The effects of strategy and institutions on value creation and appropriation in firms: a longitudinal study of three telecom companies

Strategic management has come to pay more attention to value creation and appropriation among the firm’s stakeholders, including customers, capital owners, and employees. Existing research has conceptualized this as a strategic choice bounded by the bargaining power of each stakeholder group, which, we argue, risks misattributing outcomes by neglecting structural constraints. Instead, these dynamics need to be understood within the wider institutional context shaping the behavior of managers and stakeholders. Using a question-driven mixed-methods approach, we investigate the evolution of value creation and appropriation in three telecom companies located in different institutional systems—British Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, and Telecom Italia. Our findings suggest that national institutional and firm strategic effects must be considered together to understand patterns of value creation and appropriation among stakeholders.