How Samsung organized for innovation

This study examines a Korean firm, the Samsung Corporation, to find out: What are the characteristics of the organizational innovations in the era of globalization? What are the consequences of the organizational innovations? What problems does the company face in implementing them? And what are the remedies to overcome those problems? The company has made efforts in three ways: 1. operating teams; 2. flattening of hierarchy; and 3. networking. These three innovations were interrelated and can be often observed in a single organization which is labelled a “Clustered Web” organization. The innovations faced problems and required time to be implemented. Remedies for those problems and implications are discussed.     

Corporate planning—A systems view

This paper examines the, often disregarded, fact that the very inprecision of language often obscures basic underlying conceptual differences between corporate planning as expressed in theory and in practice. Few of the claims that confusions result both from a lack of explicit definitions and from the lack of differentiation between ‘theories of planning’ and ‘theories in planning’.

The purpose of this paper is to propose such a theory of corporate planning through discussion of the following topics: (1) Problems in concepts of corporate planning; (2) The concept of an approach of corporate planning; (3) Propositions that form the basis of a theory or model of planning, relying heavily on a systems framework; and (4) a proposed corporate planning system.     

Strategic planning in a turbulent international environment

What we have argued in this paper is that fundamental changes in the multinational corporate environment are taking place raising proaches to multinational environmental surveillance and multinational strategic management. We arenot offering this as a forecast of what the future will bring. Instead, we are proposing this framework to point to the need for greater environmental orientation and adaptation. MNCs are now in a double squeeze and managers must unlearn past models and criteria to understand problem. But the challenge is more than conventional corporate planning. The problematique can be decribed as one of multinational strategic management. In the area of environment we need research and learning to address three basic questions:What is the MCE? What concepts of the environment should be considered for strategic management? What parameters should be monitored? What are some consequences of the concept of interdependence and turbulence?What multinational environmental surveillance should be done? What methodologies are needed? How can these be made operational? How can the corporation be educated to behave in the new mode required in view of these changes?What new strategic issues and challenges lenges emerges from the MCE? What new demands must be factored into the multinational corporate planning processes? What new content does the changing environment procedure? How can the broadening field of opportunities and threats be systematically mapped and understood?     

The components of strategic planning

What is the current level of strategic planning in the United States? What objectives are quantified in the strategic plans? What kinds of environmental factors are identified in the planning process? What areas are planned for? How often are the strategic plans reviewed? These are among the questions which were raised in a recent survey of 323 companies whose results are summarized in this paper. It is hoped that this study will permit practitioners to compare their planning with planning being performed in their industry.Suggested improvements in the stategic planning process include more frequent monitoring of performance against the plans, more comprehensive environmental surveillance, and greater emphasis on organizational structure plans. The strategic planning process was found to be constantly evolving and cyclical. The strategic planning activity expanded during adversity and contracted when business prospects were good.     

Long range planning in large United States banks

This study indicated that there is considerable interest in formal strategic long range corporate planning among large U.S. banks. Officers in a total of 97 large U.S. banks provided information on their bank's efforts in the area of long range planning for this study. The data indicated that the percentage of large U.S. banks with fully developed and operational long range planning systems is rapidly increasing. Information on the organization for long range bank planning and the administrative procedures being utilized are presented and discussed. In addition, information on problems that the bankers are experiencing in implementing and operating their long range planning systems are presented.     

Organized planning in major U.K. companies

Corporate Long Range Planning began to be fashionable in Britain in the 1960's. Now it should be possible for the managers which pioneered this development to analyse their experience for the benefit of others. This article reports the results and conclusions from a detailed study of corporate planning in 27 major British companies, each with 2–8 years experience. The aim was to discover why organized planning was introduced; what factors affected its development and what results were achieved.     

The research frontier in corporate governance

In this paper we attempt to identify the research frontier in corporate governance using three different approaches: (1) what challenges does the financial crisis 2007–2009 pose for corporate governance research? We show that the financial crisis is a huge natural experiment which has exposed gaps in our knowledge of corporate governance and is likely to lead of a rethink of central concepts like shareholder value, debt governance, and management incentives (2) what do we know and what do we need to how about the impact of national institutions on corporate governance? (3) What research questions are raised by a focus on current corporate governance practices?     

Corporate planning a review of questions and answers

This paper is about corporate planning, seen primarily but not exclusively from the viewpoint of operational research. The reasons for the rise of interest in corporate planning are examined, as are the contributions which O.R. has made or can make to corporate planning problems. An abstract discussion of these problems concentrates on those posed by increasing “connectedness” in the environment. After comparing the responses of the “commonsense manager”, the model-oriented operational researcher, and the cybernetician, the question is posed: “How can the operational researcher or planner enhance the adaptive capability of his organization?” A case study illustrates one possible form of solution, the “modular” approach; and another, the “zoom-lens” is outlined. The relevance of global system modelling to the widening problems of the corporate planner is also considered, and related to the concepts previously discussed.     

Designing communication support systems for strategic planning

While as a distinct and intermittent managerial activity planning is slowly dying, in a systematic and continuous context it is rapidly growing! More and more organizations are beginning to realize that planning entails ongoing learning and adaptation of people rather than one-shot, pseudo-scientific analysis of abstract problems. To facilitate this fundamental transformation in organizational thinking, new electronic management support systems are being created. These systems will facilitate collaborative problem exploration through improved managerial communication. In effect, they will actively assist managers to understand and manage the relationships between the strategic planning process and the other corporate processes such as budgeting, capital investment, performance evaluation and employee compensation.     

Coaching im Mittelstand – Wer ist der Mittelstand?

Medium-Sized companies usually have a specific organizational structure and corporate culture. This has implications for Human Resource Management, which is less systematized in medium-sized companies in comparison to larger organizations. What does ?medium-sized business“ mean and who is meant with that? Which typical values form its culture? What are the specific conditions for coaching in medium-sized businesses? Does a coach need special qualifications for this sector? This paper attempts to answer these questions and stays close to the everyday business of medium-sized companies. Concrete Examples will explain specific topics and coaching solutions for medium-sized businesses.     

Effect of economic planning on business decisions

The fact that the United States has not faced an economic perplexity of current dimensions since the depression days hardly needs any emphasis. The current economic slowdown is significant because no recovery measures which may be applied to cure the economy are in sight. Since the Great Depression, especially after World War II, Keynes' economic theories have successfully been applied in the U.S., as also in other countries of the Free World, to put the economy back on path to recovery. Unfortunately, Keynesian measures do not seem to cope with the current economic woes. Apparently, new ways need to be sought and employed to get the economy back on track. Among many new ideas that have been advanced to restore economic growth, one is national economic planning by which the Government would play an active role in setting goals for the economy and devising means to reach them.The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a study that the author undertook to probe the opinions of chief executive officers of the largest U.S. corporations on the whole idea of national economic planning in the United States. This study is based on interviews with 23 chief executives officers (CEOs) in different industries. Table 1 shows the background of these CEOs. Specifically, the author refers to such questions as: What positive and negative attitudes do the chief executive officers maintain toward national economic planning; what difficulties do they think will have to be surmounted to accomplish national economic planning in the U.S.; what influence may national economic planning have on various business decisions; and how may national economic planning affect corporate strategy?     

A Methodology for Integrating Tsunami Inundation Modelling into Land Use Planning in New Zealand

Guidance has been produced for land use planners and decision-makers on how tsunami inundation modelling can be included into land use planning. The process of developing the guideline included exploring the difficulties in integrating physical science models into land use planning with a focus on tsunami. These difficulties included addressing uncertainty and reconciling planners' needs with the capability of the modellers. The guidance was based on two key questions. (1) How can tsunami modelling be incorporated into land use planning? (2) What information do planners need from modellers to improve planning and policy for tsunami? The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief overview of the guideline, with the aim of assisting others in producing similar guidance for implementing tsunami modelling into land use planning. The guideline includes tsunami basics, a decision tree for including tsunami risk into land use planning, which forms the basis of the guideline.     

The annual planning cycle

The practical business man, be he the boss or an employee, usually accepts that systematic planning of some sort is almost certain to be of benefit to his company, and he can usually agree with many of the planning techniques put forward. What often worries him though, is how to actually operate a planning system in his company day by day: what instructions to give, systems to use, how to make it really work. In this article, the author describes an Annual Planning and Budget Cycle Chart which was developed at the Avon Rubber Company. This chart goes a long way to solving the practical businessman's dilemma referred to above, it gives set dates during the year for completion of specific planning and budgeting jobs and it explains how they are interconnected to make up a coherent and workable corporate planning system.     

Corporate planning— A personal viewpoint

The theme running through this article is a plea for realism in the preparation of corporate plans. The author outlines his views on corporate planning: the steps taken by the Greater London Council to introduce corporate planning supported by a programme budgeting system are described, and a summary is given of how the planning process operates.

The effect of the current industrial, financial and economic difficulties on corporate plans is discussed, and a note of warning sounded about the utility under present circumstances of corporate planning.     

Formal planning in major U.S. corporations

As the world about us changes, managers in all types of institutions try to cope in a variety of ways. In the early 1960s, many corporate managers realized they could not make sound decisions about future business activities in an expedient, reactive manner because their firms were growing very large and complex with new technologies, products, markets and competition to deal with. As a result, formal planning techniques which had been used in narrow functional applications were introduced on a much broader scale and formal long-range planning became popular. New corporate planning functions appeared in many companies, as well as new staff planning specialists and planning executives. The author conducted a field study on the design of these systems in the mid-1960s and he argues that they showed great promise for improved management.With this history in mind, we might ask why such subjects as ‘planning techniques’ and ‘problems of implementation’ are still topics of concern. It would seem that such techniques would be well known and established in most firms after 10–15 years. However, this is not the case, for during a second field study of corporate planning systems which was completed in 1976 the author found that many corporations, including some of the largest ones, had redesigned their planning systems in the early 1970s, essentially making a fresh start at formal long-range planning. (See Table 1).From his recent field study the author concludes that all corporations experience problems in implementing and using a formal planning system. The nature of these problems and some possible remedies are the subjects upon which this article focuses.     

The Challenge of Coordination in Central Government Organizations: The Norwegian Case

This paper addresses coordination problems in central government by focusing on the Norwegian case. The main research questions are: What are the experiences of civil servants concerning horizontal and vertical coordination, and internal and external coordination? What is the relative importance of structural, demographic and cultural variables for explaining variations in civil servants’ perception of coordination? The data base is a questionnaire to civil servants in ministries and central agencies in 2006. The main findings are that there are more problems with horizontal coordination than with vertical coordination; that coordination problems are bigger in central agencies than in ministries; and that a low level of mutual trust tends to aggravate coordination problems.     

When Boards Matter: The Case of Corporate Social Irresponsibility

While academic research has made remarkable progress in understanding corporate social responsibility (CSR), we have scant understanding of corporate social irresponsibility (CSiR). This paper adopts a stakeholder‐agency perspective towards CSiR to ask two related questions: (1) What board‐level structures can monitor management to reduce CSiR? and (2) What are the conditions that render board monitoring more effective? Employing a unique objective measure of CSiR and a sophisticated system generalized method of moments with dynamic panel model on a sample of publicly listed firms in the USA between 2002 and 2015, this paper demonstrates how firms with a specific board‐level governance bundle (i.e. a large, more independent board, with a board CSR committee, a higher proportion of women within boards with frequent director activity) are better equipped to reduce irresponsible behaviours, both in terms of number of irresponsible incidents as well as in terms of their economic costs to the firm. Moreover, the effectiveness of this governance bundle sustains under conditions of high institutional ownership and high board remuneration. This paper has implications for CSR and corporate governance literatures, as well as for managers and policymakers.     

Designing computer models that work

The techniques of financial modelling are becoming more popular and accepted as a useful information processing tool. However, what is ‘financial modelling’ and does the term adequately describe current applications? Why has financial modelling been such a growth area and what are the benefits? Given a desire to build models, where does the manager begin? What type of system and language should be used and by whom? What type of computing facility is most suitable? Which modelling system should be selected and what features are important? As well as an increase in the number of financial modelling applications they are now more complex. What guidelines can one use when designing large and complex models? This article seeks to answer these questions, concentrating on the large and more complex models, particularly for long term planning and budgeting applications. Finally an example is given illustrating how a large modelling system can be constructed and maintained with little technical computer expertise.     

Strategic planning could improve your share price

From a financial point of view the long-term ultimate goal of the firm is to maximize its stock price. A high P/E multiple keeps existing stockholders satisfied, reduces the chances that a corporate pirate will attempt to raid the company, and also facilitates the company's own acquisitions.Therefore, financial managers are especially interested in answers to the questions of if and how strategic planning can help to improve the price-earnings multiple. The results of the study summarized in this article answer the first question in the affirmative and give at least a partial answer to the second. Contrary to the conclusion of some other recent studies, this study finds a definite long-term financial payoff from strategic planning. Furthermore, it suggests that strategic planning may be more effective if it is conducted at the corporate rather than solely at the division level.If maximization of stock price is a corporate goal, delegation of strategic planning entirely to the division level may result in a high cost to stockholders.