Organization for corporate development

In this article the author emphasizes that there is no generally applicable organization for corporate development. Nonetheless, he stresses the need for whatever organization is set up to be staffed by very few very senior people who are willing to be judged by results.     

Managing lean capabilities through flexible workforce development: a process and framework

Many firms today are employing temporary contractual workers in order to help them to stay lean and flexible. The benefit of this approach is that the process of layoff is much easier. Thus, an emerging issue arises here, on how can firms manage and train temporary workers effectively? The core of lean adoption is through people, to have workers buy into the ideas and be part of the overall initiative. There is very little guidance available on how to deal with contractual workers who have less motivation and commitment to the firm given that they are only employed on a temporary basis. This article proposes a framework and process to assist firms in managing and training temporary workers to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the implementation of lean improvement initiatives.     

The corporate planning process of the regulated utility companies

The utilization of corporate planning models has been increasingly important to the utility industry due to the uncertainty of energy prices, regulations, financing and the long lead time associated with the construction of power plants. This paper provides an overview of the concept, developments and how the corporate planning models are utilized by the regulated utility companies in the United States and benefits derived from utilization of corporate planning models by several electric utility companies.     

From organization development to corporate development at Trebor

This article is a case history of a medium-sized, family-owned business where the corporate planning activity has been taken over by the Executive Board, which is concerned with a careful definition and dissemination of company strategy and with focusing action in the form of long-term planning projects. The organizational learning approach is evolutionary and incremental, involving—as in the Japanese style of management— many levels in project development.     

Managing corporate community responsibility in multinational corporations: Resolving institutional duality

Addressing calls to explore how subsidiaries of MNCs operating in different institutional contexts resolve institutional duality, this paper brings together dual theoretical explanations from legitimacy and neo-institutional theory, to examine how decision-making for corporate community responsibility (CCR) occurs across ten subsidiaries operating in Sri Lanka. Using qualitative data, it shows that while subsidiaries’ implementation of local CCR conform to that of their parents at an aggregate level, those subsidiaries encountering higher levels of institutional conflict in the host-country, are sanctioned by their parent companies to de-couple their local CCR projects. These findings raise interesting questions about the dynamism in subsidiary responses to resolving institutional duality relevant for future scholarly research.     

Managing stakeholder pressures: Toward a typology of corporate social performance profiles

Why do some firms ignore some stakeholders while courting others? We propose two key drivers of firms' social postures and derive from this analysis a novel typology of corporate social performance (CSP) profiles. Although we expect that other drivers exist, we argue that a useful starting point for understanding any given CSP profile is to consider the pressure exerted on an organization by its stakeholders in conjunction with its level of resource endowment. Our preliminary typology identifies six distinct CSP profiles that reflect different opportunities and risks for stakeholder management: the CSP Vanguard, Opportunist, Generalist, Minimalist, Specialist, and Laggard. All else equal, the first two CSP profiles imply more nonmarket opportunities than risk, whereas we expect Laggards and Specialists to face greater risk in their responses to social and environmental issues. According to our framework, Generalists and Minimalists probably operate between these two extremes of business risk. Our conceptual analysis seeks to advance research and practice for more strategic stakeholder management.     

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.     

An analytic model for strategic control of corporate development

The concept of strategic control as described by the authors [8] partitions the decision horizon of the firm into two segments. In the long term, information is not precise, goals are vague and constraints are unclear. The problem for the firm is, in spite of this ambiguity, to establish a development window at the beginning of this period that reflects long-run factors and can serve as a guide for short-term behaviour. In the short run, information is precise enough for conventional mathematical programming models to be used to guide attainment of the development window. This paper presents an analytic model that solves the long-run problem defined by the strategic control framework and generates the required development window. A numerical example is presented for illustrative purposes.     

Institutional logics and the decision-making process of adopting corporate governance at a cooperative organization

We aim to investigate the decision process leading to the adoption of corporate governance practice at a cooperative. This paper expands current knowledge by presenting the institutional logics approach as a complement to decision-making process studies. Literature on the decision process grounds the investigation, supported by corporate governance and agency theory. We draw on oral history for collecting and analyzing data from documents, observation and interviews related to the decision process. A total of 19 interviews were conducted with members and employees of the cooperative. We used the Atlas TI software to organize the data and then subjected them to content analysis, based on the historical analytical method. By demonstrating how logics are a basis for the adoption decision, the paper provides evidence of how hybridization operates as a mechanism for balancing actors’ demands in response to contrasting institutional pressures or expectations. In addition, we provide recommendations to management with respect to corporate governance decisions.     

Loyalty-based segmentation and the customer development process

As process management fast becomes recognised as the means by which customer value can be created, it is now equally well understood that the mechanism of value delivery is among the core processes. Without managing Customer Development as a core process, the implementation of strategic plans will lack clear focus. The author argues that the function of the Customer Development process is to build relationships with preferred customers. Working on the premise that all customers are not created equal, the priority for customer development in mature markets is to build these preferred relationships among existing customers. It is now accepted wisdom that these customer relationships deliver superior profits. How customer development management select these customers, or groups of customers, and build specific relationships is directed by the Principles of Loyalty Management.These principles acknowledge that customer loyalty is relative which means that customers as well as product and service brands need to be differentiated. The Diamond of Loyalty© provides a new management tool for this purpose by categorising customer purchasing styles according to their level of involvement (i.e. brand or company relationship) and their purchasing portfolio across suppliers.Finally, it is argued that customer development should discriminate in favour of supporting `high share' customers over `low share' customers in building preferred relationship among existing customers.     

Survival of the corporate planner

Like most businesses, corporate planning units come and go. Based on a survey of 105 coporate planning units in the U.K., this article presents those factors, both external and internal to such units, which appear to have most influence on the creation, survival and success of corporate planning units.     

论公司财务管理在公司治理结构中发挥的作用

公司制企业财务管理存在着三个层次,即出资者财务、经营者财务和专业财务;它们在公司治理结构中发挥着不同的作用.出资者财务以资本的终极所有权为依据,以资本的安全和增值为目的,对其出资及运用状况进行管理,是一种间接约束机制;经营者财务以法人所有权为依据,在出资者的监控下,以直接控制的方式对企业的资金运行进行管理,发挥在治理结构中的纽带作用,处于财务管理的核心地位;专业财务以现金流转为管理对象,保证经营者财务决策的顺利执行和预期效益的实现.三者的辩证统一是实现公司有效治理的关键.     

The social regulation of corporate social irresponsibility: Reviewing the contribution of corporate reputation

Whilst it is assumed that stakeholders penalize and deter corporate social irresponsibility (CSI), instances of CSI persist. Correspondingly, the literature on social regulation—which describes how non-governmental stakeholders exert their regulatory influence on organizations—remains fragmented. To act as a springboard for future studies, this review examines the contribution of corporate reputation to our understanding of how CSI is socially regulated. Our analysis of a large (n = 448 studies) multidisciplinary body of literature unearths a set of nuanced relationships between CSI and corporate reputation. We synthesize a conceptual framework in order to map the diverse landscape of literature and its contributions. We then highlight important gaps among—as well as between—research streams to present a future research agenda. Accordingly, this review contributes to closing ‘the loop’ between CSI, corporate reputation and social regulation, thereby opening up new pathways for future research.     

实现由“经营企业”到“经营城市”的转变

进入新世纪,辽宁省鞍山市委、市政府把“经营城市”作为实现跨越式发展的切人点,从理论与实践的结合上研究与探讨工作思路和实施方案。经过实践,“经营城市”已经收到实效。一、“经营城市”的概……     

Organizing the corporate planning function

A survey of corporate Planning in Britain suggests that the way the process is organized varies with the need of the firm. There appear to be two types of needs which foster the development of the planning activity—strategy development and co-ordination. In capital intensive companies, threatened by technological or market change, there is a need for reappraisal of the firm's overall strategy. On the other hand, in a large diversified firm the requirement may be to co-ordinate the plans of different divisions and departments, particularly investment proposals. This article suggests a framework for the analysis of these planning needs.