Corporate strategic management and the overseas chinese groups

Overseas Chinese entrepreneurs have been said to possess a certain number of cultural characteristics which inhibit their ability to manage large complex enterprises.Building upon the author's experience in Southeast Asia and upon data collected in six major conglomerates in Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia, this article discusses some of the organisational mechanisms used by Chinese corporations for their strategic management.The conclusions are that Chinese culture does not apriori create a barrier to modern multibusiness management. Factors other than cultural, such as environmental risks, opportunities and stage of development may explain the strategic management style of Overseas Chinese corporations.     

Strategic planning and strategic management in Australian organisations

Many planning and organisational aspects of 48 Australian organisations were examined. The empirical information tends to suggest that the process of adopting the strategic management concept is well advanced in some Australian organisations. Irrespective of size and ownership status, some organisations have already adopted strategic planning, and the process of evolution is continuing towards the final stage of strategic management. The increasing environmental volatility and growing international exposure of organisations in Australia and elsewhere in the Asia Pacific region will increase the pressure to implement international management systems, including strategic management.     

Business Strategy, R&D Management and Environmental Imperatives

Abstract
Environmental imperatives are seen by many business leaders to represent a major issue for the 1990's and beyond. The debate about the environmental sustainability of economic activity has important implications for the development of business and places considerable emphasis on the need for planned corporate change. The strategic significance of the environment is particularly critical to R&D as this is characterised by long planning horizons and provides the setting for the development of future products and processes.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the connections between environmental imperatives, strategic change and R&D management. To this end the paper reviews the strategic nature of environmental pressures on business. From this base, consideration is given to the responses required by business, in meeting these pressures. The paper concludes by suggesting that the application of management techniques in concert with organisational change is needed for R&D management to build environmental considerations effectively into innovation. These suggestions can be used to gauge how far individual businesses have developed the systems and structures to enable them to move towards sustainability. The implication of the paper is that R&D management will not only need to apply new management techniques but will have to play a leading role in innovative organisational structures in order to fulfil the full potential of environmentally sensitive products and processes.     

The Internationalization Process of Singapore Government-Linked Companies: A Contextual View

Western management theories on internationalization do not fully explain the evolution of Asian MNCs. In East Asia, state policy has been an important intervening variable in the growth and development of the local MNCs. However, the patterns of firm growth differ from country to country and the strategic frames are embedded in the local political and cultural context. The internationalization strategies adopted by firms in East Asia are best understood if viewed from a contextual perspective.Singapore has been held as model of economic development for developing countries. This paper attempts to capture the dynamics of the internationalization process from a contextual perspective. It describes the evolution of two government-linked companies in Singapore and reviews their internationalization strategy. The cases are set within the framework of Singapore's political economy and its development policy. We identify the themes in the internationalization process of these firms and contrast their experiences with traditional theories.     

Positioning hierarchy in enterprise system change

There is a widening gulf in change literature between theoretical notions of evolving organisational form and the emerging reality that old and new organisational structures coexist. This paper explores this dichotomy in Enterprise Resource Planning change. It develops a cellular hierarchy framework to explain how different types of hierarchy coexist within the same organisation during the implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning.     

Is that an opportunity? An attention model of top managers' opportunity beliefs for strategic action

Research summary: Exploiting opportunities is critical to a firm's competitive advantage. Not surprisingly, there has been considerable interest in the processes by which top managers allocate attention to potential opportunities. Although such investigations have largely focused on top‐down processes for allocating attention to the environment, some studies have explored bottom‐up processes. In this article, we consider both top‐down and bottom‐up processing to develop a model by which top managers form opportunity beliefs for strategic action depending on the allocation of transient and sustained attention. Specifically, this attentional model provides insights into how a top manager's attention is allocated to identify potential opportunities from environmental change and explores how different modes of attentional engagement impact the likelihood of forming beliefs about radical and incremental opportunities requiring strategic action. Managerial summary: Managers are interested in noticing and exploiting opportunities because the exploitation of an opportunity represents an important strategic action. Noticing and exploiting opportunities depends on how and where top managers allocate their attention. Managers can focus attention based on their knowledge and experience or as a result of something in the environment capturing their attention. In this paper, we consider both knowledge‐driven and environment‐driven processes for allocating attention to form opportunity beliefs. This opportunity belief arises from a two stage process. The first stage explains how a top manager identifies environmental changes as potential opportunities. The second stage explains how the top manager forms a belief that these identified environmental changes represent a radical or incremental opportunity worthy of exploitation. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The moderating effect of innovative capacity on the relationship between real options and strategic flexibility

In dynamic sectors, organizations should be capable of adapting to unpredictable environmental conditions. Strategic flexibility grants organizations the capacity to respond to the changes in their environment in the direction required, renewing their strategies and making the required organizational changes. The goal of this study is to analyze how the use of real options relates to strategic flexibility from a managerial capacity perspective. Through an empirical study performed on European firms, we confirm that innovative capacity exercises a moderating role between real options and strategic flexibility. The fact that a firm's management has foreseen and contemplated real options does not necessarily lead to their execution; they must also be accompanied by some innovative capacity.     

Networks, Interlocking Directors and Strategy: Toward a Theoretical Framework

Research on inter-organisational networks reflects their acknowledged and growing importance. Strategy research, however, is only beginning to investigate the nature of networks and how network participation can affect organisational performance. Networks embody a relational view of the organisation and their study draws attention to the mechanisms by which relationships are secured and managed. Board of directors interlocks are a principal traditional indicator of network ties, yet little has been written on the role of interlocks in different types of networks and their potential effects on performance. We develop a typology of inter-organisational networks based on the key dimensions of organisational interdependence and network durability; a micro-typology of embedded networks in East Asia based on formalisation of ties and networking scope; suggest that key aspects of directors' roles differ based on the type of network in which they are engaged; and develop specific propositions for further investigation.     

Erratic strategic decisions: when and why managers are inconsistent in strategic decision making

While decision makers in organizations frequently make good decisions rooted in stable and consistent preferences, such consistency in outcomes is not always the case. In this study, we adopt a psychological perspective of judgment to investigate managers' erratic strategic decisions, which we define as a manager's inconsistent judgments that can shape the direction of the firm. In a study of 2,048 decisions made by 64 CEOs of technology firms, we examine how both metacognitive experience and perceptions of the external environment (hostility and dynamism) could affect the extent to which managers make erratic strategic decisions. The results indicate that managers with greater metacognitive experience make less erratic strategic decisions. The results also indicate that in hostile environments managers make more erratic strategic decisions. But contrary to our expectations, in dynamic environments managers make less erratic strategic decisions. Similarly, hostility and dynamism interact in their effect on erratic strategic decisions in that the positive relationship between environmental hostility and erratic strategic decisions will be less positive for managers experiencing high environmental dynamism than those experiencing low environmental dynamism. These results have important implications for strategic decision‐making research. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Managerial control and the limits to employee participation in retail work spaces: evidence from a UK IKEA store

This article contributes to labour process debates around managerial control and worker autonomy in the retail workplace. Through critical analysis of managerial strategies in the production of organisational space within an IKEA store, it explores how spatial design and practice shape managerial control and employee participation. Rather than the rhetoric of employee participation espoused by IKEA, our findings emphasise how managers use space to foster employee commitment to corporate objectives. While employees do exercise their own agency and spatial practice, their actions are moulded and constrained by dominant organisational structures and managerial strategies. As such, the article augments existing labour process research by developing new insights about how the spatial dimension shapes managerial control in retail workplaces. Although workers are far from the passive recipients of management decisions apparent in much labour process theory, their participation largely serves the strategic visions and spatial plans of their employer.     

Framing of international research alliances: influence on strategy

The need to access knowledge globally is increasingly driving organisations to form international research alliances. When partners in such alliances reside in different nations, respective government policies may impinge on the strategic development and structure of the alliance. In this paper, we discuss the impact of perceived policy stances on the alliance strategy of research and technology institutes (RTIs) and provide a framework for considering possible alliance strategies. We believe that the choice of alliance strategy will depend upon how the RTI 'frames' its government's policy stance. The influence of 'framing' on the development of research alliance strategy is illustrated with a case study of an alliance between a New Zealand RTI and an American high technology firm in the emerging superconductivity industry. The paper concludes with a discussion of how use of the alliance strategy framework may impact on organisational practice and the development and interpretation of government policy.     

The Financial Impact of Organisational Downsizing Practices—The New Zealand Experience

Partly in response to the Asian economic crisis, many organisations in the Asia Pacific rim reduced staff numbers. This research examines the New Zealand experience of this change intervention from 1997 to 1999. This includes an examination of the impact on financial performance, and how the process followed may moderate such an impact. A questionnaire instrument was designed to measure this, to which responses were received from 155 New Zealand for-profit organisations employing fifty or more people.There is some evidence to suggest that those respondents who had downsized over the period of the study reported lower measures of profitability than those who did not (p < .05). Also, ensuring the procedure was perceived as just by the employees, and offering outplacement help to those who lost their jobs, went some way to improving the financial performance of downsized firms (p < .05). This may suggest that if downsizing is necessary then attention needs to be given to how the process is implemented in order to maximise the financial return.Peter Carswell teaches, consults and researches in the areas of organisational change, development, and innovation; leadership; strategic management; team building; people management and human resource training; organisational culture; management development; and entrepreneurship. He is a research fellow at UNITEC Institute of Technology in New Zealand.     

Managerial cognitive capabilities and the microfoundations of dynamic capabilities

The microfoundations of dynamic capabilities have assumed greater importance in the search for factors that facilitate strategic change. Here, we focus on microfoundations at the level of the individual manager. We introduce the concept of “managerial cognitive capability,” which highlights the fact that capabilities involve the capacity to perform not only physical but also mental activities. We identify specific types of cognitive capabilities that are likely to underpin dynamic managerial capabilities for sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring, and explain their potential impact on strategic change of organizations. In addition, we discuss how heterogeneity of these cognitive capabilities may produce heterogeneity of dynamic managerial capabilities among top executives, which may contribute to differential performance of organizations under conditions of change. Finally, we propose possible directions for future research. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Organization–stakeholder fit: A dynamic theory of cooperation,compromise, and conflict between an organization and its stakeholders

Research Summary : We advance the concept of organization–stakeholder fit (O–S fit) to explain cooperative behavior between an organization and its stakeholders. O–S fit describes the compatibility that exists between an organization and a stakeholder when their characteristics are well matched. We highlight two dimensions of O–S fit: value congruence, or the supplementary fit of organizational and stakeholder values, and strategic complementarity, or the complementary fit of strategic needs and resources. For each dimension, we detail the unique relational factors—including core elements of trust, predictability, attraction/exchange, and communication—that motivate cooperation. We then explicate the ways in which value congruence and strategic complementarity dynamically interrelate over time. Finally, we consider how organization‐stakeholder misfit may result in alternative relational behaviors, such as conflict or compromise. Managerial Summary : We develop a new way of thinking about the relationship between organizations and stakeholders. Recognizing that positive relationships require a degree of fit or compatibility, we argue that cooperative behavior between an organization and its stakeholders is maximized when relational partners share both core values and strategic priorities. We explain that high fit along these two dimensions increases trust, relational predictability, attraction/exchange, and communication. We also describe how positive relationships might be formed with fit along only one dimension, and how negative relationships might result in the presence of misfit. Ultimately, we suggest that managers who want to foster positive relationships with stakeholders should concentrate on aligning their values and priorities, rather than simply concentrating on one or the other.     

Organisational determinants of employee turnover for multinational companies in Asia

High employee turnover rates among multinational companies (MNCs) in Asia have become an organisational issue, which cannot be sufficiently addressed at the individual level. In this paper, we examine the issue of employee turnover at the organisational level. A group of organisational variables (e.g., training, size, age, industry, percentage of expatriate managers and headquarters’ national base) were tested, using a sample of 529 MNCs in six Asian countries. The standard multiple regressions show that training, size, the length of operation in local subsidiary and nature of industry are significantly related to turnover. An effect of the percentage of expatriate managers present in the local subsidiary on employee turnover appears to be moderate. These results fill a research gap by identifying organisational variables (as opposed to individual characteristics) and contribute to better explanation of employee turnover at firm level. Implications to MNCs in the greater Chinese region and Asia are discussed.     

Supplying vegetables to Asian cities: is there a case for peri-urban production?

In this paper, we analyse the dynamic interplay between peri-urban vegetable producers and their changing production and marketing environments in Asia, using examples from urban conglomerates in South, Southeast and East Asia. We discuss income generation, labour use, management of land and water resources, use of urban and market waste materials and health and food safety aspects. We conclude that peri-urban vegetable production, even though currently economically viable, is unlikely to be able to compete in the long run for scarce land and labour resources, unless alternative production technologies become available and the positive externalities generated by peri-urban agriculture become internalised. There is thus an urgent need for interdisciplinary research aimed at developing such technologies as well as for integrated economic and environmental analyses that take explicit account of interactions between peri-urban producers, the urban waste management sector, municipal planners and consumers.     

Corruption and Organization in Asian Management Systems

From an organizational viewpoint, research on corruption is both a frontier and a challenging issue~in Asian management systems. Corruption is rampant in many Asian countries but organization theorists are surprisingly silent in addressing what impact corruption has on an organization and its operations. Contrary to the belief of some that corruption is necessary for business survival and growth in Asia, we argue that corruption is an evolutionary hazard, a strategic impediment, a competitive disadvantage, and an organizational deficiency. In this article we explain why an organizational perspective of corruption is an important research agenda in Asian management, outline how corruption differs from interpersonal business networking, and illustrate why corruption impedes organizational development.     

Entrepreneurship in International Business: An Institutional Perspective

International business activities have confronted entrepreneurs with host business environments that are fundamentally different from their home countries. Despite decades of entrepreneurship research, we know very little about these entrepreneurs and their strategic behaviour in establishing and managing transnational operations. This paper develops an institutional perspective on transnational entrepreneurship. This perspective argues that significant variations in institutional structures of home countries explain variations in the entrepreneurial endowments of prospective transnational entrepreneurs. Transnational entrepreneurship is embedded in transnational actor networks that facilitate successful cross-border business operations. This paper goes beyond the theoretical impasse in entrepreneurship and international business studies.     

Managing innovation in a knowledge intensive technology organisation (KITO)

This study aims to add to the existing knowledge of how innovation works in organisations. By understanding how to assess/evaluate processes that support and enable innovation, managers can better manage innovation as a business process. This paper addresses elements of organisational behaviour that relate to people management where innovation and technology management is concerned. Perception plays a crucial role in driving behaviour and therefore the widely accepted business scorecard methodology has been used to measure innovation practices in the organisation. The research was done in a knowledge intensive technology organisation (KITO) in South Africa. Interviews with managers of R&D were conducted. These interviews were used to adapt an existing audit instrument to suit the technology–based organisation. Thereafter, a comprehensive audit of innovation was conducted at three different management levels using the adapted instrument. Over 100, mostly R&D managers, were asked to complete a scorecard–based questionnaire and to draw a visual representation (VR) of innovation. The results of the interviews, audit and VRs were used to produce a management framework that is not only applicable to a KITO, but can also be used widely to improve innovation through enhanced visual understanding of any technology–based organisation. The results of the study indicate that measuring innovation through a validated instrument is highly valuable. The Holistic System Framework for innovation and the measurement instrument facilitated (1) management of, and (2) organisational learning about innovation. The comprehensive audit indicated, on a strategic level, the strengths and weaknesses of the innovation process as practised in the organisation. The instrument is valuable at a strategic management level as it indicates where in the organisation the gaps exist regarding the management of the process of innovation with the aim to create a competitive advantage.     

Strategic responses to food safety legislation

This paper assesses the responses made by food companies to changes in food safety legislation. Such responses are assessed in three ways. Firstly, an assessment is made as to why strategic responses to such legislation might be different to general strategic behaviour. Secondly a conceptual framework is presented and an examination of supply chain organisational response is made. Finally, the paper addresses the question of external marketing responses to food safety legislation. The paper concludes that food safety legislation is different, and often requires very swift strategic actions to be effective. Like other forms of legislation, however, food safety issues can also provide incentives and opportunities to well-managed and market-orientated firms.