A framework for the strategic management of future tyre technology

Strategically managing technology faces one major problem: technology planners and managers who mistake ‘R & D management’ for ‘strategic technology management’. In globally competitive markets, survival and growth of tyre companies will increasingly depend upon the ability to manage technological resources strategically. This article proposes a process model which views the strategic management of technology as ‘techno-business management’, where technology and business strategy, planning and implementation can be facilitated by the use of portfolio frameworks and technology forecasting techniques in analysing and addressing the key strategic management areas of techno-business strategy development and strategy implementation.     

Middle Managers Moulding International Strategy: An Irish Start-up in Jamaican Telecoms

This is a story of how a group of middle managers moved beyond just implementing their firm’s tightly prescribed strategy for developing an international venture to the point where it could be argued that they failed to accomplish the four clear strategic objectives set by the firm’s executive management. Instead, the authors suggest, their success was in collectively orchestrating an emergent strategy¹ which provided the executive with a better, more profitable and durable embodiment of their strategic vision.Operating between the parent firm’s original strategic intent and the political and economic realities of the host country environment, their strategic influence is worthy of close examination. They can be divided into two distinctive groups—parent country nationals and host-country nationals—and the extent to which they co-operate with or obstruct each other will have a significant effect on the success of the enterprise.² The middle management in this case example, an Irish company launching a mobile telecommunications network in Jamaica, is drawn from both groups. This article investigates the apparent autonomy from executive control afforded these particular middle managers to identify the contingent factors that appear to allow, or constrain, their positive transmutation of the original strategic objectives. The key questions addressed are first, how the two groups, both individually and collectively, played out their roles in shifting strategy, and second, once these contextual dynamics have been identified, how other executive management groups can learn from this Irish/Jamaican experience considering similar international ventures. The authors’ response highlights those elements of strategy design, organisational structure and human resource management that they believe are critical in maximising the strategic contribution of middle managers to international ventures, and hence providing a better chance of success.     

Assigning migrants to customer contact jobs: a context-specific exploration of the business case for diversity

Ethnic diversity of both their labor forces and customer bases presents a challenge for companies and fuels debate on the business case for diversity: the view that diversity positively impacts firm performance. This study enriches the business case debate by focusing on a particular organizational activity, customer contact. It combines theory from strategic human resource management (SHRM), research on diversity, and research on marketing to analyze what drives companies to assign migrants to customer contact jobs and which performance impacts ensue. We test our hypotheses in data from 338 German business companies. Companies that recognize the value in ethnic diversity and seek to respond to customer diversity are especially likely to assign migrants to customer contact jobs. The analyses reveal a positive impact of migrants in customer contact jobs on company profitability. This impact is enhanced by a broad range of equality and diversity practices and a supportive works council. These moderators have stronger effects than two other moderators related to business strategy: the market served by a company, and its competitive strategy. The paper contributes to SHRM research in general and diversity research in particular through its original examination associating the business case for ethnic diversity with the role of equality and diversity practices and institutions. The study findings can help managers to decide whether to leverage staff ethnic diversity and show that collaboration between HR management and marketing functions is useful to achieve a strategic fit among practices.     

New competition in financial services

This article examines the effects of competition facing financial services institutions, from the strategic management and from organizational management viewpoint. Through analysis of a survey, the nature of the problems facing managers are highlighted. The article is intended as a case study of an industry under change, and the conclusions identify lessons to be learned from the experience.     

Strategy restoration

Discussions of strategic change generally assume that managers strive to break free from the constraints of their organization's past so that they can forge ahead into the future. However, some organizations instead opt to reinterpret and reenact abandoned strategies drawn from their own history. Such actions are largely unaccounted for in the literature on strategic change. Accordingly, we propose here a conceptualization of a distinct type of strategic change that we call “strategy restoration.” We first outline how strategy restoration fills a gap in current understandings of strategic change. We then elaborate conditions that motivate and enable organizations to pursue strategy restoration rather than other types of strategic change. Two components of the framework—organizational traditionality and memory—characterize the organization itself, and two—nostalgia and perceptions of the organization's authenticity—characterize the market in which the organization operates. The proposed conceptualization of strategy restoration and discussion of its underlying mechanisms carry implications for researchers and managers.     

Planning for changes in stages of corporate development

A considerable amount of research has demonstrated how companies evolve in terms of strategy and organizational design. The evolution of firms reflects the dynamic response of companies to their changing environment. It is logical that planning must also change in response to changes in overall corporate strategy. This dynamic aspect of planning requires a different approach than planning for the continuing growth of existing businesses based on a consistent strategic outlook. This difference is illustrated by reference to two components of planning: fixed and variable. These distinctions are used to demonstrate the dynamic aspect of planning and how planning can, and should, change to accomodate changes in management strategies.     

Materializing Strategy in Mundane Tools: the Key to Coupling Global Strategy and Local Strategy Practice?

While much of the literature on strategy and strategy as practice (SaP) focuses on traditional strategic tools, technologies and discursive practices of managers, this paper extends the understanding of strategic change implementation by proposing that mundane material tools, understood as text, translate global strategic discourse in ways that make sense to workers and orchestrate successful global strategy implementation at the local level. Based on a rich case study within one branch of a national bank, this paper demonstrates how a middle manager's materializing practices developed local strategy practice while simultaneously transforming work and producing strategic figures or indicators that satisfied senior management's global strategic change objectives. The contributions of this paper are threefold: (i) it advances the understanding of the multimodality of materiality by identifying the influence of three types of mundane tools produced locally by a middle manager as he performed his sense of the senior managers’ strategic discourse; (ii) it reveals how these three types of physical texts materialized the manager's sense of this discourse, facilitating frontline workers’ engagement and coupling materiality and orality in a coherent way that allowed workers to embody the company's global strategy in their ‘sayings and doings’; and (iii) it highlights the importance of managers’ ability to materialize a strategic discourse.     

Constructing Interlocking Rationales in Top‐driven Strategic Renewal

Under top‐driven change, active involvement of middle managers in strategy‐making requires top and middle to find common ground. The paper offers inductive theoretical development of top managers’ role as enablers for the strategic contribution of the middle levels. Central to this role is the symbolic reorganization where the middle managers’ position is set. Next, middle managers’ operational efficiency allows their performance to be shown and increases their reputation. In consequence, the middle level can actively shape the role suggested by top management, which increases their power base. Finally, when these previous interactions escalate into a two‐way process where the middle and top management contribute to each other's efforts, interlocking rationales are achieved.     

Managing strategies incrementally

When sophisticated large organizations make significant changes in strategy, the approaches they use frequently bear little resemblance to the rational-analytical systems so often touted in the planning literature. Such systems are rarely the source of overall corporate strategies. Instead, the processes used to generate major strategies are typically fragmented and evolutionary with a high degree of intuitive content. Although one usually finds imbedded in these fragments some very refined pieces of formal analysis, overall strategies tend to emerge as a series of conscious internal decisions blend and interact with changing external events to slowly mutate key managers' broad consensus about what patterns of action make sense for the future. Based on a multi-year study of how large companies change their strategies, this article summarizes why strategic managers do proceed incrementally and how they manage the complex process of generating an overall strategy.     

Strategic planning for public relations

Public relations is a key activity for most chairmen of public companies and nationalized industries. It is somewhat suprising therefore how few large companies consider developing an explicit public relations strategy as part of their overall business plan. The reason for this may be partly due to the relatively low regard which senior line managers have for public relations managers and partly because there is a lack of understanding of the nature and use of public relations as a tool of strategic management. The purpose of this article is to discuss why and how business planners should pay more attention to developing explicit public relations strategies for their organizations.     

Helping managers to develop strategies

Concepts within strategic management are defined and a framework for strategic analysis and planning is presented. Within the planning operation, corporate strategy and corporate integration are central to strategic management. The timetable largely prescribes the procedural steps involved in strategic analysis and planning, and the character of each of these steps is determined by the frame of reference, or the aims and purpose of strategic managers, which are established during strategic planning. As a practical management tool, the framework developed here offers the possibility to improve management performance and to increase corporate effectiveness and flexibility.     

A structured methodology to implement judiciously the right JIT tactics

In order to enhance the competitiveness and efficiency of manufacturing operations, many companies arc looking at implementing key strategic technologies. Two of the most predominant programs are ‘just-in-time’ and ‘synchronous organizations’. However, their impacts on improving quality and reducing time-to-market have been mixed. It is not very clear why, in some cases, results are poor, when in a similar situation, programmes have proved to work well. There are conflicting reasons reported for such a discrepancy. Some have argued that during J IT implementation either a right mix of tactics was not selected at the outset or the process was not carefully monitored to see whether a mid-course correction or change in tactics was necessary. In order to (a) protect the manufacturing and strategic teams from making the same/similar mistakes and (b) sustain a series of successful activity throughout during the strategic implementation cycle, this paper outlines a structured methodology. The method utilizes a matrix-based procedure to dynamically (over time) measure the effectiveness of a line of JIT tactics against the organization's principles and objectives. The operating procedure suggests first (a) using a method for monitoring the changing conditions of market and business and then (b) using the metrics to guide the management with a new line of tactics that might have better impact on the newly aligned company goals. In an effort to help managers and engineers decide on a proper line of tactics to implement JIT, a line of JIT quality matrices (JQM) is developed. JQM provides a framework to guide group managers to ‘plan, pick and choose’ a set of effective JIT techniques. An approach similar to quality function deployment (QFD) is used to generate the JIT house and their corresponding JQM matrices. With the JQM-based structured methodology, managers can design the best line of JIT strategy blended with JIT theory and adapted to the manufacturing environments in which it is expected to operate.     

Strategic intent in the management of the green environment within SMEs: An analysis of the UK screen-printing sector

What drives the environmental behaviour of companies is an under-researched and under-developed area of study, particularly in the context of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This article investigates to what extent the responses by UK screen-printing companies to pressures to improve their environmental performance represented a deliberate attempt by senior managers to provide their organisations with a strategic competitive advantage.Using both a quantitative and qualitative approach, the research shows that the environmental responses of this sector tended to be reactive, defensive and driven by – and frequently limited to – legislative compliance. Even though companies accepted that there were potential commercial benefits to be gained from environmental action, there was very little evidence to indicate that managerial decisions were motivated by strategic intent or that managerial mindsets were tuned to the notion that a proactive environmental response could offer a competitive edge. The article discusses the management implications of this lack of strategic orientation and highlights how a more innovative response by companies could provide both demand and supply side benefits.     

董事会对公司战略过程评价:逻辑架构与指标体系

公司的战略管理是所有管理活动的重中之重.它包括战略判断、计划与预算活动、战略执行以及适威Adaptive)与交互(Interactive)性的战略控制体系.而现代公司治理原则要求董事会应关注和评价公司的战略管理活动.本文进一步认为,在资本市场不够发达的情况下,董事会应关注公司战略管理的奎过程为此,我们提出了一个针对公司战略管理体系有效性评价的基本框架和评价指标体系,目的在于使公司治理有效地作月于管理过程,最终为企业创造价值.     

高管从军经历影响公司治理吗?--来自中国上市公司的经验证据

从军经历影响高管行为选择和管理风格,对于公司治理具有重要的价值。采用2004-2014年上市公司数据样本,以盈余管理程度以及审计意见类型作为反映公司治理的代理变量,本文实证分析了高管从军经历对公司治理的影响。研究发现,有过从军经历的高管所在民营上市公司被出具非标审计意见的可能性以及实施盈余管理的程度相对更低,国有企业则不显著;制度环境影响高管从军经历的治理效应,表现为所在地区政府干预越弱时,高管从军经历对于完善民营企业公司治理的作用越大;高管从军经历与MBA教育在影响民营企业公司治理方面具有替代效应,且从军经历具有更为重要的稳定影响;管制行业民营企业高管从军经历的治理效应更为显著。本文的研究对理解我国企业高管从军经历对于公司治理的重要性以及拓展高管异质性影响公司决策的相关研究具有重要的价值。     

利益相关者、管理认知对企业环境保护战略选择的影响——基于我国上市公司的实证研究

企业对环境规制心存疑虑,担心规制增加企业成本,为此本文从战略管理层面探讨如何调动企业处理环境问题的积极性。通过对我国上市公司CEO的调研,发现管制利益相关者和次要利益相关者中的媒体是企业在环境问题上感知的主要压力;管理者越认为环境问题是商业机会以及管理者的环境意识越强,企业越有可能实行前瞻型环境战略。     

基于商业生态系统的企业战略新模型研究

在以产业融合和网络经济为特征的商业生态系统环境中,传统战略管理模式的实践导向削足适履。聚焦"商业生态系统",剖析价值属性和联结属性,解构出价值依附型、价值共享型、价值平衡型、价值独享型和价值回报型战略模式。重构了战略模型,拓宽了新商业环境中战略管理视野。以信息技术商业生态系统上市公司为例,基于斯坦普尔量表验证该理论框架,并针对价值战略模型进行举证。     

Central Perspectives and Debates in Strategic Change Research

This paper appraises and evaluates more than three decades of empirical research on strategic change. Strategic change research has traditionally built on either the deterministic view or the voluntaristic view – two opposing perspectives with fundamentally different assumptions about the influence of managers on the fortunes of organizations. In addition, a dialectical view on strategic change, which aims to bridge the two traditional views, has emerged. Despite the richness and value of research within these three perspectives, the continued accumulation of isolated and idiosyncratic insights adds little to the understanding of strategic change. In this paper, therefore, the authors assess, contrast and integrate research across the three perspectives in order to foster one cumulative body of knowledge about strategic change and to provide guidance for future research. Based on an analysis of 119 studies published in the leading academic journals in the fields of strategy and management, they consolidate existing knowledge and identify shortcomings in the cumulative body of research. On the basis of this assessment concerning prior research foci, study designs and assumptions, the authors propose four pathways for future research across the three perspectives that they believe can help foster full understanding of strategic change: (1) examinations of different types, processes and outcomes of strategic change; (2) expansion of the scope of actors considered in relation to strategic change; (3) exploration of the non‐linear nature of strategic change; and (4) investigations of strategic change conundrums.     

Critical success factors and green supply chain management proactivity: shedding light on the human aspects of this relationship based on cases from the Brazilian industry

Abstract

By applying the resources-based view (RBV) theory to green management, this study aims to analyse the relationship between critical success factors (CSFs) and the adoption of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices for some Brazil-based manufacturers of automotive batteries considered focal in their supply chains. It also analyses how human issues, known as green human resource management (GHRM) aspects, can help to increase the effectiveness of CSFs for GSCM strategies that are still not totally well-managed, justifying a RBV perspective. This research assumes that firms tend to be in different stages of GSCM development (more strategic or less strategic) and tests four research propositions to determine whether more proactive GSCM is related to higher levels of effectively managed CSFs. Three focal companies that operate in the Brazilian automotive battery industry were studied. Research results suggest that more proactive GSCM practices correlate to more effectively managed CSFs and to a greater support from GHRM. We argue that managers with a clear GHRM strategy will have more success in GSCM adoption, using more green training, green recruitment and selection, green performance evaluation and employee rewards.     

Social Structures and Resistance to Strategic Change: British Manufacturers in the 1980s1

This article examines the refusal of two UK manufacturers to adapt their strategic ‘repertoires’ to the recessionary and structural changes of the 1980s. From being industry leaders in 1980, both companies were relegated to overseas control by the end of the decade. Developing both institutionalist and contextualist approaches to organization, the article argues that this fatal resistance to change derived from the deep social structural roots of these two companies' politics and cultures. Conservative managers were able to defy new capitalist logics by drawing upon alternative social structural sources of power, legitimacy and inspiration. The article concludes by considering the implications of this plural structuring of organizations both for organizational theory and for the management of change in practice.