Changing Strategy—for the Better

2019 ◽  
pp. 254-274
Author(s):  
Richard Whittington
Keyword(s):  
Technological Change ◽  
Strategic Management ◽  
Practice Change ◽  
General Electric ◽  
Institutional Work ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Consulting Firms ◽  
Structural Weakness ◽  
Future Practice ◽  
Open Strategy

This chapter summarizes how Strategy’s practices have become gradually more open and inclusive since the middle of the last century. In particular, it underlines how the development of first strategic planning, then strategic management, and then open strategy have resulted from the institutional work of innovators from such prominent corporations as General Electric and Red Hat, and from leading consulting firms, particularly BCG, Bain, McKinsey, Gemini, GBN, and Strategos. This work has been influenced both by the exogenous forces of organizational, cultural, and technological change, and by the structural weakness of the Strategy profession, particularly its precariousness and permeability. The chapter proposes lessons for future practice change in Strategy, and develops implications for Strategy professionals, for policy-makers, for researchers, and for teachers. The book concludes by arguing for the benefits of open strategy not just for organizations and their immediate stakeholders, but for society as a whole.

Open Strategy

2019 ◽  
pp. 215-253
Author(s):  
Richard Whittington
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Institutional Work ◽  
Business Network ◽  
Global Business ◽  
Organizational Boundaries ◽  
Strategy Process ◽  
Consulting Firms ◽  
External Stakeholders ◽  
Rule Making ◽  
Open Strategy

This chapter examines the development of open strategy practices from the late 1990s. Open strategy involves greater transparency about strategy to internal and external audiences, and greater inclusion for internal and external stakeholders. The contemporary rise of open strategy is supported by three exogenous forces: the dissolving of organizational boundaries internally and externally, a newly democratic working culture, and new technologies, especially social media. Nevertheless, open strategy’s development still involves two kinds of arduous and fallible institutional work: ‘rule-making’ and ‘resource-organizing’. As examples of the first, Gary Hamel’s Strategos Consulting promoted new kinds of democratic strategy norms, while corporates such as IBM developed internal openness through its jams. Under the second, new consulting firms were created such as Global Business Network, while established corporations such as Barclays Bank, Nokia, and Shell had to organize new kinds of participative strategy process.

Opening Strategy

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Richard Whittington
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Planning ◽  
Strategic Management ◽  
Theoretical Orientation ◽  
Alasdair Macintyre ◽  
Practice Change ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Anthony Giddens ◽  
Professional Field ◽  
Strategy As Practice ◽  
Open Strategy

This chapter introduces the central arguments of Opening Strategy. In particular, it traces the development of three key strategic practices since the middle of the last century to today: strategic planning, strategic management, and open strategy. These practices have gradually made strategy an increasingly inclusive and transparent activity. These practices operate within Strategy as a professional field. The direction of practice change is influenced by exogenous forces upon this field, in particular organizational, cultural, and technological trends. The manner of practice change is influenced by the precarious and permeable nature of the Strategy field, granting important roles to the bottom-up initiatives of strategy consultants and corporate strategists. This chapter provides a basic theoretical orientation for the remainder of the book, extending the Strategy-as-Practice tradition in a macro direction and drawing on the work of Anthony Giddens and Alasdair MacIntyre. The chapter introduces the statistical, interview, archival, and published sources used throughout the book.

Opening Strategy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Whittington
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Strategic Planning ◽  
Strategic Management ◽  
Long Range ◽  
General Electric ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
Long Range Planning ◽  
Open Strategy ◽  
Standard Strategy

Opening Strategy recounts the origins and development of Strategy as a profession from the middle of the last century to the present day. In particular, it focuses on how strategic planning superseded long-range planning, and the more recent rise of strategic management and open strategy. Together, these practices have contributed to growing inclusiveness and transparency in contemporary organizations. Informed by interviews with corporate strategists at leading companies around the world, eminent consultants at firms such as Bain, the Boston Consulting Group, and McKinsey & Co., and the internal archives of strategic innovators such as General Electric and Shell, this book provides vivid insights into the trials and tribulations of practice innovation in Strategy, and stresses the hard work of the little-recognized and sometimes eccentric innovators within the profession. By building on a wide range of illustrations, covering both successes and failures, the book draws out general lessons for practice innovation in Strategy. Those studying the topic will be able to set standard strategy techniques in historical and social context and develop new areas for investigation, while practising executives and consultants should gain a sense of how to innovate in Strategy—and how not to.

Strategic Management

2019 ◽  
pp. 171-214
Author(s):  
Richard Whittington
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Planning ◽  
Strategic Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Management Training ◽  
Institutional Work ◽  
Corporate Investments ◽  
Strategy Process ◽  
Managerial Culture ◽  
Consulting Firms ◽  
Rule Making

This chapter examines the development of strategic management practices from the late 1970s. Strategic management advanced on the prior practices of strategic planning by emphasizing change and implementation. It also opened up the strategy process by decentralizing responsibilities and including employees in implementation. Strategic management’s rise was supported by three exogenous forces: growing pressure on big organizations to change, a new managerial culture of responsibility and learning, and new communication and participation technologies. Nevertheless, strategic planning’s development still took two kinds of arduous and fallible institutional work: ‘rule-making’ and ‘resource-organizing’. Under the first, Shell for example developed a version of strategic management as involving managerial conversation and learning, while McKinsey promoted strategic management as involving decentralization. Under the second, new consulting firms such as Gemini were created and large corporate investments in management training were made, as at General Electric’s Crotonville facility.

Intervention by Outsiders: A Strategic Management Perspective on Government Industrial Policy

1993 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Romano Dyerson ◽  
Frank Mueller
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Strategic Management ◽  
Industrial Policy ◽  
Financial Control ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Management Perspective ◽  
British Experience ◽  
The Government

ABSTRACTAs the debate throughout the eighties has concluded, the efforts of governments to intervene at the firm level has largely been disappointing. Using two examples drawn from the British experience, Rover and Inmos, this paper offers an analysis as to why the Government has encountered difficulties when it has sought to intervene in a strategic fashion. Essentially, public policy makers lack adequate mechanisms to intervene effectively in technology-based companies. Locked out of the knowledge base of the firm, inappropriate financial control is imposed which reinforces the ‘outsider’ status of the Government. Having addressed the limitations of strategic intervention, the paper, drawing on the comparative experience of other countries, then goes on to address how this policy boundary might be pushed back in the long term.

scholarly journals Students' Beliefs about Willingness to Access Complementary and Alternative Therapies (CAT) Training for Future Integration into Psychology Practice

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee-Ann M. Wilson ◽  
Kyra Hamilton ◽  
Katherine M. White
Keyword(s):  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Psychology Students ◽  
Alternative Therapies ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Psychological Practice ◽  
Complementary And Alternative Therapies ◽  
Important Others ◽  
Future Practice ◽  
Complementary And Alternative

It is suggested that all psychologists gain basic training in the types of complementary and alternative therapies (CAT) their clients may be using. As psychology students are the next cohort of health professionals who will inform future initiatives in the field, it is important to understand the factors which influence their decisions about CAT integration. Drawing on the theory of planned behavior, we investigated the beliefs that differentiate between psychology students who are high or low on willingness to access training in CAT for future practice use. Undergraduate psychology students () completed a questionnaire assessing the likelihood of positive and negative consequences of accessing training and utilizing CAT within a psychological practice, important others’ approval, and barriers preventing them from this integration behavior. Those students higher on willingness were more likely to endorse positive outcomes (e.g., offering a more holistic approach to therapy) of accessing CAT training for future practice use and to believe that important others (e.g., clients) would support this behavior. A regression analysis examining the relative importance of these belief sets broadly supported the belief-based analyses. These beliefs of student psychologists can inform educators and policy makers about CAT training and integration in psychology practice.

Markets changing, changing markets: Institutional work as market shaping

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan J. Baker ◽  
Kaj Storbacka ◽  
Roderick J. Brodie
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
Longitudinal Case Study ◽  
Institutional Work ◽  
Institutional Perspective ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Market Change ◽  
Cirque Du Soleil ◽  
New Circus ◽  
Intentional Activities ◽  
Market Shaping

There is increasing interest in the marketing discipline to adopt an institutional perspective when examining markets. This requires seeing markets as complex systems that evolve through time, rather than as preexisting, stable structures. Using a historical, longitudinal case study, we integrate the “institutional work” framework as a lens to understand the process of market change in the novel, historic case of circus in North America through the 20th century. We explore the decline of the market for traditional American circus, and the emergence, in the 1970s, of the adjacent market for new circus, with a specific focus on the world’s preeminent new circus company, Cirque du Soleil. Theoretical contributions of the article include a “market-shaping activities” framework that illustrates market shaping involves considerably more actors than the dyad of producer and consumer. Market-shaping occurs through an interdependent process involving institutionalized practices, beliefs and expectations, and the intentional activities of market actors at any institutional level. Market change is shared, iterative, and recursive, that is cocreated, and undertaken by market actors both formal and informal. Market shapers do not necessarily work in an orchestrated fashion; nevertheless, vibrant networks of complementary actors contribute positively to the construction of shared identities and normative networks. From a managerial perspective, we find implications for policy makers, funders, strategists, and marketers.

Widening the Options

2018 ◽  
pp. 411-432
Author(s):  
Richard Newfarmer ◽  
John Page ◽  
Finn Tarp
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Technological Change ◽  
Structural Transformation ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Global Marketplace ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Will Force

Structural change is taking place in Africa at a pace and with a pattern distinct from the historical experience of today’s industrialized countries. These differences reflect technological change, a changing global marketplace interacting with policy, a rapidly growing labour force and natural endowments. Some African countries, perhaps with coastal locations, will be able to transform their economic structures through manufacturing. However, it would be surprising if the successful African economy of the future closely followed the export-oriented manufacturing-led path that characterized East Asia’s structural transformation. Africa’s growing economies are likely to have economic structures that contain high value-added agriculture, agro-industry and tradable services in addition to a more robust manufacturing base. Global realities will force Africa’s policy makers to think of ways to promote structural transformation into activities beyond manufacturing.

scholarly journals Strategic management as an enabler of co-creation in public services

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edoardo Ongaro ◽  
Alessandro Sancino ◽  
Irene Pluchinotta ◽  
Hannah Williams ◽  
Martin Kitchener ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Management ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Practice Research ◽  
Entry Angle ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
The Public ◽  
Strategic Approach ◽  
Future Practice

The current transformations in society, the economy and the public sector call for the development of more unified theoretical frameworks. This article takes the literature on strategic management as a theoretical entry angle and aims to better understand how the adoption of models of strategic management can enable processes of public value co-creation. Utilising the literature centred on the notion of ‘schools of thought’ in the strategic management of public services, the article discusses how co-creation as a mode of governance in public services can contribute to innovative public service solutions and value co-creation. The Welsh Water’s ‘Water Resilient Community’ ‐ a project characterised by long-term strategic planning as well as by local innovation ‐ is used to illustrate the argument. Four propositions on the drivers/enablers and key managerial issues for undertaking a strategic approach to co-creation as a mode of governance are offered to enhance future practice, research and theory.

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