...University | Strategic Management in a Global Context | Assessment A | Module Leader: Karl Warner | Matriculation Number: 09005374 | | Abstract The purpose of this essay is to evaluate a proposition which claims that the weaknesses of formal strategic planning confirm that alternative forms of strategic decision making are more appropriate for organisations that operate in highly uncertain and dynamic environment. | Table of Contents Introduction.......................................................................................................................3 Contrast between the nature of formal planning and strategic decision making...........3 Benefits and problems of formalised strategic decision making.....................................4 Benefits and problems of emergent strategy...................................................................4 The role of uncertain and dynamic environment.............................................................5 Why Borders failed while Barnes & Noble survived?.......................................................6 Conclusion.........................................................................................................................7 References.........................................................................................................................8 Introduction Planning is the basic function of strategic management and has...
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...Cand. Merc. IMM INTERNATIONAL MARKETING AND MANAGEMENT “Is there an optimal strategic approach in gaining superior financial performance in a hypercompetitive environment?” Topic no. 2 Authors: Kristofer Edholm Alexandra Johansen Advisor: Magdalena Dobrajska Date of Hand-in: 19/12 – 2012 “IS THERE AN OPTIMAL STRATEGIC APPROACH IN GAINING SUPERIOR FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE IN A HYPERCOMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT?” ABSTRACT Hypercompetition has made competition more aggressive, and effective strategies have become vital in order for companies to remain competitive in the vigorous marketplace. The paper will study the two most commonly used theories within strategic planning, the Industrial Analysis and the Resource-Based View, to see which is more effective in order to increase financial performance in a hypercompetitive environment. The paper will first look at the overall effect of hypercompetition on the marketplace. Secondly, the Industrial Analysis effect on financial performance in hypercompetition will be examined, and thirdly, the effect the Resource-Based View has on financial performance considering hypercompetitive challenges. Finally, the paper ends by concluding that a strategy based on RBV will have greater effect on financial performance in a hypercompetitive environment, which suggests that managers' should spend more resources concerning companies' internal environment than the external in order to increase their return on investments. 2 INTRODUCTION ...
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...1.0 WHAT ARE THE ELEMENTS OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT? Strategic management consists of the analyses, decisions and actions an organization undertakes in order to create and sustain competitive advantages. The strategic management process is made up of four elements: situation analysis, strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and strategy evaluation. These elements are steps that are performed, in order, when developing a new strategic management plan. Situation Analysis The situation analysis provides the information necessary to create a company mission statement. Situation analysis involves "scanning and evaluating the organizational context, the external environment, and the organizational environment" (Coulter, 2005). This analysis can be performed using several techniques. Observation and communication are two very effective methods. To begin this process, organizations should observe the internal company environment. This includes employee interaction with other employees, employee interaction with management, manager interaction with other managers, and management interaction with shareholders. In addition, discussions, interviews, and surveys can be used to analyse the internal environment. Organizations also need to analyse the external environment. This would include customers, suppliers, creditors, and competitors. Several questions can be asked which may help analyse the external environment. It examines the company’s relationship with its customers and...
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...1 INTRODUCTION Strategic management as a form of study has vastly improved over recent years, this is mainly due to the dynamic environments that organisations have to cope with in order to effectively distribute and sell their products and services in. With these markets forever changing and evolving the managers of the organisations must constantly be forecasting and predicting what the markets might be doing in the future through past and current market trends to maximise competitive advantage and provide above average returns (Jarzabkowski, Balogun & Seidl 2007:5–7) as well as to understand the difference between discontinues and incremental change. According to Jarzabkowski et al (2007:5–7) In order for organisations to succeed within these markets and to have strategic success the hierarchy of the organisation must formulate and implement a strategy which looks to identify and explore the fundamental aspects in relation to how the organisation is going to succeed and obtain a competitive advantage within their market with in the assignment the focus will be on the inside-out and outside-in perspectives (Louw and Venter, 2013: 10). These fundamentals being what must be done in order to attract and meet the needs of customers, have the ability to compete within the market successfully, develop dynamic capabilities, grow the organisation either nationally or internationally, effectively manage the organisational architecture and achieve the set goals and targets through...
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...PART I THEORY, SCHOOLS AND PRACTICE 1 Schools of Thought in Strategic Management: Fragmentation, Integration or Synthesis Tom Elfring and Henk W. Volberda Over the last thirty years, strategic management has become established as a legitimate field of research and managerial practice (Shrivastava, 1986: 363). In the evolution of strategy research, a diversity of partly competitive and partly supplementary paradigms have emerged. To provide an unequivocal definition would mean ignoring the versatility of strategic management. The choice of a definition and the application of specific strategic management techniques is greatly dependent on which paradigmatic schools of thought in strategic management one prefers. In this book, we will therefore review the various schools of thought and their contribution to the theory and practice of strategy. A school of thought is understood to be the range of thought of a specific group of researchers, which has crystallized within the field of strategic management (Brown, 1993). In other words, a school of thought can be seen as an institutionalized paradigm. Besides reflecting on the variety of schools in strategy, we will also sketch out new promising directions in strategy research and practice. Although some strategy scholars have argued that the achieved multiformity in schools of thought signifies an enrichment of the research within the field of study (cf. Mahoney, 1993), other scholars from related disciplines complain about...
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...An internal analysis is “a process of identifying and evaluating an organizations’ specific characteristics, including its resources, capabilities, and core competencies” (p. 106, Coulter 2005). Internal analysis is important in order to find out where improvements are needed and what you could exploit more in order to gain competitive advantage. Internal analysis takes an inside-out perspective compared to the outside-in perspective of the external analysis. The question here is what you can do yourself. Other relevant questions are if the resources and competencies you possess fit the opportunities in the environment, and if the company can exploit these resources and competencies in new ways. There are three perspectives on how to gain competitive advantage through internal strategic analysis. The resource based view (RBV), the competence based view (CBV), and the dynamic capabilities view. The resource based view There are several types of resources that a company possesses; physical resources, human resources, financial resources, intellectual capital, threshold resources, and unique resources. The RBV is based on the view that these resources are unique if they create sustained competitive advantage, and that a company’s strategy should be based on these resources. For a resource to be unique, it has to possess four attributes; it needs to be Valuable, it has to be Rare, it has to be impossible to Imitate, and there cannot be any substitutes. These four attributes can...
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...STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT What is strategic management? Strategic management can be used to determine mission, vision, values, goals, objectives, roles and responsibilities, timelines, etc. Top of Category What is strategic planning? Strategic planning is a management tool, period. As with any management tool, it is used for one purpose only: to help an organization do a better job - to focus its energy, to ensure that members of the organization are working toward the same goals, to assess and adjust the organization's direction in response to a changing environment. In short, strategic planning is a disciplined effort to produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, what it does, and why it does it, with a focus on the future. (Adapted from Bryson's Strategic Planning in Public and Nonprofit Organizations). A word by word dissection of this definition provides the key elements that underlie the meaning and success of a strategic planning process: The process is strategic because it involves preparing the best way to respond to the circumstances of the organization's environment, whether or not its circumstances are known in advance; nonprofits often must respond to dynamic and even hostile environments. Being strategic, then, means being clearr bout the organization's objectives, being aware of the organization's resources, and incorporating both into being consciously responsive to a dynamic environment. The process is about planning...
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...[pic] Ecole Superieures Libre des Sciences Commerciales Appliquees Doctorate of Business Administration Human Capital Management Paper on Dynamic Capabilities of Firms Presented to: Dr. Sherif Delawar By Mohamed Antably March 2012 Cairo, Egypt. Abstract: From one hand the dynamic capabilities of firms are the sources and methods of wealth creation and capture by private enterprise firms operating in environments of rapid technological change. Other hand, Human capital ultimate objectives are linking HR practices and knowledge with goals of the firm to achieve and develop Competitive advantages. Accordingly, linking both statements would generate that HC is not only working to achieve the organizations objectives and but also to formalize, maintain and develop the firm dynamic capabilities. HC should also work on sharing and collecting success stories, lessons learnt and implicit individuals' knowledge into institutional explicit knowledge. The competitive advantage of firms is seen as resting on distinctive processes (ways of coordinating and combining which is more difficult among horizontal levels but easy in the vertical levels applying the chain of command), shaped by the firm's asset positions (such as the firm's portfolio of difficult-to-trade knowledge assets and complementary assets), and the evolution path(s) it has adopted or inherited. The importance of path dependencies is ampled...
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...CC-307-017 Dynamic Strategic Alignment This reference note was prepared by Professor Steven White to introduce basic concepts and a framework for discussing strategic management. Copyright © 2009 by CEIBS (China Europe International Business School). No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the permission of CEIBS The CEIBS Case Centre is sponsored by McKinsey & Company. Dynamic Strategic Alignment CC-307-017 Dynamic Strategic Alignment This note introduces the concepts and frameworks that are commonly used in strategic analysis, integrating them within an on-going process of creating and improving strategic alignment. 1. FUNDAMENTALS The objective of strategic management is to create alignments—within the firm and between the firm and its environment—that give the firm competitive advantage and enable it to achieve its goals. Strategic change, therefore, is fundamentally a decision about what changes to make in order to create or improve alignment that moves the firm closer to its goals. Managers may increase alignment and performance by a) changing elements of the firm, b) changing features of the environment in which operate, or c) shifting to another environment. There will usually be multiple options, and managers must decide which changes are necessary, possible and worth the effort required. When making...
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...10/30/12 strategic management Lexicon Home About Us strategic management See Also strategy novelty organizational dynamics strategic planning exploration exploitation strategic management methodology strategic management framework strategic management activities good-to-great strategic intent management leadership strategic management competency strategic control organizational theory environment Definition See environment for the interpretive perspective of the organization and its strategic management implications. Strategic management is about charting how to achieve a company's objectives, and adjusting the direction and methods to take advantage of changing circumstances (Faulkner and Campbell, 2003, 3). ""The field of strategic management deals with the major intended and emergent initiatives taken by general managers on behalf of owners, involving utilization of resources, to enhance the performance of firms in their external environments."" (Nag, Hambrick, and Chen, 2007, 944) Inductive Derivation of a Consensus Definition of the Field -Representative definitionsnew -- espoused by four sets of boundary spanning scholars base on their adjacent field (Nag, Hambrick, and Chen, 2007, 946, Table 4) -Economics -The strategic management field is-positively-the scientific study of the plans that firms build and implement in order to achieve and maintain competitive advantage, andnormatively-the attempt to identify optimal plans for achieving and maintaining competitive...
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...module examines the process of strategic management, focusing on the nature of strategy formulation and implementation. The analysis of strategy concepts and case study examples will be used to develop awareness of the factors that must be considered in strategic decision-making. Topics include: strategic vision and mission, environmental and industry analysis; generic strategies; core competence; growth and diversification; internationalization and the execution of strategy. At the end of the module we are able to subject the. * Concepts of strategic management to critical analysis; analyze the business and competitive environment; formulate competitive and development strategies drawing on relevant concepts, demonstrate an awareness of factors that must be considered in implementing strategy and leading strategic change. * A critical understanding and appreciation of the various behavioral manifestations of customer engagement * Identify and critically evaluate relevant theories underpinning such customer behaviors * Consolidate and integrate the knowledge and understanding gained from this module with other associated marketing modules * Sufficient knowledge to identify and manage these customer behaviors in their own or a related business * A comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the frameworks and concepts of strategic market management and planning. * To demonstrate expertise in conducting a strategic audit of an organization and recommend...
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...for the best paper of the decade in Strategic Management Review (A resource-based view of the firm, 1984). Considering the fortune of the article among practicing managers (Wernerfelt, 1995), he admitted that such a fortune had been leveraged by the 1990 article of Prahalad and Hamel in Harvard Business Review (“The Core Competence of the Corporation”). Directly addressed to people in management and strategy, this article was clearly prescriptive as to the best way to set winning strategies for the firm, especially as to diversification and the abusive use of SBUs (Strategic Business Units) in highly decentralized profit centres. “In the 1990s, top executives will be judged on their ability to identify, cultivate, and exploit the core competencies that make growth possible”. Since the 1990s, the resource based view (RBV) and the core competence approach (CCA) became very attractive for many researchers and consultants. Such interest was well supported by what seemed to be a clear and superior way of setting strategies by large Japanese groups which frequently served as a benchmark case of core competence management. The strong and pervasive trends for continuous technological innovation and for technological alliances created also a rich context for the use of RBV and CCA to strategy. Analysis and theory were tempted to move from transaction costs to resources or competences or capabilities sometime in a fuzzy way in interpreting strategic moves in the context of alliances and...
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...Introduction Organizations always face the challenges of dynamic business environment. In 21st century, the environment has become more dynamic and unpredictable. The changing business environment requires strategic thinking in companies to develop good corporate strategies. Only when developing effective strategies, corporate can remain the competitive position. By creating strategy, organization can remain the competitive advantage which other companies are unable to implement. Corporate strategy is not only for large firms but also for small business. However, there is a quotation suggests that “Strategic management is nothing more than a set a o myths, parables and homilies that give senior management a feeling of comfort that they can control the destinies of their organizations. It has neither theoretical substance nor empirical content and is delusional in its intention. The future is not only unpredictable it is also unknowable”. This assignment shall argue the citation by considering different factors. First, the assignment will identify the meaning of strategy and it does matter. And then the essays will have brief discussion of industry matter for the performance of an organization. Finally, the assignment will draw conclusion through the relevance of strategy in management practices. 1. What is strategy and does it matter? There are many ways to define strategy by various researchers. Henry Minzberg (1971) defines “Strategies are both plans for the future...
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...Strategic Plan Internal dynamics along with cultural and structural leadership considerations The internal dynamics along with cultural and structural leadership considerations that should be used in implementing business strategy for Riordan is readiness of employees in terms of supporting the new strategic initiatives. Employees should not only be committed towards the implementation of the plan, but should possess extensive knowledge and training and new strategic initiatives. Hence, it is extremely important that Riordan should ensure extensive training for the employees to understand the importance, benefits and know-how to handle the new processes, initiatives and strategic action plan in the organization. It is also important that the existing processes, systems and infrastructure should support the new strategic initiatives in the organization. It is important for Riordan to invest in necessary upgrading of infrastructure and restructuring of processes and systems to support the new business strategies. From a cultural perspective, it is important that Riordan's leadership and management should foster a culture that empowers Riordan's employees to work in a supportive, flexible work environment with adequate decision making authority. The culture of Riordan should be such that employees feel motivated to contribute towards the growth and new initiatives of the organization and remain loyal and committed towards the organization. To develop the quality culture and...
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...THE ROLE OF ENTREPRENEURIAL OREINTATION ON ENTREPRENEURIAL INNOVATIVENES: A CASE STUDY OF SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE ENTREPRISE IN LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA BY FATOYE, MUSTAPHA OBI 08S04/046 BEING A RESEACH PROJECT SUMITTED TO THE DEPARMENT OF BUSNESS ADMINISTRATION, FACULTY OF SOCIAL AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCES, AJAYI CROWTHER UNIVERSITY, OYO IN PARTICAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF BARCHELOR OF SCIENCE (B.S.C) DEGREE IN BUSINESS ADMINISTARTION (MANAGEMENT OPTION) JULY, 2012 CERTIFICATION This is to certify that this project was written by FATOYE MUSTAPHA OBI (MARICULATION NUMBER 08S04/046) in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the award of bachelor of science (B.S.c) degree in business administration (management option) of the department of business administration, faculty of social and management sciences, Ajayi Crowther university, Oyo, Oyo State. MR. P.A Akanbi ....................... (Project supervisor) Date DR. O.E Ofoegbu ........................ (HOD, Business Administration) Date PROF. S.O. Akano ....................... (Dean, SMS) Date .............................. ........................ EXTERNAL EXAMINER Date DEDICATION This work is dedicated to God Almighty who generously gave me the strength, health and other resources to successfully accomplish this research. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This period of my life had been a period of trials and revelation but...
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