Corporate planning as a control system in United Kingdom nationalized industries

Since the late 1960s some U.K. nationalized industries have undertaken corporate planning as a means of exercising control. In the early 1970s, the U.K. Government, on the advice of one of its select committees, required that all U.K. nationalized industries undertake corporate planning. This requirement has been reinforced through a White Paper in 1978, in which the government reiterated that it saw corporate planning as a major instrument of control both for the nationalized industries themselves, and also for government in its relationships with the industries.This paper examines the development of corporate planning in nationalized industries. The findings are based on research carried out since 1976 in which discussions have taken place with corporate planners in most of the major U.K. nationalized industries. The method followed was to send planners a structured questionnaire covering the field of enquiry, and to follow this by an interview (or interviews) at a high level which would allow further discussion, particularly on the issues seen as important to the organization. The questionnaire was subsequently completed in consultation with the people concerned.     

Strategic planning in an age of uncertainty

Strategic planning and decision making in the face of uncertainty have always presented a serious challenge to top management, but the present scale of uncertainty is unprecedented. Decision makers used to be able to rely on the past to predict the trends of the future. Now they are increasingly being forced to make important decisions that depend upon highly uncertain external factors for which the past offers little guidance. In all areas of business and government, there is a vital need to understand and implement procedures that enable decision makers to deal more effectively with uncertainty for planning and allocating their organizations' resources.Because of differences in their social, political and economic environments, European and Japanese managers are today affected by many acute areas of uncertainty— such as industrial democracy, floating exchange rates, changing social and political values, growing environmental awareness, government regulation, technological change, pollution control regulation, energy cost, and raw material availability—earlier than their counterparts in the U.S.A. These uncertainties affect not only private sector manufacturing industries, but also financial and service industries as well as nationalized industries and government organizations.This article shows how ineffective methods of dealing with uncertainty can lead to serious mistakes with costly consequences. The cost of overconfidence and people's natural but futile tendency to ignore or to try to eliminate uncertainty is illustrated by the crises seen recently in the world steel and shipbuilding industries. The article then demonstrates how decision analysis procedures that focus directly on the major decision points in the strategic plan enable executives not only to include uncertainty directly in their strategic planning, but also to increase their understanding of the decision process and their ability to communicate the results to others.     

Government economic planning in the United Kingdom

The present system has its origins in the 1961. Plowden Report, which spawned both the Public Expenditure Survey and the Medium Term Assessment. The ramifications and requirements of the former provide the hard backbone of U.K. planning; formal indicative planning has not been attempted since the National Plan of 1965. Instead, the Medium Term Assessment provides a feasible range of scenarios for the next 5 years, circulated only within the Treasury but used as background for the main public expenditure and other economic policy decisions, for advice given to nationalized industries, and for information given to NEDO. However, the emphasis in Government relations with the private sector has shifted firmly away from indicative planning to the ‘bottom-up’ approach of the Industrial Strategy. This general framework appears likely to endure.     

Is Corporate Social Responsibility in Japanese Firms at the Theoretically Derived Achievable Level? An Analysis of CSR Inefficiency Using a Stochastic Frontier Model

The purposes of this study are to investigate whether current corporate social responsibility (CSR) is at the theoretically derived achievable level (hereinafter referred to simply as achievable level), to introduce “CSR inefficiency” as the difference between actual and achievable levels of CSR, and to specify its determinants. We established that the achievable level of CSR activity is determined by a range of keiretsu group, government, sector, and resource factors, and choosing specific activities can affect the priority levels of social contributions. CSR inefficiency is affected by its own factors such as internal management, which are different from those of CSR activity. Our study suggests the importance of the differences between the achievable levels of CSR among firms. For example, firms in machinery, electrical equipment, public utilities, and service industries have greater inefficiency in environmental CSR than the other industries. Conversely, the achievable levels of construction and petroleum and gum industries for environmental CSR are higher. Service firms can achieve higher level of environmental CSR, although their emissions and wastes are not as large as those of manufacturing firms in general. In retail industries, the achievable level of environmental CSR is lowest among all industries, while those for labor issues and social contribution are as high as those of other industries. Public utilities have large CSR inefficiency compared with other industries, while construction, steel and nonferrous metals have small CSR inefficiency.     

Strategic planning in government-dependent businesses

As the role of government has expanded in various countries, standard distinctions between the public and private sectors have become blurred. This paper explores the special context within which strategic planning must take place in organizations with a very high dependence on government. Four types of government dependency are considered: ownership dependency (public enterprises); regulation dependency (private, regulated firms); input-dependency (e.g. non-profits dependent on state funding); and output-dependency (e.g. defence contractors who sell a considerable portion of their output to governments).Despite their seeming differences, all four types of government-dependent organizations (GDOs) experience five distinctive problems that seriously limit the relevance of traditional planning models (or what are often referred to as ‘rational, comprehensive models’). They are: fragmented strategic decision-making authority; heightened goal ambiguity; politicization of strategic decision-making; short-term orientation and internal bureaucratization.The concepts of strategy and strategic planning are as relevant to Government dependent organizations (GDOs) as they are to other kinds of firms, although the planning system has to be designed somewhat differently. Six tentative guidelines for designing the planning system in GDOs are presented in the paper: (1) plans must be ‘negotiated’ rather than ‘formulated’ in GDOs; (2) outsiders must be involved in the planning process; (3) socio-political issues must be integrated with technoeconomic tissues; (4) top management must play an active role in running the system, especially in managing interfaces with government; (5) the planning system should emphasize flexibility over discipline or rigor and (6) plans must be written up with the expectation that much of their contents could become public knowledge.The paper concludes with the view the GDOs may have a lot to learn from one another despite superficial differences in institutional status (public vs private) and nature of goals (for- profit vs not-for-profits).     

Strategic planning for multinationals—The views of governments and scientists

The purpose of the project described in this paper was to study the environmental changes that influence the strategic planning of multinational firms. The environment of any business or government consists of all things external to an organization which influence it, such as political climate, social situation, international economics, etc. The changes in the strategic planning procedures of firms have been reported elsewhere. This article concentrates on the role that three governments in north-western Europe play in multinational business planning and the views of a number of scientists concerning the interaction of environmental conditions and the strategic planning of multinational firms.     

Government spending on research and development and industrial production in Singapore

The role of government policies in the economic growth of Singapore has been well documented. The governments actions, such as the provision of appropriate infrastructure, have resulted in massive inflow of foreign capital to Singapore. Government sponsorship of selected industries and foreign investment helped domestic firms to gain access to advanced technologies. During the 1990s there was a significant increase in government spending on research and development (R&D) that can be attributed to the development of advanced technologies by Singaporean firms. This paper examines the impact of government-funded R&D in fostering the development of Singapores industrial production in the 1990s. The study explicitly considers the performance of three industries within the manufacturing sector: the machinery and equipment industry, the electrical machinery industry, and the transport equipment industry. It is shown that the fluctuations in real government spending on R&D had a significant positive impact on the performance of the selected manufacturing industries.     

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.     

Getting Professionals to Plan: Pressures, Obstacles and Tactical Responses

It has long been accepted that professional services gain their business on the basis of their own reputation or through client referral. It was almost an unspoken rule not to market their services, but in today's climate there is a need to break from this mould. In order to understand change in professional services, an in-depth survey was conducted covering 25 legal firms and 25 accountancy firms. This survey looked at three aspects: the pressure to conduct strategic marketing planning; the obstacles to such planning; and the tactical responses to these obstacles. The one-to-one interviewing method chosen brought forth genuine and sometimes surprisingly frank responses. The potential benefits of strategic marketing planning are examined, together with the difficulties of adopting such an initiative. The outcome of this research highlights a series of implications for theorists and practitioners, with suggestions of areas for further study.     

Clustering of small agro-processing firms in Indonesia

Small-scale industries in Indonesia provide more than 65% of total manufacturing employment. Sixty-three percent of small-scale firm employment is in firms that are clustered. A cluster is defined statistically in Indonesia as at least 20 firms in a village. For some agro-processing industries, such as bamboo plaiting, clustering does not involve interaction among firms; for others, notably the furniture industry, clustering firms make joint marketing efforts, subcontract each other, and share large orders. This article uses two recent case studies in the agro-processing sector—the furniture and the palm sugar industries—in Central Java. We argue that the target market of the industry (local or international) influences the nature of the contracts and other forms of interaction in the clusters. Targeting an international market requires formal contracts, more focus on marketing, and separate roles for finishing firms and subcontracting firms. Policy should be directed at enabling clusters to shift to the international market by improving contract enforcement regulations, vocational training, and providing opportunities for group lending.     

Strategic planning in large firms—some guidelines

Some argue that a foundation for planning has been achieved when a firm can state its strategic plan in terms of products and markets. (This is referred to as the ‘business form’ in this article). If this statement is true, what factors will aid a firm in achieving the business form in its strategic plans? In this article, details of strategic planning in over 50 large firms taken from an empirical research sample are examined to illustrate which factors seem to lead to the business form of strategic plan in these firms.     

创业投资引导基金补偿机制对创投机构网络位置的影响研究

随着创投市场的网络化趋势越来越突出,提升网络位置成为创投机构的重要竞争战略之一。论文基于激励视角研究创业投资引导基金(简称引导基金)补偿机制对创投机构网络位置的影响。通过私募通数据库搜集大样本数据构造匹配样本,使用双重差分模型,研究结论表明:(1)引导基金参股时为私人资本提供收益补偿、固定收益补偿、或者收益补偿加上固定收益补偿会提升创投机构的网络位置,为私人资本提供亏损补偿、亏损补偿加上固定收益补偿、或者亏损补偿加上收益补偿加上固定收益补偿则不会提升创投机构的网络位置;(2)相比于参股国有背景创投机构而言,引导基金参股非国有背景创投机构时提供收益补偿、固定收益补偿、或者收益补偿加上固定收益补偿对网络位置的提升作用更明显。论文拓宽了创投机构提升网络位置的战略选择,对引导基金主管部门选择补偿机制也有一定的参考意义。     

Job Flows and Plant Size Dynamics: Traditional Measures and Alternative Econometric Techniques

This paper measures the relation between job flows and establishment size, applying econometric techniques best suited for analyzing the long‐run dynamics of large cross‐section. Using a balanced panel from the Mexican manufacturing sector, it shows that, in line with existing evidence, initially small firms create proportionally more jobs than large firms. Since these results suffer from regression toward the mean, the paper applies an alternative technique and does not find any long‐run tendency of small establishments converging toward the mean. Furthermore, it shows how cross‐sectional dynamics across industries varies, and how it is linked to gross and net flows in each sector. Convergence to the mean is observed in relatively stable industries, with asymmetric dynamic behavior between expanding and declining industries.     

Technology management in Indian companies

Since 1966, the Indian Government has progressively restricted imports of technology. Together with constraints on the growth of big business houses and of foreign firms, the next consequence of the Government's policies has been that it takes 3–5 years for a large firm to get a sanction for the import of technology and its utilization; this entails advance planning of technology imports, and advance action for the generation of alternatives within the country, should the imports not be allowed.

The restrictions on technology imports accentuated the need for internal research and development; at the same time, the recession that began in 1966, and whose effects still continue to be felt in some sectors, squeezed industrial profits and limited the resources that could be allocated to R & D. Hence large Indian firms have felt the need for methods of rational allocation of R & D resources among competing projects, and a number of them have been feeling their way towards general criteria of allocation. Some of their efforts are described here. They are essentially exploratory; but since R & D management is still a problematic area even in industrial countries, an analysis of Indian practices is perhaps of more general interest.     

Developing a planning culture for more effective strategic planning

The literature of long-range planning is replete with justifications of the need for strategic planning and admonitions concerning its critical importance. However, both the literature of planning and its practice, as manifested in a variety of organizations as diverse as industrial firms, educational systems and law enforcement agencies, are deficient in specifying proven techniques and methodologies for marshalling organizational resources to effectively implement strategic planning.Over a period of years, the authors have consulted with a variety of business organizations and public agencies in the development and implementation of long-range planning processes. From this work has come an empirically-tested conclusion that the success of long-range planning in an organization is less sensitive to the parameters of the planning techniques that it is to the overall culture within which the planning is accomplished. Since most of the non-pontifical literature of planning focuses on planning techniques and specifications for planning processes, these conclusions suggest a critical void in planning methodology.     

The hazards of strategic planning for global markets

Global strategic marketing planning has emerged as a key process in managing today's worldwide marketplace. This survey of 90 large American global corporations reveals that most are bottom-up planners. US firms appear to have distinct cost and numbers orientations. Industry and competitive analyses are used in many companies, although managers appear to lack suitable frameworks for SWOT analyses. Economic climate changes tend to be most disruptive to global planning efforts. When faced with non-achievement of goals, most firms reformulate both objectives and strategies.     

Planning in a state of turbulence

This paper is concerned with an exploration of the role of the long range planner, whether in the private or public sector of the economy, and the impact made upon the processes of his work by government's increasing propensity to manipulate the economy. The authors' researches over the last 2 years into the comparative nature of planning processes in the U.K. economy have made it abundantly clear to them that planners are increasingly concerned at the dangerous potential of such impact upon their forecasting procedures. The emphasis here will rest upon the planner in private enterprises, although the authors' work in both local government and the nationalized enterprises suggest that the problem is of equal importance in these sectors.The authors consider first the past nature of the search processes in long range planning and the context of such attempts to narrow down the range of variables that form the enterprise's perception of its future. Secondly, they examine the emerging discontinuity and the changing role of government, with particular reference to indicative planning concepts. Then they introduce some of the findings of a recent survey of attitudes towards long range planning in the construction industry of the U.K., a sector vitally influenced by turbulence in the economy and with particular interest in government's ideas of macro-planning. Finally Edwards and Harris examine the implications to government and to planners of their findings.     

基于两阶段博弈模型的钢铁行业碳强度减排机制研究

减少温室气体排放,高耗能行业将承担主要的减排任务,不同的减排机制对减排任务在不同技术水平的企业间分配和减排成本影响不同,而且对企业竞争力和社会福利有影响。本文构造了一个两阶段动态博弈模型,以两个代表性钢铁企业(东部和西部)为研究对象,来考察在完成一定减排目标前提下,政府设置统一碳税和差异化碳税对减排成本、社会经济福利、企业竞争力等的影响。实证结果表明:统一碳税下,钢铁行业产量降幅较小,行业减排任务分解的更加平均,西部钢铁企业竞争力损失较小;差异税下,实现既定减排目标的减排成本较小;社会经济福利损失较小,且随着减排目标的不断升高,两种碳税下社会经济福利损失之差有拉大的趋势;东部钢铁企业竞争力提高幅度较大,但对西部钢铁企业的负面影响十分明显。因此,在碳税机制设计时应充分考虑不同税率模式对减排任务分解、钢铁行业产量、社会经济福利以及企业竞争力的具体影响,需要在社会成本较低和个体企业的竞争力受影响较小之间进行权衡。     

Business Continuity Management: Time for a Strategic Role?

Against a background of increasing threats, business continuity management (BCM) has emerged in many industries as a systematic process to counter the effects of crises and interruptions, although its potential to play a more strategic role is still largely under-explored. This article examines the organisational antecedents of BCM and develops a conceptual approach to posit that BCM, in actively ensuring operational continuity, has a role in preserving competitive advantage. Such value preservation is central to the business continuity/business strategy relationship, and gives rise to the central purpose of the paper; to discuss whether firms’ BCM can be seen as strategic rather than purely functional.If so, what form does such provision take in terms of planning, organisation and culture? Evidence from six UK-based financial services firms illustrates differing approaches to business continuity, with two firms showing BCM provision more clearly aligned towards a mission-critical strategic role. Practical precepts for implementation are presented, together with a diagnostic drawing attention to the key determinants of enhanced value preservation.     

制造企业潜在服务价值创造及其流程再造——东方汽轮机厂案例研究

制造企业存在潜在的服务价值流并与显性价值活动是相互交融的,为了实现服务价值制造企业需要进行服务流程再造。首先,在传统管理模式向服务的价值结构转变过程中,制造企业要注意"推"和"拉"流程的结合;其次,制造企业需要设计和构建面向顾客的服务价值链;第三,制造企业必须将各环节"链"起来形成一个有机整体,实现"服务化"。最后,以我国一家国有大型发电设备制造企业——东方汽轮机厂为例,阐述了制造企业服务创新过程,探讨了其如何构建和再造服务价值流程。