Strategic Management Challenges Research Articles

The fog of strategy: Some organizational perspectives on strategy and the strategic management challenges in the changing competitive environment

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this article is to discuss some conceptions of strategy (and why it is difficult) and the need for a long-term perspective on strategy (including carefully studying competitors/opponents), and to emphasize the organizational nature of strategy (most strategies are developed by and implemented in organizations). We offer elements of an organizational framework for thinking strategically about national security, and some thoughts about implications for the education of future strategists.

Methods for Assessing Quality of Life: International Experience

In this paper the quality of life as a multifaceted phenomenon has been studied. The problem of assessment of the quality of life has been investigated. Assessment of quality of life is an important tool for socio–economic policy of any state. Quality of life is defined as the degree of satisfaction of material, cultural and spiritual human needs. Component definitions emphasize the multidimensional nature of this concept and highlight different dimensions of quality of life (objective and subjective). Movement and physical activity is a crucial, fundamental factor in the formation, preservation and strengthening of health and human development. The purpose is to analyze existing approaches to the assessment of the quality of human life and to summarize international experience. To assess the quality of life of the population use two approaches, the aim and purpose of which are different. Characterized the international system for the assessment of quality of life. There are several systems of assessment of quality of life: General methodological concept of standards and quality of life (Standard of Living and Quality of Life), the methodology of the Economist Intelligence Unit (the division of The Economist Group), the new Europeandevelopment strategy for the next 10 years – «Europe 2020: Strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth», the methodology of International Living (Ireland), the methodology of the EU, the methodology of the OECD (Organization for economic cooperation and development) in an innovative platform of the Better Life Initiative. These methodologies towards «health» are considering physical activity as the main indicator of the quality of human life. Strategic management challenges for Ukraine are to improve the quality of life of people in conjunction with the creation of conditions for realization of innovation model of economic growth, achievement and transformation of the high standards of quality of life in a powerful factor of global competitiveness.

Strategic entrepreneurship and dynamic flexibility: Towards an integrative framework

Strategic entrepreneurship is a growing field within both Entrepreneurship and Management Science. Dynamic flexibility is a concept originally developed to resolve general business issues (Apter, 1985) and later enhanced to address specific strategic management challenges. Strategic Entrepreneurship deals with a singular strategic management response which is to achieve superior performance via simultaneous opportunity-seeking and advantage-seeking activities (Ireland, Hitt, & Simon, 2003). The process of maintaining superior performance is certainly a longitudinal one and requires capabilities on both those dimensions (Ireland & Webb, 2007). In this paper, we propose the use of dynamic flexibility as a useful capability to address strategic entrepreneurship longitudinal issue. By exploring the modulation time response model and different other references from both strategic management and strategic entrepreneurship literature, we aim to establish an integrative framework for dynamic strategic entrepreneurship.

What theories are needed for strategic management?

Purpose– This paper aims to address challenges in strategic management and tries to find ways to make a breakthrough. Strategic management theorists and practitioners need new scientific theories. In the modern turbulent environment, the extant strategic management research (SMR) and strategic management theories can neither satisfy the practical needs nor the theoretical developmental needs of strategic management.Design/methodology/approach– The paper uses critique viewpoints that are unfolded according to the logic of how theories will satisfy the practical and theoretical needs. Physics and mathematics are regarded as the most beautiful and perfect scientific research fields, which help predict physical phenomena such as solar eclipse precisely. Therefore, the paper uses physics and mathematics as benchmarks to explore how SMR should make efforts to push the research further.Findings– The paper provides a different viewpoint that will help strategic theorists and practitioners investigate and understand strategic phenomena more holistically. SMR should contribute to strategic theoretical and practical progress and not just to the game of academic game play. For the goal, the paper summarizes and refines the definition of strategic management in an alternative but practical and innovative perspective, and then delineates the criteria for SMR topic choice; identifies the dilemmas and challenges the SMR faces; and points out the new approaches the strategic management researchers should explore.Originality/value– The paper challenges the mainstream of SMR by identifying the shortcomings, dilemmas, and challenges of the current SMR, and then highlights new ways to make breakthrough in SMR. The study will make strategic management scholars rethink their research and do meaningful research from the perspectives of theoretical contribution and practical guidance.

Emotions in strategic organization: Opportunities for impactful research

Following the emergence of the behavioral movement in economics and finance, there have been mounting calls for strategy scholars to expand and deepen what is called the field of behavioral strategy, in which cognitive and social psychology will be merged with strategic management theory and practice (Powell et al., 2011). The goal is to bring realistic assumptions about human cognition, emotion, and social behavior to the strategic management of organizations and thus to enrich strategy theory, empirical research, and real-world practice. Thanks to advancing research in social psychology and neuroscience, there has been a resurgence of scholarly interest in connecting micro-psychological phenomena to strategic outcomes (e.g., Hodgkinson and Healey, 2011; Huy, 2011; Powell et al., 2011). Levinthal (2011) noted that many strategic management challenges involve ill-specified alternatives and coarse-grained representations of strategic issues with a high level of uncertainty and ambiguity. Dealing adequately with these issues escapes neat optimizing algorithms, which has been the focus of the literature on judgment and decision-making. One type of psychological phenomenon, human emotion, has barely been integrated into strategy research, although mushrooming research on emotion has shown that it can have a potent influence on cognition and behavior, especially under conditions of uncertainty and ambiguity (see Elfenbein, 2007). This essay discusses how scholars in strategic organization can do future research to advance the field of behavioral strategy and, more specifically, how emotion can play an important role in this field. Indeed, affect-laden cognition has been part of strategic management research at least since the 1970s with influential concepts such as escalating commitment (Staw, 1976; Staw and Ross, 1987), strategic issues conceived as threats or opportunities (Jackson and Dutton, 1988; Staw et al., 1981), or top management hubris (Hayward and Hambrick, 1997; Hiller and Hambrick, 2005). How emotion plays a central role in influencing strategic processes started to be treated more explicitly at the periphery of the strategic management literature only about two decades later (e.g., Huy, 1999, 2002, 2005). One reason might be due to the growing legitimacy of emotion as a scientific phenomenon thanks to new technologies (e.g., the MRI scanner) that have given rise to neuroscience; neurologists have demonstrated the influence of emotions on individual-level thinking and behavior (e.g., Damasio, 1994). Moreover, emotion-based ability has been synthesized by the concept of emotional intelligence that has captured the imagination of many researchers and practitioners (Mayer and Salovey, 1997; Salovey and Mayer, 1990). 453107 SOQ10310.1177/1476127012453107HuyStrategic Organization 2012

The Evaluation of the Entrepreneurial Formula

The Evaluation of the Entrepreneurial Formula

Emotions in Strategic Organization: Opportunities for Impactful Research

Following the emergence of the behavioral movement in economics and finance, there have been mounting calls for strategy scholars to expand and deepen what is called as the field of behavioral strategy, in which cognitive and social psychology will be merged with strategic management theory and practice (Powell, Lovallo, & Fox, 2011). The goal is to bring realistic assumptions about human cognition, emotion, and social behavior to the strategic management of organizations and thus to enrich strategy theory, empirical research, and real world practice. Thanks to advancing research in social psychology and neuroscience, there has been a resurgence of scholarly interest in connecting micro psychological phenomena to strategic outcomes (e.g., Hodgkinson & Healey, 2011; Huy, 2011; Powell et al., 2011). Levinthal (2011) noted that many strategic management challenges involve ill-specified alternatives and coarse-grained representations of strategic issues with a high level of uncertainty and ambiguity. Dealing adequately with these issues escapes neat optimizing algorithms, which has been the focus of the literature on judgment and decision making. One type of psychological phenomenon, human emotion, has barely been integrated to strategy research, although mushrooming research on emotion has shown that emotion can have a potent influence on cognition and behavior, especially under conditions of uncertainty and ambiguity (see Elfenbein, 2007).

Delivery of Content for an Online Graduate Course on “The Management of Innovation for Engineers”

This paper will discuss the pedagogical impact and elaborate on the development and implementation of the first online graduate course at the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto. The graduate course entitled "Management of Innovation in Engineering" (APS 1012H) provides students with the core concepts of innovation including; types of innovation, innovation diffusion, strategic and systems thinking, transformational change management, innovative enterprise design & development, and sustaining a culture of innovation. The key course objectives are to expose engineers to real world strategic management challenges and facilitate them to think and write critically through experiential learning. This seminar style course was considered an ideal candidate for the initial pilot for the Faculty online delivery initiative. Both the course content and the course delivery methods were new initiatives at the university. This course incorporates both academic readings to provide the broad theory of innovation and in depth lectures and discussions based on the instructors many years of hands on practical experience in innovation in a variety of industry sectors. A team-based approach was taken to produce final project reports on a variety of topical innovation subjects. The development of a 100% online delivery was an iterative process spanning three academic terms. The course was first delivered to 100% in class students in the winter term 2010. In the fall term 2010 a hybrid approach was adopted were the course was delivered simultaneously to both in class and online students. The content from the inclass lectures was captured during live lectures using a sophisticated multimedia lecture capture system and delivered asynchronously to the online students. Great effort was made to ensure, the course objectives, content, evaluation, assessment, and academic rigour was equivalent for both sections. This first iteration provided valuable insight and revealed complexities of the online delivery specific to the course syllabus. The lessons learned were then used to refine and improve the online delivery and successfully teach a 100% online Engineering graduate course for the winter 2011 term. In summary, the challenge was to teach the management of innovation using a new innovative teaching process while maintaining the experiential learning objectives in a virtual environment.

Cooperative versus corporate governance of LTL networks

In the less than full truck load (LTL) freight market, integrated transport companies compete head-on with multilateral horizontal alliance networks of smaller LTL service providers: the LTL population is characterised by a dichotomy of cooperative and corporate governance modes. In this paper, we identify the strategic management challenges of LTL networks and analyse the suitability of the two alternative governance modes to respond to these challenges. The analysis reveals a framework which allows the systematic exploration of LTL networks from an institutional perspective. It shows the contingent effects of governance on the strategic decision fields of LTL networks. Integrated transportation companies are more efficient regarding decision-making and network configuration at the expense of potential disadvantages concerning capital resources, narrow-mindedness, bureaucratic tendencies and detachment from the customer. Transportation alliances benefit from innovative strategic initiatives and close customer relations, but suffer from potential incompatibilities of alliance partners and inefficiencies regarding strategic decision-making and network configuration.

Strategic management of the health workforce in developing countries: what have we learned?

The study of the health workforce has gained in prominence in recent years, as the dynamic interconnections between human resource issues and health system effectiveness have come into sharper focus. This paper reviews lessons relating to strategic management challenges emerging from the growing literature in this area. Workforce issues are strategic: they affect overall system performance as well as the feasibility and sustainability of health reforms. Viewing workforce issues strategically forces health authorities to confront the yawning gaps between policy and implementation in many developing countries.Lessons emerge in four areas. One concerns imbalances in workforce structure, whether from a functional specialization, geographical or facility lens. These imbalances pose a strategic challenge in that authorities must attempt to steer workforce distribution over time using a limited range of policy tools. A second group of lessons concerns the difficulties of central-level steering of the health workforce, often critically weak due to the lack of proper information systems and the complexities of public sector decentralization and service commercialization trends affecting the grassroots.A third cluster examines worker capacity and motivation, often shaped in developing countries as much by the informal norms and incentives as by formal attempts to support workers or to hold them accountable. Finally, a range of reforms centering on service contracting and improvements to human resource management are emerging. Since these have as a necessary (but not sufficient) condition some flexibility in personnel practices, recent trends towards the sharing of such functions with local authorities are promising.The paper identifies a number of current lines of productive research, focusing on the relationship between health policy reforms and the local institutional environments in which the workforce, both public and private, is deployed.

The importance of conversations-for-action for effective strategic management

As we witness a changing landscape of business and world affairs, it becomes increasingly more important to maintain a systemic understanding of developments, as a guide for improved strategic management. Organizations that embarked on implementing new approaches (TQM, reengineering, learning organizations, etc) for significant performance improvements have experienced limited or no success. In periods of rapid change, the paramount challenges in strategic management are related to the effective execution of current plans and the adaptation needed to cope with change. Two significant causes for disappointing results have been the lack of framing problems in systemic terms and the poor coordination resulting from inefficient communication patterns. In this sense, any solution to a problem contains the seeds of the next set of problems. An effective approach for handling these deficiencies highlights the conversations-for-action needed for effective coordination in both strategic and operational planning. The need to develop and implement viable strategies for sustainable high performance requires that, in addition to materials and information flows within a system, we must explore ways to accommodate this third kind of flow of human communications within and between organizations.

The strategic management challenge: Modernizing local government. Part two

As local government undergoes internal modernization, it faces the challenge of strategic management. This challenge includes the need to coordinate the newly decentralized elements of government; the need for organizational development and cultural change, so that values and behavior within the organization keep pace with structural developments; and the need to manage uncertainty, as local governments face an increasingly competitive and rapidly changing environment. Empirical studies show that strategic management capabilities have not developed evenly across a broad international sample of reform cities. However, the successful program in Christchurch, New Zealand, offers suggestions for other cities.

From profit center to strategy center management

The contemporary challenges in strategic management concentrate on the questions of how implementation of strategies work. This article discusses a crucial problem of structuring a firm and provides criteria to evaluate the strategic performance of profit center management. The main objective is to show that the profit center management concept is an operative one but can neither answer the questions of the strategic future of the firm nor correspond to the methodology of strategic management. Strategic management needs more than strategic planning. Structural and behavioral aspects have to be integrated in the strategic plan and it is necessary to consider these before strategies are determined. The structural pre-conditions of business strategies must be worked out during the process of strategy formulation, not afterwards.

Managing corporate entrepreneurship: New structures for implementing technological innovation

Major changes in the industrial context have put strong pressures on established firms to increase their capacity for technological innovation through internal entrepreneurship. This paper presents a new model of the strategic process, which allows the conceptualization of strategic management challenges associated with such internal entrepreneurship. An assessment framework and an array of design alternatives are also presented to help top management deal with these new challenges. Major implications for the relationships between individuals and large organizations and for the very nature of the corporation of the future are briefly discussed.

Corporate strategies for managing emerging technologies

The emergence of radically new industrial technology is a powerful competitive force with significant strategic implications. Entirely new industries may develop around an emerging technology as existing industries are transformed or destroyed in its wake. Schumpeter 1 aptly characterized such technological change as a force of “creative destruction,” which leaves both winners and losers among industrial firms. What factors distinguish these firms and their strategies for dealing with technological change? This paper reports on a study of the strategic options available to firms facing radical technological change, and the strategic choices made by firms involved in the emerging biotechnology field. Of particular interest are the widespread use of external relationships and their roles in the technology strategies of established firms. The paper begins with brief definitions of established and emerging firms, followed by a review of insights into the strategic nature of technological change drawn from prior studies. The evolving positions of established and emerging firms in the biotechnology field are then described with some elaboration of the collaborative relationships which characterize its early development. A conceptual framework is proposed to differentiate the strategic choices made by established firms in response to advances in biotechnology, and this framework is used to examine the roles played by selected interorganizational relationships in corporate strategies. The paper argues that these external alliances are appropriate initial responses to the strategic management challenges presented by radical technological change, but that the nature and significance of these alliances and associated corporate strategies change as the technology advances toward commercialization.

Introduction: New Challenges for Strategic Management

Introduction: New Challenges for Strategic Management

Metalevel Product-Portfolio Analysis: An Enrichment of Strategic Planning Suggested by Organization Theory

(1978). Metalevel Product-Portfolio Analysis: An Enrichment of Strategic Planning Suggested by Organization Theory. International Studies of Management & Organization: Vol. 8, New Challenges For Strategic Management, pp. 35-66.