Professor Harry Sminia
Management Science
Personal statement
Personal statement
Harry Sminia is professor of strategic management.
Before joining Strathclyde in 2013, Harry held positions at the University of Groningen, the Vrije Universteit, Amsterdam and the University of Sheffield.
His research interests are in the area of processes of strategy formation, strategic change, and competitive positioning. He is eclectic in his theoretical tastes, as long as it helps to elucidate ‘how’ questions. Management reality is processual. It is not about the state of things and providing explanations why these are correlated with each other. It is about how things come into being, change or continue to be, and sometimes disappear again. It is about understanding how things happen and can be made to happen.
Harry has done research on how a top management team activity actually affects the strategic direction of a firm, how organizations change, how environments develop, but also how crucial things remain unaltered over a period of time despite a strong impetus for change. He currently focuses on high value manufacturing. This is a particularly interesting problem area, not only because of its prominence in Scotland’s and the UK’s economic and innovation policy, but also because it is at the crossroads of strategy, innovation, and operations. He is also interested in process research methods and methodology.
To do and to teach strategy, Harry believes there is nothing so practical as a good theory (to paraphrase Kurt Lewin). Furthermore, he beliefs that learning is the most effective if you have to do what you are being taught. For those reasons he always tries to involve students in activities in which they have to use strategy theories to experience their practicality.
Harry is happy to supervise PhD students who – like him – are interested in finding out about 'how' questions in the broad area of strategic management. Yet he is particularly interested in projects that are at the crossroads of strategy, innovation, and manufacturing.
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Area of Expertise
- Strategy process
- Realising strategy
- Strategic management capability
- High value manufacturing
- Process research
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Publications
- Mapping complexity as a qualitative approach to operationalizing actor-network theory
- de Abreu Barbosa Ricardo de Abreu, Bataglia Walter, Sminia Harry
- Evolving Designs, Applications, Technological Advances, and the Future of Qualitative Research (2025) (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.4018/979-8-3373-4432-4.ch010
- Building business models in complex manufacturing towards the circular economy
- Ates Aylin, Paton Steve, Sminia Harry
- BAM 2025: 39th Annual Conference of the British Academy of Management (2025)
- Failure as a process : shaping what is worth doing in creative projects
- Otto Birke, Schiemer Benjamin, Sminia Harry, Sydow Jörg
- Spaces for Creativity and Innovation Within and Across Organizational Boundaries (2025) (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20250000091020
- Formulation is implementation : the performativity of valuation and business modeling in new ventures
- Forte Denis, Sminia Harry
- Impacts of Innovation and Cognition in Management (2024) (2024)
- https://doi.org/10.4018/979-8-3693-5777-4.ch016
- Path release among practices in the process of path constitution : how the MP3-path appeared in the field of recorded music
- Sminia Harry, Bohn Stephan, Sydow Jörg
- Research Policy Vol 53 (2024)
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2024.105073
- How stories make strategy : top management and middle managers' storytelling performances
- Enang Etieno S, Zhang Ying, Sminia Harry
- Academy of Management Proceedings Vol 2024 (2024)
- https://doi.org/10.5465/amproc.2024.12010abstract
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Professional Activities
- Digital Strategy for Textiles
- Organiser
- 31/1/2018
- External Examiner Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow
- External Examiner
- 2016
- External Examiner Warwick Business School
- External Examiner
- 2016
- External Examiner Newcastle University Business School Joint Degrees with Rijksuniversteit Groningen in The Netherlands
- External Examiner
- 2014
Projects
- Sustainable Growth Framework for Medical Device Design Consultancy - £6960
- Sminia, Harry (Co-investigator) Paton, Steve (Principal Investigator)
- Fearsome began with 2 staff in 2005 as a general engineering design consultancy executing a small number of simple development projects across several industry sectors. At its inception, Fearsome was structured as a professional practice as was appropriate for a small company at an early stage.. However Fearsome has since grown now employing 30 direct staff. It now specialises in medical device design specifically in distinct fields including ophthalmology, drug delivery and neurosurgery. The development projectsFearsome currently executes are now larger in scale and scope and much more complex in execution. To accommodate this growth the structure of the company has evolved organically from its initial simple professional structure to become a more complex matrix structure. While this structure is more appropriate, it is still immature and requires further development as it currently presents challenges for capacity planning and resource allocation, project portfolio management, business growth and strategic planning and skills development and recruitment. Fearsome is working at capacity within a buoyant market with many opportunities, but its growth is being restricted as it lacks the ability to effectively scale its organisation to simultaneously capture new business and efficiently execute its current business. As a project-based SME working on cutting edge technologies within a complex market sector there are no off-the-shelf business modelling and organisational structuring solutions available which can be imported on, for example, a consultancy basis to meet Fearsome’s needs. There are several unusual features which make Fearsome’s challenges difficult to address with current thinking. First, the structuring of an SME organisation working on Research and Development is difficult as resources are typically more constrained than in larger organisations, so standard techniques for specifying an engineering division of labour are less effective. Second, allocation of separate direct and overhead roles is often difficult requiring a multilateral approach to capacity planning. Third, the separation of strategic and operational functions is often impossible, requiring more flexible resource allocation techniques. These and other challenges mean that a custom organisational structure and business model is required. Uniquely these challenges are made more acute as Fearsome exists within the Medical Technology sector, a speciality niche which deals directly with patient ergonomics. This is itself an emerging discipline where few standard models of product development exist. The research being carried out within Strathclyde Business School on complex, project-based business structures and the integration of project and operational work types will allow Fearsome to develop an organisational structure and business model that will allow it to execute its current business efficiently and effectively grow its revenue stream within an evolving market.
- 28-Jan-2025 - 24-Jan-2025
- Innovative Business Model for CASKFILL and CASKLOG - £4980 Innovation Voucher
- Sminia, Harry (Co-investigator) Paton, Steve (Principal Investigator)
- CAE’s CASKFILL™ and CASKLOG™ form a product-service bundle comprising a digital system for
filling and disgorging volatile liquids to a high accuracy and data gathering functionality to
enable customers to track critical metrics. CAE can fully install this system into any facility that
requires fluid pumping and electronic control systems. The product service bundle is innovative
and unique due to the precision of the system - this is in effect its USP . Initially built for
distilleries CAE is now investigating its use with less volatile fluids and are finding that the
product has potential application beyond the limited industry scope that it was originally
designed for.
To exploit the opportunity this product-service bundle must be deployed within the correct
business model. This model will include the marketing of this solution, the project management
of its installation within the wider process facility, the operations management of the production
of the necessary equipment and the support of the installed equipment throughout the product
lifecycle.
The applied for innovation voucher funding is intended to develop a business model and
strategic plan for the global deployment of this product-service bundle.
This business model will be built on a full-lifecycle approach with closer customer relationships
and extended service provision. Additionally, the business model will need to consider the
packaging and supply of the telemetry produced by this product-service bundle once installed,
this consideration will also potentially lead to a change to the shape of the existing business. A
business model for this product-service bundle does not exist and therefore must be developed
using the latest in academic thinking which will be deployed within an Action Research
Framework.
In tandem with the development of the business model, a strategy will be developed to support
the business model which will strive to create sales both globally within the food and drinks
sector but also to access markets in adjacent sectors that utilise process flow technology. More
broadly this service should become the industry standard creating a uniform process across
industry that will improve the efficiency and performance of companies and reduce waste so
helping companies to meet carbon performance and pollution reduction targets.
If CAE can upskill and upscale their business, build efficient standards and practices, and
manage both short- and long-term strategy, this product service-bundle could form a pivotal part
in the Industry 4.0 solutions across Scottish manufacturing and beyond. - 13-Jan-2024 - 30-Jan-2024
- KTP - JWF Process Solutions Ltd. Business model transition from sensor supply, to provision of a software-based data and information service sales solution.
- Paton, Steve (Principal Investigator) Sminia, Harry (Co-investigator) Wallace, William (Co-investigator) Walls, Lesley (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2021 - 28-Jan-2023
- KTP - Leonardo
- Paton, Steve (Principal Investigator) Ates, Aylin (Co-investigator) Sminia, Harry (Co-investigator)
- 04-Jan-2019 - 03-Jan-2021
- Strategy Capability Workshops for Turner & Co Ltd
- McIntyre, Alan (Principal Investigator) Sminia, Harry (Principal Investigator) Nair, Anup (Co-investigator)
- 25-Jan-2018 - 08-Jan-2018
- ERDF Atlantic Area Programme 2014-2020 IN. 4.0 Project
- Ates, Aylin (Co-investigator) Sminia, Harry (Co-investigator) Walls, Lesley (Co-investigator) Quigley, John (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2017 - 31-Jan-2021