

How do the personal characteristics of the decision-maker (age, experiences, intelligence quotient, industry experience, personality, and education) affect the quality of the strategic decisions of the three elements and the overall strategic decision?

How does the social cognitive ability of the decision-maker influence the decisions of the three elements of the strategic decision-making and the overall strategic decision?

What kinds of decision-makers (or decision-makers with what characteristics) are prone to make internally blind (or externally biased) strategic decisions?

What kinds of decision-makers (or decision-makers with what characteristics) tend to make externally blind (or internally biased) strategic decisions?

What kinds of decision-makers (or decision-makers with what characteristics) are inclined to make dually blind strategic decisions?

What kinds of decision-makers (or decision-makers with what characteristics) are apt to make integrated strategic decisions?

The answers are still unknown, but the influence of each strategic decision-maker on the quality of the strategic decisions might beyond our imagination. In the war of Longwan, were it not for Liu’s decision of ambush, or Zhu and Liu’s detailed tactical plan based on the geographic features of Yingtian and the characteristics of the vessels of Chen Youliang’s troop, it shall never be revealed what are the strategy and tactics that defeat the powerful Chen Youliang; nor shall we ever know the strategic thinking and tactical plan of this war.

The brilliance of a good strategy might only be uncovered when its ideas behind is reflected, which inseparable with the decision-maker. Kuper et al. ( 2013 ) suggested that strategy can be better understood if it is explained as a story. Considering the influence of the decision-makers on strategies, I couldn’t agree more.

The influence of the information management practices

Of all the information related to strategic decision-making, it’s rather difficult to obtain full messages of the industry and the competitors. Some companies set up specialized departments or hire personnel to collect and analyze the development trend shown in the information about the industry, market, competitors and consumers. But some companies, especially the small ones, do not have such organizations, so the decision-makers have to acquire information by all means themselves.

Although the internal information of companies can be easily got, some still have specialized departments to extract and analyze the key information.

In that way, do companies that have specialized strategic departments acquire better decision-making information with regard to quantity and quality than those that don’t? In other words, does the management method of decision-making information affect the quantity and quality of the information held by the decision-makers? The influence of the information acquisition and management ways on how well the decision-maker acquire information can be then added in the decision-making model (see Fig.  10.3 ).

The management of the decision-making information and the information quality

Questions that can be studied in the model include:

Do companies with specialized departments collecting and analyzing information have better decision-making information with regard to quality?

How does the decision-maker’s own habit of collecting information (such as joining the associations, reading the professional information and checking the corporate reports, etc.) affect the information for decision-making and the quality of the information?

The influence of decision-making practice

Since the strategy touches upon the future direction of an enterprise, many companies take cautious steps while making a decision. Strategic decisions are made in different processes and methods by different companies. Some would hire the third party such as a consulting company to analyze the strategic plan and argue about it. Smaller enterprises or those with equity concentration, or those centralized firms would probably make more personalized decisions. Some scholars believe that large businesses are more rational during the process of strategic decision-making (Hart and Banbury 1994 ; Elbanna and Child 2007 ), while small companies would rely more on intuition (Brouthers et al. 1998 ; Khatri and Ng 2000 ).

It is generally thought that the collective decisions, though time-consuming, are better than the individual decisions in terms of quality. However, the strategic decisions, unlike the daily ones, needs to be made on the basis of deep and comprehensive understanding of the internal and external environments of the company. The study of McNamara et al. ( 2002 ) shows that positive correlation exists between the complexity of the decision-makers’ knowledge and the performance of the companies.

Questions are raised therefrom:

Is every participant involved in the collective decision-making familiar with the internal and external situations of the company? Or how familiar is every member of decision-making with the decision information?

Do the collective decisions always surpass the individual ones in terms of setting the goals, identifying the major issues of development and making the overall ideology? If so, then under what circumstances?

How does the maturity of a company’s senior management team affect the quality of strategic decision (setting the long-term goals, making the overall ideology, etc.)?

Under what circumstances would a certain decision-making method contribute to making the right strategy?

Studies show that there is no significantly positive correlation between the uniformity of the senior management when making strategic decisions and the performance of the company (Bourgeois 1985 ; Grinye and Norbarn 1975 ). Priem ( 1990 ) believes that when the environment remains stable, the uniformity of collective decision-making should be positively correlated to the performance of the company, but when the environment becomes complicated, low uniformity of collective decision-making should contribute to the performance of the company instead. It can be explained that when the environment is rather stable, most people can give fairly accurate prediction on future development, and thus make comparatively right decisions. But when the surrounding is full of uncertainties or complexities, special insight and judgment are needed to foresee the developing trend, while only a few are equipped with such skills. A complete strategy decision is composed on three sub-decisions. If the accuracy of each sub-decision is 50%, the set accuracy of the three sub-decisions will only be 12.5%. According to a reported (The Ministry of Commerce, 2016 ), only 13% of Chinese companies’ overseas projects are profitable and 63% are non-profit or loss-making. Chinese entrepreneurs are not as familiar with the foreign business environment as China’s native environment. The low success rate of Chinese enterprises’ internationalization strategy shows the complexity of some strategies to a certain extent.

The following question can be thus drawn forth:

When the environment is complicated, are the individual decisions made by decision-makers who know the company and the industry better than the collective ones in terms of quality?

Studying the above question would be helpful in understanding the effects played by different ways of making decisions in the strategic decision-making.

Above introduced research questions are about positive aspects related with strategy decision. These questions concern with objective facts and the outcome of strategy decisions. They reveal the mechanism of strategy decision making process and factors that have influence on the outcomes. The following figure shows a theoretical model and factors influencing quality of a strategic decision. In the figure, the quality of decision information has a direct impact on the quality of strategic decision-making. Personal factors of decision makers play a moderate role between information quality and strategic decision quality. In addition, a company’s strategic decision-making practices impact on the relationship as well (see Fig.  10.4 ).

A theoretical model of the strategic decision-making

For strategy to have the theoretical function of providing guidance for company practices, we need to understand normative aspects of strategy decision. Normative aspects relate with questions of “how company strategies should be”.

There are many books about military such as The Art of War and Sun Bin’s Art of War , etc. summarizing the basic military strategies and tactics that should be taken under various circumstances including when the enemy is weak, strong or well-matched in strength. The strategy and tactics are refined and profound military thinking that tell the ways to achieve victory (including the laws of military management and of logistics, etc.) and humanitarianism in war (avoiding war to the greatest extent and conquering without a single fight, etc.), and thus can provide guidance for the overall ideology of wars. A commander who has a good knowledge of the art of war, can use the thought of the art of war according to the specific situation and put forward the idea of solving the problems when encountering problems in the war.

If we can summarize the regularity of enterprise strategic thoughts and provide guidance for senior managers in making strategic decisions, we will make great contributions to the discipline of strategic management. The guiding ideology of war is called the art of war, we can name the guiding ideology of commercial competition as the Art of Business Strategy. The art here mostly refers to the guiding ideology element of strategy.

I mentioned early in the book that due to the contributions of Professor Porter and Professor Boman, the art of competitive strategy (or the art of strategy at business unit level) is relatively mature. The art of strategy at corporate level needs our development and research refining. Following I will present some research questions.

10.4 Questions Concerning the Competitive Strategy

Chapter Six mentioned that the strategy at business unit level concerns mainly the question of how to compete. From this perspective, the keynote of a strategy aims at attracting the consumers in the market. Competition is bound to happen in every industry as long as it is not monopolized. All the companies in competition are faced with the question that what makes their products more appealing than that of their rivals so the customers are more willing to buy their goods instead of those of other companies. In other words, how to attract the consumers in the market and what could I use to attract the consumers? Or it could be interpreted as what better added values I (my products or services) can bring the consumers, compared to the competitors. These questions share the same core content, and are of great significance for companies to make decisions in terms of products and services.

The element of guideline of the competitive strategy

It can be seen from the strategy clock that the competitive strategy of a company could be measured from two dimensions: the price of the products (or services), and the added values brought to the consumers by the products or services. The way that a company sells its products or services with middle and high added values to the market in low prices is called Hybrid Strategy. So when a company formulates its competitive strategy, it defines its targeted customers in the market. It is clear that even in the same market, enterprises would adopt various strategies to deal with the great challenge of by what means to attract consumers, such as the competitive strategy of cost-leadership, the hybrid, the differentiation and even the focused differentiation. Here is a question that can be studied:

For what reason would different companies of the same industry choose different competitive strategies? What are the roles of such factors as the corporate history, company capabilities and the values of the head or founder of the company, etc.?

Throughout the competitive strategies of all sorts of companies, it can be found that they (or the company’s positioning in the market with regard to the prices of its products or the added values the consumers enjoy) have their traditions and heritage related closely to the founder of the company. For example, Louis Vuitton was founded in 1854 by Mr. Louis Vuitton who won the trust of Queen Eugenie. This brand has attracted the upper class with chic taste, and has always uphold the concept of producing perfect products.

According to resource based view, a company’s strategy is mainly determined by its resources and capabilities. Mr. Louis Vuitton has the capability of producing and selling elegant and exquisite products to the market, so his company launches high-end products.

The principle of strategic matching suggested that a company needs to consider the external environment as well as its resources and capabilities. Calingo ( 1989 ) and Zajac and Shortell ( 1989 ) also believe that the competitive strategy of a company is affected by the environment. When the environment changes or is contrary to expectation, would the company alter its basis competitive strategy or work out a new one accordingly? Or what is the role of the external environment in determing a company’s product position?

For instance, in the manufacturing industry, the qualities of the products cannot be improved within a short period, which is why an auto manufacturer who has never produced high-end cars would not enter such a market before acquiring the technologies needed. If a company has been following the competitive strategy of cost-leadership, would it develop its technologies and introduce new competitive strategies when the demand for quality products increases significantly in the market as time passes? If the answers are yes for some companies and no for others, then we would wonder why some change their basic competitive strategies while others don’t?

Similarly, if a company only provides products and services for the high-end market, would it enter the mid- and low-end market when the demand is huge?

The dissociation of the clients and consumers on the internet platforms

The development of the Internet has given rise to numerous network platforms where the definition of traditional clients and final consumers change, and the clients are no longer equal to the consumers. Take Baidu, the search engine, for example, its clients are companies who could pay for its services (those who advertise themselves on baidu.com), but its consumers are people who need the information. In that case, the needs of the clients and of the consumers are not the same to Baidu. In the case of Wei Zexi (who was misled by the search results on Baidu, and died of synoviosarcoma), the doctor information listed on the top was not the information the patient needed, which shows a contradiction between the demand of the clients and the consumers.

As another example, P2P platform companies have two kinds of users, project launcher (those in need of funds) and investor (those who provide funds). Some companies used to conceal the actual situation of the projects in order to attract investment, leaving investors suffer from property lose.

Today, the development of the Internet sees many new business modes in which the clients are separated from the consumers.

In the incident of Wei Zexi, Baidu regards the advertisers as its clients, instead of the final consumers who use the information on the platform, and wishes to provide them with more added values. Questions worth studying here are:

If the clients are not the final consumers, what kind of overall strategy would companies choose in competition when there is conflict of interest between the two?

When there are contradictions between the interests of the clients and the consumers, would there be obvious performance differences between companies who ignore the interests and demands of the final consumers and those who don’t?

Studying the questions above would help to better reveal the competitive thinking presented by the competitive strategy, especially the business ethics and thinking.

The competitive tactics

When it comes to military affairs, the details of each and every tactic are vital to the result of a war. Take the battle of Chibi during the Three Kingdoms Period (208 A.D) of China for example, after making the overall plan of attacking Cao Cao’s vessels with fire, Zhu Geliang had to think carefully the tactical details. For instance, how to trick Cao into chaining his vessels together so that they could not move during the fire attack? When would there be Southeast wind to blow the fire unto the enemy’s vessels since in winter the wind normally comes from the Northwest? In face of defeat, which way would Cao choose to flee? The correctness and perfection of tactic making is decisive in a war.

In business competition, the competitive tactic plans are equally important.

For example, when a company chooses the competitive strategy of differentiation, how can it differentiate its products or services so as to make theme preferable for the clients and consumers in the market? Although picking differentiation themes only concerns the tactics, however, if a company goes to the unwelcome one, it will seriously impede the achievement of the competitive goal. So the following questions can be asked:

Given a certain industry, what basic differentiation themes (competitive tactic plan) do the products or services have?

When a company chooses to compete with differentiation thinking, how does it determine or pick the competitive tactics (or differentiation themes)? In other words, which factors (such as the idea, artistic culture of the manager, and his/her familiarity with the clients and the technologies) have influence on the differentiation themes of the products or services?

How do the company’s capabilities and the characteristics of the main clients in the market affect the selection of differentiation themes?

These questions are of great significance in further explaining the differentiation strategy.

For companies that choose the strategy of cost-leadership, the next move is to determine the specific tactics which aim at lowering the cost after making the overall strategy. Some industries need large scale and investment (such as aircraft manufacturing, automotive mount, etc.), while some want large amounts of labor input (such as construction, catering, etc.). Does every industry have a different way of lowering the cost? On the basis of traditional cost management, given a specific company, what other methods remain available to reduce the cost? Studying these questions would also help to discover the strategy of cost-leadership.

10.5 Research Questions of the Corporate Strategy

Now let’s see what research questions remain to be studied concerning some of the specific strategies at corporate level. And in this part, I only investigate the following three strategies.

Questions of the backward integration strategy

The strategy of backward integration is a company’s aim to enter the field of suppliers. The three elements of this strategy have been introduced in Chapter Six, and related research can be carried out from the following perspectives.

Study on the element of major development issue.

Normally, a company would consider entering the field of suppliers when the prices of the raw materials or accessories are so high as to increase the procurement cost, or when the qualities of the raw material or accessories which could be purchased from the market are not stable so as to affect the quality of the products. Apart from these reasons (or major issues in the development of the company), are there any other important reasons for the company to take backward integration into account?

Study on the element of overall guiding principles.

The element of the strategic triangle at the lower right corner involves two basic guidelines, whose specific content needs to be decided by the company’s senior management.

The first guideline (guiding principle 1, see Fig.  10.5 ) is to decide on choices of the following three: to development the new business by its own, or acquire or hold the shares from the market. Then the following questions are raised (or could be studied):

Study on the guidelines of the strategy of backward integration

How would a company generally decide on its basic guidelines? Or what factors would affect a company’s decision choices (self-development, share-holding and acquisition)?

What are the characteristics that make a company inclined to choose self-development? If such characteristics do exist, does it mean that the companies having no such characteristics have made the wrong strategic decisions when they choose self-development? Or what would the result be?

What are the characteristics that make a company intend to choose share-holding or acquisition? If companies having no such characteristics choose share-holding or acquisition, does it mean that they have made the wrong strategic decisions? Or what would the result be?

In addition, with what characteristics would a company never consider backward integration but to accept the given prices and qualities in the market when it comes across the development problems including high prices and unstable qualities?

The second guideline (guideline 2 in Fig.  10.5 ) is to put forward guiding thinking or policies on “how to”. For example, on the assumption that the guideline 1 prefers acquisition, the question would be asked:

What are the differences between the requirements or standards of different companies (with respect to scale, profitability or status in the industry) in deciding (or choosing) the target enterprises? Is there a regular pattern?

Studying these questions is important for explaining the strategy of backward integration because this process is instructive in establishing the basic acquisition principles of the strategy of backward integration.

Study on the risks of the decision.

Even though by adhering to the strategy of backward integration the company enters an industry that is related to its own, the two industries are not the same. For instance, when a company of iron and steel melting enters the industry of iron ore, it enters into the mining industry. Since the two industries are abruptly different, if the company has no experience with regard to the field of the supplier, then such a move could be risky as the company enters into an unfamiliar field.

Therefrom questions can be asked (or could be studied): from which aspects would the company ponder over the risks (such as the risks of management, technologies, funds, market demand, etc.) of the backward integration strategy? What are the features of the highly risky decisions that adhere to the strategy of backward integration? How about the low-risk ones? Would companies normally choose the highly or the moderately risky ones? How do they control or manage the risks?

Study on the satisfaction of strategic decision.

Would the strategic decision of backward integration without clear guideline 1 and 2 in Fig. 9.7 or risk control scheme bring about significantly lower satisfaction than those opposite ones?

Questions of unrelated diversification strategy

The strategy of unrelated diversification means that the company enters a business field which is not related to its own. From the perspective of the strategic decision-making of the three elements, the following questions of the strategy are worth studying.

Study on the drivers and the company features of unrelated diversification.

What are the problems during the development of a company that make the senior management think about entering a field that is not related to the main business? Would the main reasons for many companies to consider unrelated diversification be that the target industry can bring about development potential or high profits and that the main business of the company is on the decline?

When the Chinese economy was progressing rapidly in late 1990s and early 2000, the real estate industry boasted high profits and return as to attract many enterprises from other industries. Therefore, the high profits of the target industry make some senior managerial staff think about a major development question, which is whether the company should enter the industry that bears no relation to its main business. But the fact is that many competent companies did not enter the real estate field even the industry was at its peak. So here come the questions that what kinds of enterprises would consider entering the target industry when there are high profits? What kinds would not? What are the effects of the company’s scale, capital and leaders’ characters, etc.?

Apart from the high profits of the target industry and the decline of the main business, are there any other development problems that make it necessary for the company to enter an industry which is irrelevant to its own? Would the hobbies and interests of the decision-makers and fund surplus of the company also be factors for considering unrelated diversification?

Study on the research questions of guideline 1.

In China, there are lot of private coal bosses in Shanxi Province in China. Due to the slump in the coal mining industry, many have turned to other businesses such as the real estate, catering or transportation. From study perspective, how do they manage to find new industries and businesses? What are the basic principles of doing so? Based on what principles would the decisions of unrelated diversification succeed? What roles do the original resources, social connections and individual personalities play? What’s more, what are the principles for a company to decide between acquisition, share-holding and self-development when it is determined to enter a new industry or business? What are the effects of its original capital and social connections? All these can be concluded in Fig.  10.6 .

Study on the guidelines of the strategic decision-making of unrelated diversification

Studying these questions is helpful in establishing the basic principles for the strategic decision-making of unrelated diversification, and it is crucial for explaining strategy theoretically and for guiding future practice.

Study on the risks of the strategy of unrelated diversification.

Just like the backward integration, the strategy of unrelated diversification instructs companies to enter an unfamiliar industry. The following questions might be raised (or studied): from which aspects would the company think over the risks (of technologies, funds or market demand, etc.) brought by the strategy? What are the characteristics of a highly risky strategy of unrelated diversification? How about the low-risk ones? How do companies control or manage the risks?

Study on the questions of the peer acquisition strategy

Peer acquisition means that the company purchases an enterprise who has the same main business. Generally speaking, the aim of such acquisition is to obtain key technologies, brand or economy of scale. The following questions of the strategy is worth digging.

Study on the element of major issues in company development.

A company acquires another enterprise of the same industry to gain some new advantages in the market such as advanced (or core) technologies, marketing channel, brand, economy of scale, or rapid expansion, etc. In other words, the company cannot develop further because it lacks advanced technologies, a brand recognized by the market or scale, so it wishes to solve the problems through acquisition. In that case, apart from the major issues in development, are there any other challenges that must be tackled through acquisition?

Actually,technologies, brands, marketing channels and the expansion of market shares could be achieved through companies own effort. For example, Huawei basically depends on itself and works with the western companies to improve its technological ability of products and solutions. In 2006, it cooperated with Motorola to establish the Joint R&D Center in Shanghai for the purpose of developing UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) technology. In 2007, it founded a joint venture with Symantec to develop the products and solutions of storage and security. And in the same year, it cooperated with Global Marine to jointly invest in working out the solutions for developing the end-to-end network of cable. By 2010, Huawei R & D personnel accounted for 46% of the total number of employees in the company. The company also set up 20 research institutes in the United States, Germany, Sweden, Russia, India, China and other places, and founded more than 20 joint innovation centers with the leading operators. Footnote 3 Questions worth asking (or digging) are as follows: when companies are facing major issues (or bottlenecks) such as technology and brand in development, which of them would take (or not take) acquisition as the solution? What are the roles of the factors of a company such as the age, size, profitability, relations with the government, interpersonal networks, past acquisition history, and personal characteristics of the high-level decision-makers?

If a company does not take advantage of acquisition to solve development problems in terms of technology and brand, etc., it seems that the decision has nothing to do with the acquisition strategy. But if we look at it from the angle of the strategic decision-making of the three elements, or if we do not take the word of acquisition into account, it can be found that the strategy is born out of the problems met by companies. But why do some companies use acquisition while some choose other ways to solve the obstacles encountered? Understanding this question can illustrate the influencing factors of the decision of acquisition and non-acquisition, and thus further explains the acquisition strategy .

Study on the questions of the element of guidelines for acquisition.

The company’s guidelines or principles regarding the requirements of the target company are essential to the choice of the acquisition target. In addition to the monopolized and oligopoly industries, there are many companies in other industries, then why is the certain company being selected? What are the basic principles of companies’ peer acquisition? How do they determine these principles? What are the roles of the acquisition purpose, the resources available, the profitability, the social relations and the interpersonal network, and the personality of the decision-maker? All the questions are included in Fig.  10.7 .

Study on the principles of the peer acquisition for choosing the target company

Studying these questions helps to establish the basic principles of the strategic decision-making of peer acquisition. And it is crucial for understanding the strategy and for guiding the future practice.

Study on the risks of the strategy of fraternity acquisition.

Strategic decisions concern investment. Usually the investment involved in the acquisition strategy is relatively large. What risks of the acquisition strategy (such as the market risk, technological risk, funding risk, and the risk of being boycotted by the acquisition target, etc.) would generally be considered by companies? How do companies control or manage the risks?

Study on the satisfaction brought by or performance of the strategy of fraternity acquisition.

If the decision violates the acquisition principles, is it destined to fail? Do acquisition decisions that have no clear guidelines or risk control schemes bring about significantly lower satisfaction than those that do?

10.6 Research Questions on the General Principles of Strategic Decision-Making

In Sun Zi ‘Art of War, there are several chapters concerning principles on war, such as “initial plan, battle section, attach and seek, military contention, march and topographical work”.

In the chapter of “attach and seek”, there is a principle of “subdue the enemy without fighting”. The supreme end of war is to keep the country at peace and protect the people. “Subdue the enemy without fighting” is to serve this end. This theory or principle is applicable to any war that wishes to avoid the suffering of the civilian people.

Enlightened by the military thinking, I have been thinking about two basic issues. One is from academic point of view, do we have such principles for helping managers to make various business strategies? If yes, what are they? In Chapter Seven, I introduced three principles that need to be followed in strategic decision-making including matching the external environment and the internal resources. Are there any other principles apart from the ones in Chapter Seven? The answer should be positive. And they can be refined and summarized to guide the strategy of companies.

The factors of macro environment and industry

Since 1980s, the development of China’s economy has witnessed the change of consumer groups, and I am also one of them. In 2003, I went to Paris for a business trip, and three bottles of ordinary mineral water almost cost my one day’s wage, so it’s fair to say that in the streets of Paris, I was absolutely a poor person. But at present, many Chinese consumers can earn more salary income, so their consumption habit are proceeding from being barely fed and clad to a more comfortable life.

During the development of an economy, the environment in which various industries are located is also changing. In the process, some enterprises expand while some disappear. The development of an industry is closely related to the trend of economic development and government policies in the region, therefore a company can only survive when its strategy matches the external environment. Then questions can be raised:

When the economy is developing rapidly, what principles of strategic decision-making should company with different characteristics adhere to (or insist on) to explore and seize the opportunity of developing with the economy?

When the economy is sluggish or even downward, what principles of strategic decision-making should company of different characteristics adhere to (or insist on) to avoid risks?

Can we summarize or deeply understand the regularity of the principles of strategic decision-making that various companies adhere to in the process of economic development? Or is there any regularity of business strategy similar to the “Art of War”?

What is the practical significance of studying the questions above? Assuming that in a fast-growing economy, there is a medium-sized company of low-profitability producing low-end products. If the company would like to develop in a sustainable way, are there any theories that can tell the company what basic principles its development strategy should adopt in order to achieve the long term development goals? Or can research results (theories) provide a pattern for the company’s strategic decision-making?

It can be seen that if the regularity of the principles that various companies adhere to when making strategic decisions in different stages can be concluded, not only would the strategic disciplines be developed, but the practice of enterprises would also be guided.

The factors of corporate resources and capabilities

It has been introduced before that an important principle of strategic decision-making is that the strategy must match not only the external environment, but also the company’s internal resources and capabilities. Under this basic and general principle, is there “specific” (or sub-) principles in terms of companies’ resources and capabilities? What does this question mean? For example, compared to small- and medium-sized ones which are generally weaker, do large companies with good profit adhere to different principles while making the strategy? Are the principles of the problem-solving overall guiding ideology different when the two kinds of companies encounter the same or similar major development issue? Are there corresponding principles of strategic decision-making for large and strong companies to refer to? Similarly, are there basic principles of strategic decision-making to provide theoretical guidance for smaller and weaker companies?

Or we can study the following questions:

What overall ideology or principles would companies of different sizes and profitability choose to overcome the key development problems? Is there any regularity in the principles embodied? If any, what is the regularity?

Would small businesses generally choose schemes or plans that require smaller amount of investment (for instance, if the company is lack of core technologies, would it choose to develop by itself or work with others)?

Would large and competent companies with good profit normally choose schemes or plans that require larger amount of investment (for instance, if the company is lack of core technologies, would it choose to acquire another company that has such technologies)?

Why would “a snake tries to swallow an elephant” (small businesses acquiring large ones)? How should we interpret the phenomenon? What logic (or principle) does the decision-maker follow?

When viewed from the perspective of logic, acquisition of snake swallowing an elephant is against the basic principles of strategic decision-making (that the strategy should match the company’s resources and capabilities). But this phenomenon does exist with successful cases. There were many overseas acquisitions in Japanese companies during the 1980s when its economy was in a boom. Nowadays, China’s economy is progressing while the western economy is sluggish. Many Chinese businesses, including some small- and medium-sized private companies, have started to acquire and merge with overseas enterprises. In 2015, Changjiang Elec. Tech. (stock number is 600,584) announced its plan of making a tender offer to STATS ChipPAC Ltd which ranks the fourth in the world and is twice its own size. Footnote 4 Jschina.com.cn reported on November 3, 2016 that Jiangsu Cubespace Furniture Co., Ltd., a growing private enterprise, invested USD 78 million to acquire Friant Associates, an American company leading the industry of office furniture. Footnote 5 We can probe into the questions that under what conditions (or in line with what principles) would such M&As have a better chance to succeed? Without the conditions (or principles), would such M&As less likely to succeed? Studying those questions will give us a better understanding of such acquisition strategy, while at the same time the summarized theory can also provide guidance for the practice of companies.

10.7 The Risks Brought by the Element of Overall Strategy

What brings the victory in a war, fighting or compromising? If the answer is the former, then what should be the guideline? Fighting strategies born out of different guidelines directly influence the military powers put into the war, and bring about different potential risks.

How to ponder over the risks of different guidelines

The strategic decision-making of a company concerns the scale of the investment. One factor that affects the investment is the “guideline or overall ideology” element at the lower right of the strategic triangle. For example, when a company wants to improve its technological capabilities, it can cooperate with others in the market (domestic and international companies), or acquire another enterprise. Through acquisition, companies can directly get technologies and brands but the investment needed is large. So the risks involved in the two different strategies are different. Strategic decision-making, in many cases, is to choose different scenarios, and to assess the expected returns and risks. Then we would ask:

When a company faces a major issue in development, how does it weigh the risks brought by different problem-solving overall ideologies?

Thinking over the risks brought by the element of guideline

It is evident that Geely’s acquisition of Volvo is a success, but BenQ’s acquisition of Siemens is not. Every strategic decision (especially the decision of the overall ideology element) is made with a corresponding basic investment plan. The failure of a strategy indicates the failure of an investment.

When an ideology of a strategy decision making is selected, this indicates that the senior management of the company has made the strategic decision. If we take strategic decision as investment decision, can the risks of strategic decision be assessed or studied as a whole?

With what characteristics is the overall guiding ideology having a low risk or high risk?

How do decision-makers identify the risks? What are the roles of the future trend of the industry, the economic environment, as well as the companies’ financial resources and management capability and other factors in the identification?

Would different companies in size, ownership structure, and profitability put forward different overall ideologies, and would the potential risks be different?

Do decision makers’ habits of risk aversion or their attitude towards risk significantly affect the risks in the decision of overall ideology? Or what characteristics make the decision-makers prefer the high-risk in the decision? What characteristics make the decision-makers prefer low-risk in the decision?

Studying these questions can allow us have some insights into the risks of various strategies and their patterns, which would help us take precautions against possible risks.

10.8 Future Outlook

This book alludes that the study of the competitive strategy is relatively mature from an academic point of view. Each competitive strategy, there is corresponding element of overall ideology reflecting brilliant thinking on how to compete. However, with regard to the corporate strategy, there are still many challenges to be investigated and explored.

After studying the relevant theories of strategy, Boyd et al. ( 2005 ) concludes that strategy as a discipline is still in its infancy. Today, our understanding of the strategic laws or the art of business strategy still cannot yet meet the requirements of companies’ practice, so the scholars are still bearing particular responsibilities. The good news is that we are already at a start-up stage. In the future, more regularities of strategic decision will be revealed and more theories will appear, so as to better guide the strategic practice of enterprises. I believe that the discipline of strategic management will see a better development in the future.

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Yu, Xb. (2021). Implications for Future Research. In: The Fundamental Elements of Strategy. Management for Professionals. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4713-7_10

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