The evolution of the company's strategic management concepts through the prism of efficiency

Relevance. According to J. Barney, strategic management seeks to address the central research question: "Why do some firms consistently outperform others?" By outperformance, J. Barney refers to sustained differences in firm efficiency across companies. The authors of this article align with Barney’s position but offer one refinement: strategic management examines these differences in firm efficiency over the long term. Nevertheless, the question of what precisely constitutes "efficiency" and how this concept has been interpreted by various schools of strategic management theories across different periods remains under-researched.
The purpose is to examine the evolution of strategic management theories and identify which type of efficiency is key to a firm’s success in each of the considered concepts.
Objectives: to analyze the concepts of strategic management at different stages of the "Strategic Management" discipline’s formation and to systematize the types of efficiency that were central to these concepts.
Methodology. The study employs the historical-logical method to identify interconnections between theories, as well as a comparative analysis of their approaches to efficiency.
Results. Key strategic management concepts are examined in the order of their evolution. An analysis is conducted to determine which type of efficiency is central to these concepts.
Conclusions. It is established that early schools of strategic management (design, planning, positioning) emphasize allocative efficiency. Several second-wave schools (learning, power, culture) consider adaptive efficiency as primary. The resource-based view incorporates both types of efficiency. The dynamic capabilities framework shifts the focus to systemic (synergistic) efficiency.

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