The Subjective Side of Strategy Making


Book Description

This book proposes a conception of the corporate strategy making process that recognizes the individual strategy maker as a center-stage corporate actor. This individual-centered view of the stategy making process is needed in order to better understand the interplay between objective factors and the subjective perceptions and values of strategy makers. Using a large sample of executives working in two of the ten largest U.S. commercial banks, Das examines empirically the dynamics of two critical aspects of the role of individual strategy makers: future orientation and perceptions of the strategic planning milieu. He discusses the various implications of his findings for further research into the strategy making process. The author demonstrates the utility of individual future orientation in understanding how strategy makers influence the character of the eventual corporate strategy. The results of Das' study help to explain why long-range planning is really more short-range than anyone cares to admit.




The Subjective Side of Strategy Making


Book Description

This book proposes a conception of the corporate strategy making process that recognizes the individual strategy maker as a center-stage corporate actor. This individual-centered view of the stategy making process is needed in order to better understand the interplay between objective factors and the subjective perceptions and values of strategy makers. Using a large sample of executives working in two of the ten largest U.S. commercial banks, Das examines empirically the dynamics of two critical aspects of the role of individual strategy makers: future orientation and perceptions of the strategic planning milieu. He discusses the various implications of his findings for further research into the strategy making process. The author demonstrates the utility of individual future orientation in understanding how strategy makers influence the character of the eventual corporate strategy. The results of Das' study help to explain why long-range planning is really more short-range than anyone cares to admit.




Behavioral Strategy


Book Description

Behavioral strategy continues to attract increasing research interest within the broader field of strategic management. Research in behavioral strategy has clear scope for development in tandem with such traditional streams of strategy research that involve economics, markets, resources, and technology. The key roles of psychology, organizational behavior, and behavioral decision making in the theory and practice of strategy have yet to be comprehensively grasped. Given that strategic thinking and strategic decision making are importantly concerned with human cognition, human decisions, and human behavior, it makes eminent sense to bring some balance in the strategy field by complementing the extant emphasis on the “objective’ economics-based view with substantive attention to the “subjective” individual-oriented perspective. This calls for more focused inquiries into the role and nature of the individual strategy actors, and their cognitions and behaviors, in the strategy research enterprise. For the purposes of this book series, behavioral strategy would be broadly construed as covering all aspects of the role of the strategy maker in the entire strategy field. The scholarship relating to behavioral strategy is widely believed to be dispersed in diverse literatures. These existing contributions that relate to behavioral strategy within the overall field of strategy has been known and perhaps valued by most scholars all along, but were not adequately appreciated or brought together as a coherent sub-field or as a distinct perspective of strategy. This book series on Research in Behavioral Strategy will cover the essential progress made thus far in this admittedly fragmented literature and elaborate upon fruitful streams of scholarship. More importantly, the book series will focus on providing a robust and comprehensive forum for the growing scholarship in behavioral strategy. In particular, the volumes in the series will cover new views of interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks and models (dealing with all behavioral aspects), significant practical problems of strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation, and emerging areas of inquiry. The series will also include comprehensive empirical studies of selected segments of business, economic, industrial, government, and non-profit activities with potential for wider application of behavioral strategy. Through the ongoing release of focused topical titles, this book series will seek to disseminate theoretical insights and practical management information that will enable interested professionals to gain a rigorous and comprehensive understanding of the subject of behavioral strategy. Behavioral Strategy: Emerging Perspectives contains contributions by leading scholars in the field of behavioral strategy research. The 9 chapters in this volume cover a number of significant topics that speak to the emerging perspectives in the area of behavioral strategy. The chapter topics cover both the broader issues, such as cooperative behavior in strategic decision making, cognitive orientation and biases of executives, dynamics capabilities in organizational change, and the development of metamanagement practices, and the more focused discussions on a behavioral view of business modeling, the tenets of agency theory and Austrian economics, and the temporal dimensions of strategic risk behavior. The chapters include empirical as well as conceptual treatments of the selected topics, and collectively present a wide-ranging review of the noteworthy research perspectives on behavioral strategy.




Managing the Future


Book Description

In this book, leading authors explore ways in which organizationscan develop their ability to manage the future. An exploration of the ways in which organizations can developtheir ability to manage the future. Consists of ten papers written by authors from both sides ofthe Atlantic and from Asia, all of whom are distinguished scholarsin the fields of strategy or organizational learning. Addresses key questions about how organizational foresight canbe conceptualized and developed, and the extent to which it ispossible. The papers are prefaced by a foreword from Spyros Makridakisand an introduction from the editors. Helps to shape a new research agenda, and so will be ofinterest to academics, as well as to students andpractitioners.







The Time Dimension


Book Description

This is the first comprehensive bibliography of temporal scholarship-research on the subject of time and the phenomenon of time itself. As the author notes in his introduction, the nature of research insights on the subject of time is difficult to comprehend within the confines of any specific discipline since relevant materials are scattered throughout the literature in numerous scholarly fields. By bringing together the most significant published works in a wide variety of disciplines, this unique compendium enables scholars and researchers to look beyond their own particular area of expertise when selecting appropriate resource materials. Throughout, the focus is on the time dimension itself as a problematic or researchable phenomenon rather than on narrow topics such as time management, time series analysis, or forecasting. Organized by discipline, the work begins with an initial chapter that lists general works on the time dimension. Nineteen chapters then list works in particular disciplines ranging from anthropology and culture to biology, economics, futures studies, history, linguistics, management studies, psychology, and more. The final chapter lists miscellaneous entries which could not be categorized into any of the specific disciplinary headings. Within each chapter, entries are arranged alphabetically by author or editor. Nearly all sources are from scholarly journals and books.




Time Issues in Strategy and Organization


Book Description

The field of strategy science has grown in both the diversity of issues it addresses and the increasingly interdisciplinary approaches it adopts in understanding the nature and significance of problems that are continuously emerging in the world of human endeavor. These newer kinds of challenges and opportunities arise in all forms of organizations, encompassing private and public enterprises, and with strategies that experiment with breaking the traditional molds and contours. The field of strategy science is also, perhaps inevitably, being impacted by the proliferation of hybrid organizations such as strategic alliances, the upsurge of approaches that go beyond the customary emphasis on competitiveness and profit making, and the intermixing of time-honored categories of activities such as business, industry, commerce, trade, government, the professions, and so on. The blurring of the boundaries between various areas and types of human activities points to a need for academic research to address the consequential developments in strategic issues. Hence, research and thinking about the nature of issues to be tackled by strategy science should also cultivate requisite variety in issues recognized for research inquiry, including the conceptual foundations of strategy and strategy making, and the examination of the critical roles of strategy makers, strategic thinking, time and temporalities, business and other goal choices, diversity in organizing modes for strategy implementation, and the complexities of managing strategy, to name a few. This book series on Research in Strategy Science aims to provide an outlet for ideas and issues that publications in the field do not provide, either expressly or adequately, especially as regards the comprehensive coverage deserved by certain emerging areas of interest. The topics of the volumes in the series will keep in view this objective to expand the research areas and theoretical approaches routinely found in strategy science, the better to permit expanded and expansive treatments of promising issues that may not sufficiently align with the usual research coverage of publications in the field. Time Issues in Strategy and Organization contains contributions by leading scholars on time issues in the field of strategy science research. The 8 chapters in this volume cover the topics of future orientation in strategy making, time conceptualizations in interorganizational relationships, real-time management in the digital economy, spatio-temporal aspect of strategic leadership, a systemic-cognitive perspective on organizational temporality, ecosystem types and the timing of open innovation strategies, and the temporalities of strategic risk behavior and partner opportunism in strategic alliances. The chapters collectively present a wide-ranging review of the noteworthy research perspectives on the temporal issues in strategy and organization.




Formal Strategic Planning in highly uncertain and dynamic environments


Book Description

Essay from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: A, Edinburgh Napier University (The Business School), course: Strategic Management in a Global Context, language: English, abstract: This essay will critically evaluate whether formal strategic planning is no longer an applicable approach for corporate decision-making in today's highly uncertain and dynamic business environment. In recent decades company leaders have been quite successful maneuvering their organisations through daily business and a number of economic crises by the means of formal strategic planning. Arguably, it offers several benefits on the one side, but also drawbacks on the other side. The first part of this essay will focus on the nature of formal strategic planning and its key characteristics as well as potential advantages and disadvantages. The second part will then evaluate why the formal planning approach may be perceived as not comprehensive enough in today's highly uncertain and dynamic environment, yet show how it may still be able to make crucial contributions towards sound, efficient and comprehensive corporate decision-making.




Cultural Influences on the Process of Strategic Management


Book Description

This unique book is positioned at the crossroads of strategic management and international business. Based on an in-depth literature review, the author empirically assesses the widely shared, implicit assumption that strategic management processes can be globally applied in a standardized, i.e., culture-free, manner. So far, a variety of tools have also been recommended but without incorporating cultural differences. As many organizations observe that this ethnocentric view is more an illusion than reality, strategic management research has started to focus on the cultural sensitivity of its theories, tools, and processes to provide practitioners in a multicultural setting with adequate know-how and tools. To foster long-term decision-making despite uncertainty, scenario planning is frequently applied by practitioners. Up until today, scenario planning has however gained little attention from the academic community. Through this book, the author presents a newly developed framework for strategic management that combines the cultural value scale to test the cultural sensitivity of the long-term planning tool called “scenario planning.” The different process steps of scenario planning have been individually examined for their sensitivity toward the cultural dimensions of uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation. The investigation is based on a unique, global set of management consultants working for a leading professional service firm. The results of this research show the cultural sensitivity of scenario planning, with different degrees of the process steps and the tested cultural dimensions.