Survival of the Misfittest - Stakeholder Enactment as Performance Buffer for Contingency Misfits

Abstract

This study explores how contingency misfit can possibly be compensated. The paper particularly focuses on stakeholder enactment as a dynamic adaptation mechanism to overcome configurational misfit. By analyzing data from 238 firms located in eight countries, our study shows that stakeholder enactment can indeed buffer for contingency misfit. Enactment of internal stakeholders buffers the structure-strategy misfit, while enactment of external stakeholders buffers both the environment-organization misfit and structure-strategy misfit.