Business Unit Strategy, Managerial Characteristics, and Business Unit Effectiveness at Strategy Implementation.

Data from 58 strategic business units (SBUs) reveal that greater marketing/sales experience, greater willingness to take risk, and greater tolerance for ambiguity on the part of the SBU general manager contribute to effectiveness in the case of "build" SBUs but hamper it in the case of "harvest" SBUs.Despite the widespread acceptance of strategy's role in mediating an organization's interaction with its environment (Andrews, 1971;Ansoff, 1965;Chandler, 1962;Child, 1972;Miles & Snow, 1978), the scope of research on strategy "implementation" has remained quite narrow.Following Chandler (1962), the concern has been predominantly with how a firm's organizational structure and control system are, or might be, related to the degree and nature of its product and geographic diversification (Fouraker & Stopford, 1968;Grinyer, Al-Bazzaz, & Yasai-Ardekani, 1980;Rumelt, 1974;Scott, 1973;Vancil, 1980).However^ strategy formulation and implementation take place not just at the level of the diversified firm as a whole, but also at the level of the divisions/strategic business units (SBUs) comprising the firm (Hambrick, 1980;Hofer & Schendel, 1978).In such a context, the near absence of empirical studies on strategy implementation at the SBU level presents a significant research opportunity.