Inaugural Address: Global Strategy - The World is your Oyster (If You Can Shuck It!)
On Friday 5 December 2014, Taco Reus, Professor of Global Strategy, presented his inaugural address titled ‘Global Strategy: The World Is Your Oyster (If You Can Shuck It!)’.
About the Inaugural Address
In this inaugural lecture, Taco briefly describes the disciplinary background, central research questions, and themes of Global Strategy, and he presents what may be the dominant framework of understanding how global strategy works and what determines its success. In a nutshell, the formation and implementation of global strategies involves intricate connections between – and savvy decision-making about – resources, relations and rules; i.e., the R3 of Global Strategy. What comes into play particularly in the international context is the role of rules. One of his aims in this address is therefore to broaden the interest in the roles of rules. To illustrate this, the talk discusses aspects of the international acquisition process to suggest that success in Global Strategy relies for an important part on a curiosity about how rules – both our own and others, both local and foreign – influence who we and others are as individuals and as organizations.
About Taco Reus
Taco Reus is professor in Global Strategy at the Department of Strategic Management & Entrepreneurship, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM).
His research examines how firms are influenced by the environment in which they strategize, operate and expand, and how organizational capabilities and experience help or hurt firms in this environment. Commonly, Taco Reus studies these topics in the context of mergers and acquisitions. His current research focuses on the role of contextual factors in post-merger integration such as cultural and institutional differences in cross-border acquisitions. His other related projects look at the role of procedural qualities during post-merger integration, such as procedural justice, emotional capability, and other integration capabilities, and how firms can manage the post-merger integration process successfully.
Taco Reus' articles have been published in several high-profile academic journals including the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, the Strategic Management Journal, the Journal of International Business Studies, and Management International Review. He currently serves on the editorial board of the Academy of Management Review for which he received Outstanding Reviewer awards in both 2009 and 2011, and Strategic Organization.
Professor Reus teaches courses on the institutional context of firms in RSM's BA and IBA programmes and on international firm strategies in the school's Global Business & Stakeholder Management Master's programme. He was nominated professor of the year in 2010, 2011 and 2012 by his BA students.
Taco Reus obtained his master's degree in psychology from the University of Amsterdam, and his Ph.D. in strategic management from Florida State University. With his dissertation entitled 'A Knowledge-Based View of International Acquisitions,' he was a finalist in the Organisation Science 2003 Dissertation Proposal Competition and the 2004 Gunnar-Hedlund Competition for best dissertation in international business. Prior to joining RSM, he worked at Florida Atlantic University.
Photos: Chris Gorzeman / Capital Images
