Strategic Mode Research Articles

The politics of discretionary government commitments to European integration referendums

The article develops a two-dimensional typology of political reasons for governments to pledge referendums on European integration when they are not obliged to do so: the first dimension is about the political level at which the strategic use of referendum pledges is targeted and it distinguishes between domestic and European reasons; the second dimension attends to the strategic mode of governments when pledging EU referendums which can either be about avoiding political losses (the defensive mode) or about realizing political gains (the offensive mode). In combination, the typology yields four ideal types of reasons for governments to commit to EU referendums: the depoliticizing; plebiscitary; red-line; and internationalist EU referendum pledges. In the empirical analysis, the article applies this typology to classify 28 cases of discretionary government commitments to EU referendums and it presents the findings of an expert survey that has been conducted for this purpose.

Apostasy versus legitimacy: Relational dynamics and routes to resource acquisition in entrepreneurial ventures

This article explores the relational dynamics of legitimation within a professional service venture context, using a Bourdieusian framework to elucidate the struggles for capital and legitimacy that characterise the venture development process. Two profiles of individual business owners who renounce or adhere to established norms of the professional field are identified: apostate and traditional. Small accounting ventures may benefit from improved access to resources if they concentrate on fitting in with prevailing small firm professional logics, eschewing logics from outside the focal field associated with apostates. A model of legitimacy is developed that accounts for the efficacy of institutional and strategic modes of legitimacy relative to the maturity of the field and objectification of its social formations. We propose that entrepreneurial habitus mediates field-level conditions and capital formations that, when combined, create symbolic capital and resource acquisition possibilities.

The Strategic Entry Mode of China in Africa

The Strategic Entry Mode of China in Africa

Necessary conditions for the globalization of traditional Chinese medicine

With the current trend of globalization, unprecedented opportunities and enormous changes have emerged for the global development of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). However, many old and new challenges and problems still remain, including partial or limited comprehension of acupuncture, oriental medicine and TCM, the existence of non-standardized institutes of TCM and acupuncture training schools, unqualified TCM practitioners, and problems concerning Chinese herbal medicine and inexperience in conducting TCM business. These problems will doubtlessly impede the further development of TCM worldwide in the foreseeable future. It is also clear that the globalization of TCM will require a large scale systematic project and constitute an arduous historical task. This paper aims to consolidate 6 strategic development modes to reinforce and facilitate the process of TCM globalization through a detailed analysis of both the present status and existing problems concerning the development of TCM in the United States.

Strategizing Corporate Social Responsibility-Evidence from Guangdong Wen’s Foodstuffs Group Co.

Along with the advancement of economic globalization and industrial revolution, scholars and managers have realized the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR). However, there is still an absence of a knowledge bridge between theories and practices, namely how to apply CSR theories to strategic management practices. This paper adopts a qualitative study method and takes Wen’s Foodstuff Group Co., a leading agricultural company, as an example to develop relevant researches. Results show that: the founders’ ideas and values serve as the base for its sustainable development strategies. The corporation enhances its social responsibility idea by corporate culture and applies the strategic responsibility thought to daily management. The essence of Wen’s strategic CSR is to attach importance to food safety, environment protection, and loyal cooperation with employees and farmers in strategic choice. At the same time, the corporation copies the successful strategic mode in other regions. Its successful strategies depend on paying more attention on food safety and environmental protection, treating competitors, community, media, governments friendly.

An Analysis on Chinese Hotel Enterprises’ Outsourcing Strategic Modes and Corresponding Development Conception

The present outsourcing management mode of travel hotels has caused attention of the global hotel industry. Though the application of outsourcing modes, we can renew and combine hotels’ structure, making hotels centralize their market superiority and enterprise core competitiveness. This thesis mainly discusses Chinese hotel enterprises’ outsourcing strategic modes and corresponding development conception. Firstly, it analyzes the outsourcing strategy concept and the theory frame; secondly, it expounds hotels’ several outsourcing strategic modes; thirdly, it summarizes the effect and significance of Chinese hotel outsourcing strategic modes. Simultaneously, it also proposes the outsourcing strategic modes’ management and the safeguard countermeasures, and makes the macroscopic summary and the forecast to Chinese hotels’ outsourcing strategy development in future.

Linda Montano, Anorexia nervosa and an art of hunger

In performance artist Linda Montano's deceptively simple 1981 video Anorexia nervosa, five women are interviewed about their experiences with self-starvation. In the video's interplay between image and speech, Montano creates a correlation between internalized hunger and the perceivable body, placing notions of spirituality and physical hunger at the core of the video. This reflection considers Anorexia nervosa as a meditation on ascetic discipline and talk therapy, both of which are, for Montano, strategic modes of art production.

IT 거버넌스 의사결정 구조의 차이 분석: IT 전략 그리드 프레임워크 적용

본 연구의 목적은 IT 전략그리드의 4개 전략 모드에 대해서 IT 거버넌스 의사결정 구조를 살펴보고, 높은 성과를 내는 기업과 낮은 성과를 내는 기업 간의 IT 거버넌스 의사결정 구조의 차이를 비교 및 분석하는 것이다. 본 연구를 위해 설문방법을 이용하였고, 분석을 위한 데이터는 KOSDAQ 300, KOSPI 200의 상장 기업을 대상으로 수집한 총 209개의 데이터를 적용하였다. 그 결과, 각 모드는 서로 상이한 IT 거버넌스 의사결정 구조를 가지는 것으로 나타났고, 높은 성과를 내는 기업과 낮은 성과를 내는 기업 간의 IT 거버넌스 의사결정 구조도 각 모드별로 상이한 결과를 보였다. 본 논문의 결과는 IT 거버넌스를 실행하는 기업들의 바람직한 행위를 촉진하기 위한 의사결정구조의 틀을 각 전략 모드별로 제시하였다는 점에서 의의가 있다. The purpose of this paper is to examine the IT governance decision structure of the four strategic modes of IT strategy grid, and compare and analyze the differences in the IT governance decision structure of companies that produce superior results and those that produce inferior results. The survey method was used for this paper, and data from a total of 209 companies that were listed on the KOSDAQ 300 and KOSPI 200 were used for the analysis. The results show that each mode has a different IT governance decision structure from the others, and the IT governance decision structure of companies with high results and those with low results are also different for each mode. The results of this paper are significant in that, for each mode, it presents the decision structure framework for promoting desirable behavior of companies carrying out IT governance.

Unge fodboldtalenters veje mod toppen - evolutionær eller strategisk talentudvikling?

Med udgangspunkt i en kvantitativ undersøgelse af fodboldspilleres vej mod toppen diskuterer artiklen tendenser i dansk elitefodbolds talentudvikling. Der kigges nærmer på den relative alderseffekt blandt spillerne og på den evolutionære og strategiske udviklingstankegangen. Mette Krogh Christensen: Young Football Talents’ Ways to the Top – Evolutionary or Strategic Talent Development? During the next four years the Danish government intends to spend 40 million Dkr. on talent development within Danish top-level sport. Like many other countries Denmark has chosen to use many resources on talent development in top-level sport expecting that the investment will »strengthen the exposure and increase the knowledge of Denmark« (The Danish Ministry of Culture, 2007). For that reason questions concerning how talent development in Denmark is managed and which modes of thought form the basis of talent development in top-level sport are highly topical. In this paper we will explore two modes of thought in Danish top-level football talent development: an evolutionary and a strategic mode of thought. An evolutionary mode of thought about talent development is characterized by giving a high priority to broad groups of talents as long as possible. The idea is that young football talents have the opportunity to develop in their own pace, to move in their well-known environments and to find their own peak compe186 tence (or qualification) after which experienced coaches select the footballers that they find appropriate. A strategic mode of thought about talent development is concerned with selecting and thinning out the broad group of talent at a much earlier stage. The selection is carried out on the basis of precise and distinct criteria and principles with the purpose of narrowing down the number of talents to a strategically selected group who are then given optimal conditions of development. The paper presents a retrospective, quantitative cohort study of 635 Danish youth football talents’ ways to the top (i.e. the national teams) from 1991-2006. The results showed among other things that relatively few talents from U/16 and U/17 national teams make their debut on the All-Denmark team, and that there is a massive flow of talents on the U/17 and U/18 national teams, which indicates an evolutionary mode of thought among the youth national team coaches. The results also showed a relative age effect among the younger talents, which might indicate a strategic mode of thought based on maturation as a performance determinant. On the background of the results from the study a pivotal dilemma in the investment in talent development in top-level sport is discussed: the dilemma between evolutionary and strategic talent development.

Do I like my ICON? Determining preferences for firms' mode of strategic focus

Whether they intend to or not, firms adopt a strategic mode of focus, a way of directing efforts towards markets, products, both or neither. However, in a fast changing environment, such as South Africa, little information exists on whether managers within these organisations feel that the archetype they have adopted will be appropriate for survival in the near mid-term future. This paper reports on the results of a study that identified the modes of focus of South African firms as perceived by senior marketing managers. It then matches these to the strategic mode that the managers see as most likely to guarantee the future success of their firms. Limitations of the study are identified, implications for management highlighted and avenues for future research discussed.

Religiøse fantomsmerter

Religious Phantom Pains - The Khmer Rouge and Victims' historiographyThis article explores the ways in which biographical accounts by Cambodian refugees in the West portray the oppression during the reign of Pol Pot in the late 1970s. Arguing that victims' biographies constitute a specific genre which is rapidly growing, perhaps due to a general increase in the attention to the voices of the marginalized, the article outlines typical characteristics inherent in this historiographic genre, most notably the claim to representativity and authenticity.Both explicit and implicit religious dimensions can be identified in the Cambodian victims' biographies, and the article examines what this religious content reveals about the handling of the brutality in the Cambodian history. The religious dimension is expressed in both direct references to Buddhist doctrines and ideas and in the indirect truth-claims of the biographies. Invoking Bruce Lincoln's definition of myth as a strategic mode of discourse, possessed of authority and paradignatic truth, the article argues that the biographical accounts of the Cambodian genocide work as mythologies, casting the Khmer Rouge as a cosmological state of emergency, isolated from the Cambodian history at large. The view that the Pol Pot regime is a pathological condition expresses the idea that a functional religious system and the Khmer Rouge regime are mutually exclusive. Thus, religion in the biographies is paradoxically characterised by its absence. In conclusion, it is suggested that this concept of religion poses a more general challenge to sociology of religion regarding the way the analytical object is defined and the relation between text and context.

A hybrid fuzzy-based approach for identifying global logistics strategies

Abstract This paper presents a hybrid fuzzy-based method that integrates fuzzy-AHP and fuzzy-MADM approaches for identifying global logistics (GL) strategies when corresponding supply and demand environments are complicated and uncertain. Before applying the methodology, six typical types of GL strategic modes were specified with their distinctive channels of physical distribution and information flows. Survey data collected from integrated circuit (IC) manufacturers in Taiwan was used to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed method. The empirical results indicate that the proposed method can be used to identify GL strategies when the factors that influence GL are complex and uncertain.

Public Consultations in Policy Network Environments: The Case of Assisted Reproductive Technology Policy in Canada

This paper stresses the increasing importance of public consultation in a context where policymakers seek higher input-oriented legitimacy for policy design, a form of legitimacy valued by the proponents of the governance discourse. Three modes of public consultation are identified: the strategic mode, the rule-guided mode, and communicative action. It is argued that the choice of modes, and therefore the manner in which consultors approach their role, depends on policy networks. When networks are closed to a small number of cohesive actors, any of the three modes can work to the satisfaction of those involved. However, the extent to which networks must be open to achieve input-oriented legitimacy significantly constrains the choice of a consultation mode. The case of assisted reproductive-technology policy design presented in this article illustrates that in the context of network openness, consultors will prefer strategy over communicative action and eventually rule-guidance over strategy. Unfortunately, this manner of approaching public consultation is unlikely to confer input-oriented legitimacy onto policy designs.

Why Engage? China and the Logic of Communicative Engagement

With the breakdown of American relations with China after 1989 and the rapid growth of Chinese power in the 1990s, the American policy of engagement attempted to encourage China to become a moderate participant in the international status quo through the building of economic interdependence, participation in international institutions and strategic dialogues. The widespread belief in the failure of this policy has helped to drive the spiraling conflict between the two states. Drawing on Habermas's distinction between strategic and communicative action, this article argues that the unacknowledged rationalist theoretical foundations of the policy of engagement explain its empirical experience. Engagement rested on a strategic mode of action, in which the building of interdependencies and dialogues were instrumental policies to change the target state. Rationalist signaling models demonstrate effectively why engagement is likely to fail within such a strategic mode of action. The policy of engagement carries within it the potential for a communicative mode of action, however, in which states enter into public dialogues in order to more effectively communicate, discover and shape preferences, and arrive at mutually acceptable institutions. Communicative engagement, designed to allow for the free exchange of reasoned argument under conditions which minimize the direct application of power, provides a superior means to achieve the avowed goals of engagement. Through an analysis of an important potentially conflictual strategic relationship, this article advances the emerging dialogue between rationalist and critical theories by focusing on communication, uncertainty and the transformative potential of public discourse. It draws on a theory of communicative action rooted in Habermas to evaluate the empirical record of engagement in the 1990s, and to articulate theoretical foundations for a communicative engagement which more effectively communicates and shapes state preferences.

AN AGENT‐BASED EVENT DRIVEN FORAGING MODEL

ABSTRACT. A game‐theoretic foraging model is developed in an agent‐based framework. The animal's environment is described in terms of agents representing prey, predators and the habitat. The animal has two modes of behavior for each agent: tactical mode behaviors alter the outcomes of the events and strategic mode behaviors alter the probability of future events. Possible event outcomes are represented as utilities which have both benefit and cost components. The probabilities of successful behaviors are tracked via short‐term (tactical), intermediate‐term (strategic) and long‐term (reference) memories. Probabilities change continually through the moment‐to‐moment events, and switches in behavior occur when the expected utility of one behavior exceeds that of another. At the switch point, the expected utilities of the behaviors are equivalent; through this property the model parameters can be calibrated from behavioral experiments. A bluegill foraging study on giving‐up time is used to calibrate the model and then habitat foraging is simulated. Problems with interpreting behavioral studies without fully characterizing the multiple scales of interactions with agents are discussed.

Regional Innovation Systems and the Advent of Strategic Science

While regional innovation systems are, to some extent, an artefact of regional administration and mimesis, there are also clear proximity and agglomeration dynamics. A third type of dynamic at play derives from uptake of knowledge production, regional role of universities etc. The advent of strategic science, with its double emphasis on relevance (including local relevance) and global competition, creates pressures on universities which want to play a regional role as well. The University of Twente, in The Netherlands, is an example. Its evolution shows that the regional function leans heavily on institutional differentiations like outreach units, while strategic science is taken up in new outward looking, problem-solving centres, not necessarily directed towards the region. The immediate moral is that universities can play a role in managing the tension between local (regional) and global, but the tensions will return internally. The general moral is that the changes in knowledge production (whether labeled as strategic science or Mode 2 or whatever) have to be taken into account in regional innovation systems. This might also help to avoid a short-sighted focus on wealth creation.

An Identification of the Marketing Implications of the Various Forms of Market Entry for Foreign Universities Seeking to Enter the Hong Kong Higher Education Market

ABSTRACT Hong Kong has one of the busiest higher education sectors in Asia with eight universities and a network of institutes, colleges and associations. It is also a hub of international educational activity with many foreign universities and other educational bodies participating in various forms of strategic alliances with a range of Hong Kong based education based providers. The aim of this paper is to analyse and evaluate the range of alliance options (universities, institutes, associations, colleges and so on) available to foreign universities in Hong Kong, compare these briefly to the rest of China, and discuss how these various options can be accessed by foreign universities wishing to enter the Hong Kong market via the strategic alliance mode of entry. The paper notes that each type of alliance option has particular features which may be of relevance to particular foreign universities, depending on their entry aims and objectives. The paper also notes that because these entry options are somewhat different from the rest of China, previous research relating to that country cannot easily be applied to Hong Kong, thereby suggesting that country based entry models need to be developed to assist foreign universities to enter differing markets. These various entry models can later be developed into a model which may be able to identify entry issues of commonality between countries, and differences which may be expected.

Testing Hollnagel's Contextual Control Model: Assessing Team Behavior in a Human Supervisory Control Task

This article sets out to test the hypothetical COtext and COntrol Model (COCOM) developed by Hollnagel (1993). Essentially, Hollnagel develops the argument that team behavior should be analyzed at a macro, rather than micro, level. He proposes 4 principal models of team activity: strategic, tactical, opportunistic, and scrambled. These modes of team behavior vary in terms of the degree of forward planning (highest in the strategic mode) and reactivity to the environment (highest in the scrambled mode). He further hypothesizes a linear progression through the modes from strategic to tactical to opportunistic to scrambled, depending on context, and vice versa. To test the COCOM model, we placed teams of people in a simulated energy distribution system. Our results confirm Hollnagel's hypothesized model in 2 main ways. First, we show that the team behavior could be categorized reliably into the 4 control modes and this provided a useful way of distinguishing between experimental conditions. Second, the progr...

Making Decisions on the Resources for Cancer Control

We aim at modelling the strategic decision making process in case of devoting resources to a governmental cancer control program. We use a model based on the theory of Analytic Hierarchy Process. In this article we describe the characteristic features of such a decision making process and reveal the complexity of the problem underlying the decisions. A second article will present and discuss the results from the application of the AHP model. Interventions which are capable of decreasing the burden of cancer in a society need strategic approach. Decisions on interventions seem inevitable to be based on and balance between the priorities and the available resources. There is not much doubt about it that the reason for setting the priorities arises on the one hand from the scarcity of resources. On the other hand, priorities evolve on other bases, and are supposed to "guide" health policy makers devoting the scarce resources. In general, a strategic mode of thought has been based on assumptions, which, in case of cancer control enhance the necessity to assess information on cancer and cancer patients, and to understand the factors contributing towards better health. The capabilities of the NCCP achieving its aims by preventing the development of cancer diseases (primary prevention), by making use of the means of early detection and appropriate therapy (secondary prevention), and by providing modern (comprehensive) tertiary prevention are inevitably affected by the priorities. Health policy should assume a responsibility for enforcing certain priorities and should be aware of the long-term interest of the population. To solve the problem we restrict the model to a simple three level one, representing the goals, the criteria, and the alternatives of the resource allocation. We determine "decreasing the burden of cancer" as the overall goal. "Distributive justice" "cost-effectiveness", "human rights", "evidences", and "standpoints of a community" serve as criteria, while "primary prevention", "early detection and therapy, both belonging to the secondary prevention", "tertiary prevention", "research", and "education" form the alternatives.

The Cynical Manager

In the world of work today, cynicism describes a set of attitudes frequently attributed to managers, workers and customers alike. What do these attitudes represent and what do they tell us about ourselves? This article offers a philosophical and cultural history of cynicism before addressing fundamental questions about cynicism: what it is; where it comes from; how it is manifested; and how it affects organizations. The author concludes that for some individuals, cynicism is not merely a reaction to external events but an endogenous perspective of life. It may be that for these individuals cynicism furnishes a strategic mode of thinking about and approaching a whole range of organizational dynamics. After providing some insight into the nature of cynicism itself; an argument is presented which recognizes a brand of cynicism which, contrary to the `popular' understanding of the term, provides a positive and optimistic force for change. For example, in a culture which increasingly relies on sound bites as a substitute for critical dialogue, cynicism can provide a theoretical bridge between what we are told is happening and what we instinctively feel.