This three-paper dissertation focuses on strategic initiatives, the teams that undertake such endeavors, and the team processes that are utilized. A strategic initiative is a temporary undertaking intended to develop or renew organizational capabilities; as such, initiatives are crucial for organizational performance and competitive advantage. In organizations, examples of strategic initiatives include projects for new products, services, and operations, as well as corporate new ventures. Despite their importance for organizational survival, the importance of strategic initiatives is not always acknowledged in academic research. This dissertation starts from the assumption that strategic initiatives, as the vehicles by which organizations develop the capabilities that implement their strategy, need to be considered an important element of strategy process that requires in-depth examination to ensure their successful development. In order to bring attention to strategic initiatives and contribute to a growing body of literature, this dissertation undertakes three distinct but related papers concerning these important projects. I first review and integrate the literature relating to strategic initiatives, which is highly dispersed around different streams of research, and provide a holistic look into the past, present and future of research concerning strategic initiatives. I then explore strategic initiatives and the teams that undertake them in two separate papers; first, by situating the initiative within the larger organizational context through a discussion of goal heterogeneity at multiple levels, and second, by investigating the temporal dynamics between strategic initiative task characteristics and intrateam personal processes. Overall, this research provides an organizing framework to a dispersed literature and attempts to answer just two of the many research opportunities that are charted for future exploration, in a topic that is fundamentally vital for organizational survival.