Research Seminar: Professor Ayşegül Özsomer

Title: Growth Differences between Strategic Switchers and Non-Switchers: Does Agility Pay Off?

Abstract: Dynamic and turbulent markets require agility in firm behavior and strategies. Defining agility as switching between alternative strategies across time, the authors compare agile firms with those that keep their strategies consistent. The authors combine survey data collected across four periods from top management of large manufacturers in an emerging market with secondary sales growth data into a panel data structure. Results show that agile firms perform better than consistents in terms of contemporaneous as well as sales growth in the following year. The authors, then, investigate the effects of the type of switching, switching up to more dynamic, proactive strategies versus switching down to more cautious, defender strategies, to identify more desirable switching across different economic conditions. Finally, the paper identifies the drivers of different types of (desirable) switching in terms of marketing elements. Overall, results support the notion of strategic agility in the form of switching between alternative strategies across time as a superior approach in terms of sales growth compared to consistent strategies.

Bio: Ayşegül Özsomer is Professor of Marketing at Koç University, Istanbul, Türkiye. She specializes in global marketing, branding, emerging markets and the role of marketing in tough economic times. She has taught, consulted, and conducted research in the US before joining Koç University. She has published in top scholarly journals including Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of International Marketing and Human Resource Management. She is the recipient of the 2011 Gerald Hills Best Paper Award for ten-year impact on entrepreneurship research, the 2013 Cavusgil Award for her paper investigating the interplay between global and local brands, the 2023 Tamer Cavusgil Award for her paper on marketing agility, and the 2025 Significant Contributions to Global Marketing Award, which honors a scholar who has made exceptional contributions to the field of global marketing. Ayşegül has held visiting scholar positions at the Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, the Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA, and Harvard University. She is the Editor in Chief of the Journal of International Marketing, an American Marketing Association Journal published by SAGE.

Note: Tea/coffee and sandwiches will be served between 12 - 1 pm in front of Cafe Jolt on the Lower Ground Floor.

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