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In many industries, including telecommunications, transportation, and energy as well as chemicals and food and beverages, firm performance and success largely depend on external factors. The main levers for profitability in those industries are heavily influenced by regulatory actors who impact strategic choices of corporate management.

The study is based in the field of strategic management, more specifically in strategy process research. Acknowledging the inherent inter-linkages between strategy process and strategy content, the study will include content elements in order to generate more holistic insights in the forming of strategies. The theoretical background of the study, however, remains the field of strategy process research.

The goal of this dissertation is to analyze the impact of regulatory actors on strategy formation and how corporations can manage external influences on corporate strategy and structure. More specifically, the analysis consists of the following three parts: (1) Direct influences of regulatory actors on strategy formation, (2) Internal alignment processes of strategy and structure, and (3) Externally directed responses toward regulatory involvement in order influence the institutional environment and the regulatory actors.

In order to make the processes of interest — influences of regulatory actors on strategy formation — transparently observable, we had to choose a research setting which offers extreme situations (Eisenhardt, 1995). In the following chapter we will outline why we selected the German energy industry in general and E.ON in particular (chapter 4.1). Chapter 4.2 will then briefly introduce the German energy giant E.ON. Departing from the focal organization, we will provide an overview of the environment of the German energy industry in which E.ON operates (chapter 4.3). This environment went through significant changes that have been formed not only through regulatory actors and incumbent utilities like E.ON but through the interactions of a number of relevant actors in the field. Those will be presented in chapter 4.4. The chapter concludes with a summary and discussion (chapter 4.5).

In this chapter we will outline the most important methodological issues. After a brief discussion of quantitative and qualitative methodologies (chapter 5.1), we will present the research design of this study (chapter 5.2). Our methodological approach falls into two distinct phases, and since the related research designs and methodologies differ considerably, they will each be discussed in a separate chapter.

The results section is divided into three subchapters that are related to the three research questions of this dissertation. This chapter focuses on theoretical rooting and the deduction of propositions, which clearly relate to these research questions. Theory building on a more general level is realized in chapter 7.

Chapter 6 presented the results of the dissertation project as related to our three distinct research questions: how strategy formation, as represented by corporate resource allocations, was affected by regulatory involvement; how and in what sequence the six elements of corporate strategy were aligned; and how the corporation used externally directed response strategies in order to influence its institutional environment. This chapter will generalize our findings and work towards an integrative framework for managing regulatory involvement.

This dissertation aimed at better integrating external actors into strategy process research. First, we looked at the impact of regulatory actors on corporate resource allocations, internal alignments and external responses following regulatory involvement (see chapter 6). Then, we tried to generalize our findings in an integrated neoinstitutional framework and to extend existing research (Burgelman, 1983b; Burgelman, 1991; Hensmans, 2003) toward a boundary model of the co-evolution of corporate strategy and industry (see chapter 7). Finally, we reflected on the role of market and non-market components for strategic management and we elaborated on possible coordination issues. While the stand-alone findings of chapter 6 are intended to contribute to extant research on their own, we also tried to lift those results to a higher general theoretical level in chapter 7. All throughout our research, we used neoinstitutional theory to explain the impact of external actors on strategy formation and the role of corporate management in the creation of the environment. The use of this rather novel theoretical lens for strategy process research proved to be very helpful due to the fresh and powerful perspective on strategy formation.

The main objective of this dissertation was to better integrate external actors into strategy process research. For this reason, we elaborated on the influences of external, regulatory actors on corporate strategy and structure and how these can be managed by the corporation. In order to link this research to existing theory, chapter 2 reviewed the relevant literature, introduced the main concepts of this dissertation (regulatory initiatives, consistency, internal alignments, and externally directed responses), and selected a suitable theoretical perspective (neo-institutional theory). Chapters 3, 4 and 5 then presented the empirical and methodological foundation. Due to the novelty and holistic nature of the research objective, a longitudinal single case study design was selected which allowed for in-depth elaborations on the mutual interdependencies and interactions between internal and external actors. The German energy industry seemed to be particularly suited due to its transitional character and the traditionally significant influence of regulatory actors. In chapter 6 the results relating to the three concrete research questions were presented and propositions were developed. Chapter 7 then generalized the findings and applied them to higher level theories. Central theoretical findings of this dissertation included an institutional framework that integrates market and non-market strategies, a boundary model on the co-evolution of corporate strategy and industry, and a discussion of coordination options for market and non-market strategies. Finally, chapter 8 provided a general discussion of the results and highlighted the theoretical and practical implications.