A Content and Comparative Analysis of Strategic Management Research in the Baltic Area : A Research Agenda for Qualitative Studies

This paper aims to provide a research agenda for qualitative studies in the field of strategic management (SM) in the Baltic area. A total of 167 strategic management-related articles in this area between 2000 and 2013 were found. The content within title, abstract and authors' keywords were analysed by means of a multiple correspondence analysis based on the HOMALS procedure. The intellectual structure of SM in the Baltic area is to some extent similar to the global structure of the field. Hence research on this topic in the Baltic area is well integrated in the field. Three topics of interest have been identified while the fourth seems to offer more limited opportunities for qualitative studies. These are: Entry and Competition; Strategic Behaviour and the Micro-foundations of Strategy; the Growth-Performance Relationship; and Global Strategies. Despite the modest number of articles in our sample, the findings are consistent with past research on the structure of the SM field. The classification of articles into qualitative- and quantitative-based methods helped provide a research agenda. SM scholars in the Baltic area may find this article as an interesting input to their quest for finding and justifying their own research path. This is an original literature review. The use of a quantitative method in the literature review and the suggested matrix is a second original contribution to evolving methodologies for content analysis. The method allows the inclusion of large samples while limiting the use of scholars' intuition