What kind of corporate planner do you need?

The planning literature ignores distinctions among types of plans and types of planners. Consequently, a systematic pairing of planners and a company's level of planning need is not well understood or implemented in practice. This paper provides two missing links in order to bridge this shortfall between theory and practice. One is a planning matrix which establishes six possible planning modes for a company based on its stage of development and management style. The second is a distinction between three types of planners who would be appropriate to each planning mode. The matrix plus the three categories of planners provides a new tool for management in its responsibility for planning the job of the corporate planner. In doing so, it also surfaces some underlying causes of organizational strain and stress associated with the corporate planner's position.     

Meeting the challenges of information systems planning

Strategic information systems planning (SISP) is the process of deciding the objectives of computing for an organization and then identifying the applications that the organization should computerize. SISP has become increasingly important as information systems have begun to play a more critical role in implementing business strategies. However, SISP is beset with problems that hinder organizations from determining their computing objectives and applications. This article identifies the impediments to SISP and offers some constructive actions for business planners to take to increase their chances of success. It also suggests that planners may face greater difficulties implementing their information systems plans than in initially creating them.     

A Simulation Metamodel for Response-Time Planning*

Field service management continues to be a major challenge for many service organizations as companies are required to provide more service with less resources. Especially in information intense environments, short response times for service calls are essential to avoid disruptions to a business office or production facility. Managers must regularly assess their manpower needs, and ensure that their allocation and operational decisions lead to the best service at the lowest cost. Xerox Corporation provides copiers, duplicators, and printing systems to an international market. Xerox operates a service network consisting of over 30,000 trained service personnel, each allocated to service regions by the service planning staff. Response-time planning involves many challenging problems: requirements planning at the national level, allocation planning at the district level, and operational planning at the team level. Customer service is critical and is commonly measured by response time—the time that elapses from when a service call is placed to when a service engineer begins service. This paper discusses how Xerox Corporation has used simulation models and metamodels to improve response-time planning and field service operations.     

Corporate planning in local government—a case study

The authors set out their view of the peculiar problems facing corporate planners in local government as compared with the private sector and their view of the nature of corporate planning in this special environment. By way of illustration as to how one local authority has attempted to introduce corporate planning, the article includes a case study of the City of Bradford Metropolitan Council.     

Organizational implications for long range planning

Much long range planning has ignored the need to change the firm's organization as its environment changes. Research demonstrates that those organizations which are effective have structures and behaviour which are congruent with their environments. To ensure that organizations can cope and adapt to future changes in environmental conditions long range planners need to take into consideration the appropriate development of both the organization and its members. This needs a multi-disciplinary approach in which behavioural scientists can play an important role. The Chemical Allied Products Industry Training Board has been developing a technology for examining organizations which could assist long range planners and managers to develop the organization and its members to suit the needs of future environmental change. This article discusses the many implications of these points.     

Business planning: The gap between theory and practice

The author maintains that the gap between the theory and the practice of corporate planning is growing. He examines the planning systems currently used and concludes that corporate planning as advocated by the theorists is not being practised in any developed form by large corporations.     

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.     

Corporate planning at batchelors foods limited: A case study

In this article the author outlines the background and history of corporate planning in his company. He shows how the process of planning has evolved in the company over the years to involve management at all levels. After two decades of planning experience this company case study points up some of the mistakes that were made as well as the successes.     

Corporate planning and operations research: Do they go together?

Corporate planners in 59 U.S. commercial banks responded to a questionnaire on the use of operations research methods in the planning activities of their bank. Based on the questionnaire responses, 39 of the banks were identified as users of operations research techniques in corporate planning. The 39 banks provided background information on their operations research activities in corporate planning with respect to techniques used, number of persons employed, general organization and overall results. In order to learn more about the performance of operations research planners, comparisons were made between the financial performance of the group of users and the group of non-users in the sample. The results suggest that U.S. banks using operations research methods in corporate planning are larger, but not necessarily more profitable, than other banks in the industry.     

11 The Effects of Governments on Management and Organization

Abstract

We review and integrate existing research from organization theory, strategy, organizational behavior, economics, sociology and political science on the effects of governments on organization and management, with a focus on how governing ideology and government capability influence independent organizations’ forms, strategies, and their participants’ behavior. When brought together these works suggest significant research opportunities in the fields of management and organization, as well as new perspectives on public policy challenges. Several avenues of potentially profitable empirical research include more attention to the influence of government on corporate strategies, more research on the strategies of pursuing corruption and government capture for competitive advantage, the role of government in fostering innovation and the growth of entrepreneurial organizations, and extra‐organizational contextual effects on managerial and employee organizational behavior. Possible public policy implications are illustrated with an application to the role of organizations in national wealth generation and dispersion.     

The coordination of short-run decision-making with long-range planning

The dichotomy of short-run and long-run decision-making in economic enterprises has gained widespread acceptance, both in practice and in the related literature despite the inherent interdependence of these decisions. The problem addressed in this paper deals with the proper coordination of short- and long-run planning. Structuring the overall decision problem of the firm as a dynamic programming problem, we find that a natural decomposition into long- and short-range planning results. In this decomposition, all decisions which must be made in the first segment of the planning period are allocated to the short-run decision-makers and all subsequent decisions to the long-range planners. Though several formats have been suggested in the literature for linking short- and long-run plans, most notably the use of shadow prices and of targets or quotas, we find that from a conceptual viewpoint these are inadequate mechanisms and that the proper connection involves the dynamic programming return function.     

Corporate planning in medium-sized companies in the U.K.

The past decade has seen the publication of a considerable amount of research into the corporate planning practices of industrial giants. More recent work has investigated corporate planning practice in small businesses. However, little attention appears to have been paid to actual practice in medium-sized companies. This article reports the results of a study designed to investigate corporate planning practice in medium-sized companies in the U.K. The results show that while corporate planning is widespread among medium-sized companies, it is not the well-balanced and integrated system envisaged in the literature. Also, the majority of chief executives are not truly satisfied with corporate planning as practised in their organizations, but are, at the same time, largely unable to suggest changes to make corporate planning more effective. This points clearly to a need for action by researchers and consultants in the area.     

Strategic planning in Tanzania

The Tanzania Wood Industry Corporation is one of the very few parastatal organizations that have developed and introduced a strategic corporate planning process. The novelty of the idea, the many operational problems that surround the managers and the lack of adequate training are some of the problems that have retarded the development and introduction of corporate planning in Tanzania. In 1980 the new CEO of TWICO contracted a Finnish management consulting firm to audit the whole corporation and to recommend a better management practice. Systems manuals were then developed and a grassroots based strategic corporate planning process was then introduced. Now in its third year, the impact on management is very encouraging.     

Public planning and political strategy

Planning theory and practice derived from corporate experience, management science and rational decision theory have had little influence on decision-making in the public sector. The political environment and organizational complexity of public decision making render conventional approaches to objective, rational, comprehensive planning of limited value in government agencies and in private corporations involved in public policy making. A more effective approach to strategic planning and management must be based on an understanding of the political dynamics through which policies are made. It must adopt a variety of styles directly related to major functions in the policy making process and use a variety of political intervention and influence techniques that facilitate the implementation of plans and policies.     

Making strategic planning work in local government.

Since decisions are made through the political process in local government, planners are being advised to modify their style of planning. Planners acknowledge the need to modify the practice of planning, but reforms are introduced within the framework of the comprehensive plan which continues to serve as the principal planning instrument. This results in internal conflicts within the planning process. In this paper a proposal is made for a planning system which is composed of a series of interacting building blocks. The planning process is molded to fit the management function and capability of those involved in the decision process. Plans are developed as management tools and the planning process accommodates the multiple centres which interact to produce a community's policies and strategies.     

Critical Dimensions of Strategic Information Systems Planning

Strategic information systems planning (SISP) is the process whereby an organization establishes a long-range plan of computer-based applications in order to achieve its goals. A number of problems can potentially impede information systems planners as they carry out the process. A survey of 80 firms who completed the SISP process revealed that the problems constitute five factors: the organization, implementation, database, hardware, and cost. A discriminant analysis showed that three factors—the organization, implementation, and database—best distinguished satisfied from dissatisfied information systems planners. A research application of the five factors suggested that organizations with more sophisticated business planning endure significantly less severe hardware and implementation problems.     

Bringing planning systems to the manager

This article reports the results of a corporate planning survey involving 15 U.K. companies and an experimental pilot planning system developed as a research tool to investigate aspects of interactive planning. The preliminary findings indicate that such systems can be of considerable benefit to managers, planners, and the organization, and that the design of the system from the users point of view will determine whether or not it will be accepted as a decision making aid. Some of the essential features are then described.     

A process model of establishing knowledge management: Insights from a longitudinal field study

This paper contributes to the discussion on how to manage knowledge in organizations. Taking a perspective which acknowledges the importance of, but does not privilege, IT as the decisive element, it reports the results of a study investigating the process of establishing as opposed to conducting knowledge management. Based on a grounded theory approach to the analysis of the empirical data, a model of establishing knowledge management in organizations is developed. The model emphasizes how the organizational members make sense of the action and behavior of management, and how this understanding influences their own perceptions and actions in the process of establishing knowledge management. This leads to an understanding of knowledge management as an autonomous venturing process. The model is then used to suggest an explanation of why establishing knowledge management was not successful in the case which was investigated. Conclusions are provided on how the model can be further exploited for studying and improving the practice of knowledge management.     

Sustainable planning strategies in supply chain systems: proposal and applications with a real case study in fashion

Abstract

Pollution generated by the fashion industry drives people to pay attention to fashion companies’ sustainability practice. This increase in attention has induced vast literature studying the related area. Since the fashion apparel supply chain is complicated which involves a lot of interrelated steps and decisions, how fashion companies can identify the demand in sustainable fashion and make the right decision in resource allocation throughout the supply chain becomes a critical issue. As a result, this paper examines how a fashion company can develop a successful sustainable planning strategy throughout the sustainable fashion supply chain. The sustainability attributes and the sustainable planning strategy mechanism are also discussed. Based on the institutional theory and resource-based theory, we first analyse the external pressure and internal motivations for companies to adopt a sustainable planning strategy in the fashion supply chain. We then identify the core stakeholders related to the sustainable planning strategy and propose how the decision-making theory can help develop the sustainable supply chain management mechanism. Next, we establish a sustainable planning strategy framework. Finally, via a case study with public data on the fashion giant brand Nike, we explore the application of our proposed sustainable planning strategy framework. The finding suggests that the strategic planning of fashion companies on sustainability can improve the performance of the stakeholders throughout the whole sustainable fashion supply chain.