This text consults seven variants of institutional theory to explore how these can be applied to strategic management. These variants are New Institutional Economics, Old Institutionalism, New Institutionalism, institutional entrepreneurship and change, intra organizational institutionalization, institutional logics, and institutional work.

In doing so, three strategic management styles are distinguished: competitiveness based strategic management, legitimacy based strategic management, and performativity based strategic management. While the competitive based style sees institutional theory submitting to mainstream strategy research, offering additional variables and considerations to explain competitive advantage, the legitimacy based style makes institutional theory a strategy theory in its own right by providing an explanation for an organization's viability that emphasizes legitimacy over competitive advantage.

The performativity based style is an even more radical departure from mainstream strategizing by purporting that a future is actively created with organizations making contributions as emerging issues are being dealt with. .