Strategy in Action

2018 ◽  
pp. 131-144
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Change ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Management Control ◽  
Professional Service ◽  
Strategy Maps ◽  
Managerial Practices ◽  
Professional Service Firm ◽  
Complex Settings

Recently performativity has emerged as a new conceptual and methodological tool in management and accounting research. This concept emphasizes the process view of organisational phenomena by drawing attentions to the provisional ontology of managerial practices in complex settings. Building on the performativity turn in accounting, this chapter provides insights in the active role that a special kind of management control tools, strategy maps, plays in exploring new strategic patterns. A qualitative case study of strategy renewal in an Italian professional service firm was undertaken. Preliminary findings confirm that strategy maps enact knowledge production in strategic change processes by figuring concerns, negotiating meaning and discovering new patterns.

The “betrayal effect” on post-acquisition integration

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-303
Author(s):  
Nazila Razi ◽  
John Garrick
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Change ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Management Control ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Acquisition Integration ◽  
Integration Strategies

Purpose This paper aims to draw on Latour’s (1991) conceptual “performative” framework to investigate the role of management control systems (MCSs) in the establishment of post-acquisition integration. The study adopts a qualitative case study approach, where data are collected and analysed from an Australian company which had recently completed a number of acquisitions. Findings demonstrate the performative powers and effects of MCSs, which contribute to shaping customer and sales integration activities, including the forms some resistance may take. In this case, a bitter betrayal was perceived to have occurred in an early stage of the merger, and this paper argues that the use of a performative theoretical framework has enabled subsequent post-acquisition integration strategies to be rendered more visible and thus actionable. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a qualitative approach where data are collected and analysed from an Australian case study company which had recently completed a number of acquisitions. Research methods used include semi-structured interviews, a review of archival documents and observations to capture daily integration activities and practices of actors operating in the company. Findings Findings demonstrate the performative powers and effects of MCSs, which structure customer and sales integration activities and make post-acquisition integration relations strategy visible and actionable. Research limitations/implications Findings are only on one case study, and there is a need to undertake further detailed case studies across a range of industries and timeframes, plus, where possible, revisit such studies post hoc to assess the stability of success of the integration. Practical implications Integration strategy and strategic change may be constituted by non-human actants such as MCSs. Practitioners who are engaged in acquisitions and making integration decisions need to recognise that MCSs do not merely play a subordinate role to integration strategies, but rather is an important moderating variable that play an active role in their formulation, configuration and enactment. Originality/value A performative approach is taken to provide a broader analytical framework for analysing the construction and sustaining of post‐acquisition integration relations, where there is no distinction between technical and social dimensions of action but, rather, the two are merged. This makes it possible to overcome the limitations inherent in existing theoretical frameworks. Using this approach, integration relations involve construction of a network of entities that are enrolled to support, create and sustain the integration.

INNOVATION AWARDS: REWARD, RECOGNITION, AND RITUAL

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (05) ◽  
pp. 1740006 ◽  
Author(s):  
LISA CALLAGHER ◽  
PETER SMITH
Keyword(s):  
Risk Taking ◽  
Professional Service ◽  
Service Firms ◽  
Professional Service Firms ◽  
Service Firm ◽  
Detailed Case ◽  
Professional Service Firm ◽  
Pluralistic Contexts

This paper draws on a detailed case study of an innovation awards-giving scheme in a professional service firm to consider the role of discretionary awards in encouraging and displaying innovation capabilities. Because of their association with competition, it might seem that awards are likely tools in pluralistic contexts such as professional service firms where risk-taking and collaboration require deep relationships with clients and with professionals from different specialisations. We intend to show how managers and professionals mobilised around the scheme using the rewarding, recognising, and ritualising of innovation through awards, as a platform to initiate and promote other organisational processes that foster innovation capabilities.

Hospital accreditation systems and salience of organisational tensions

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (9) ◽  
pp. 57-80
Author(s):  
Geraldine Robbins ◽  
Breda Sweeney ◽  
Miguel Vega
Keyword(s):  
Active Role ◽  
Management Control ◽  
External Control ◽  
Hospital Accreditation ◽  
Management Control System ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Prior Literature ◽  
Depth Interviews

PurposeThis study examines how an externally imposed management control system (MCS) – hospital accreditation – influences the salience of organisational tensions and consequently attitudes of management towards the system.Design/methodology/approachData are collected using a case study of a large public hospital in Spain. In-depth interviews were conducted with 27 senior and middle managers across different functions. Relying on the organisational dualities classification in the literature, tensions are unpacked and analysed.FindingsEvidence is presented of how hospital accreditation increases the salience of organisational tensions arising from exposition of the organisational dualities of learning, performing, organising and belonging. Salient tensions were evident in the ambivalent attitudes of management towards the hospital accreditation system.Practical implicationsThe role of mandatory external control systems in exposing ambivalence and tensions will be of interest to organisational managers.Originality/valueThe study extends the management control literature by identifying an active role for an external MCS (accreditation) in increasing the salience of organisational tensions and triggering ambivalence. Contrary to the prior literature, the embedding of both poles of an organisational duality into the MCS is not a necessary precondition for increased tension salience. The range of attitudes towards MCSs beyond those specified in the previous literature (positive/negative/neutral) is extended to include ambivalence.

Rule Invention in the Acquisition of Morphology Revisited

1988 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen M. Camarata ◽  
Lisa Erwin
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Acoustic Parameters ◽  
Impaired Child ◽  
Language Impaired ◽  
Intensity Parameters ◽  
Suprasegmental Features ◽  
Acoustic Analyses ◽  
Suprasegmental Cues

This paper presents a case study of a language-impaired child who signaled the distinction between English singular and plural using suprasegmental cues rather than the usual segmental form used within the parent language. Acoustic analyses performed within the first study in the paper revealed that the suprasegmental features used to maintain this distinction included various duration, fundamental frequency, and intensity parameters. Acoustic analyses Were also performed on a set of matched two- and four-item plural forms within a second study. The results of these analyses indicated that the same acoustic parameters were used to distinguish two-item plural forms from four-item plural forms. This case of linguistic creativity is offered as further evidence in support of the model of language acquisition that emphasizes the active role children take in the acquisition process. Additionally, the phonological, morphological, and psycholinguistic factors that may contribute to such rule invention are discussed.

Leadership and Strategic Change under Ambiguity

1996 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 673-699 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Louis Denis ◽  
Ann Langley ◽  
Linda Cazale ◽  
Jean-Louis Denis ◽  
Linda Cazale ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Change ◽  
Collaborative Leadership ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Leadership Roles ◽  
Linear Pattern ◽  
Effective Change ◽  
Leadership Group ◽  
Political Realignment ◽  
University Affiliation

This paper draws on a case study of a large public hospital to examine the processes of leadership and strategic change in organizations where goals are unclear and authority is fluid and ambiguous. The case history describes the evolution of leadership roles during a period of radical change in which a general hospital acquires a university affiliation while moving towards a more integrated form of management. The study traces the tactics used by members of the leadership group to stimulate change, and the corresponding impact of these tactics on both the progress of change and on leadership roles themselves. It is suggested that strategic change in these organizations requires collaborat ive leadership involving constellations of actors playing distinct but tightly-knit roles. Yet, collaborative leadership is fragile and can easily disintegrate due to intemal conflict or to discreditation associated with more unpopular (although potentially effective) change tactics. Thus, under ambiguity, radical trans formations may tend to occur in a cyclical non-linear pattern with periods of substantive change alternating with periods of political realignment. The paper concludes with a series of five propositions concerning the collaborative, cyc lical, interpretative, and entropic nature of leadership and strategic change pro cesses under ambiguity.

scholarly journals A Programming Approach to Collective Autonomy

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Roberto Casadei ◽  
Gianluca Aguzzi ◽  
Mirko Viroli
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Autonomic Computing ◽  
Autonomous Agents ◽  
Programming Approach ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Simulated Case ◽  
Complex Settings

Research and technology developments on autonomous agents and autonomic computing promote a vision of artificial systems that are able to resiliently manage themselves and autonomously deal with issues at runtime in dynamic environments. Indeed, autonomy can be leveraged to unburden humans from mundane tasks (cf. driving and autonomous vehicles), from the risk of operating in unknown or perilous environments (cf. rescue scenarios), or to support timely decision-making in complex settings (cf. data-centre operations). Beyond the results that individual autonomous agents can carry out, a further opportunity lies in the collaboration of multiple agents or robots. Emerging macro-paradigms provide an approach to programming whole collectives towards global goals. Aggregate computing is one such paradigm, formally grounded in a calculus of computational fields enabling functional composition of collective behaviours that could be proved, under certain technical conditions, to be self-stabilising. In this work, we address the concept of collective autonomy, i.e., the form of autonomy that applies at the level of a group of individuals. As a contribution, we define an agent control architecture for aggregate multi-agent systems, discuss how the aggregate computing framework relates to both individual and collective autonomy, and show how it can be used to program collective autonomous behaviour. We exemplify the concepts through a simulated case study, and outline a research roadmap towards reliable aggregate autonomy.

scholarly journals Fragmented fields: Professionalisms and work settings in Italian management consultancy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara Maestripieri
Keyword(s):  
Professional Service ◽  
Specific Work ◽  
Service Firms ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Professional Service Firms ◽  
Work Settings ◽  
Management Consultants ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
Management Consultancy ◽  
Professional Service Firm

Abstract Management consultancy has long been a contested terrain in the sociology of the professions. Although the professionalism of management consultants has always been emphasized by practitioners themselves, the lack of a strong community of peers has been an impediment to their professionalization. In this article, I argue that professionalism is not the outcome of a process of regulation and institutionalization but that it has to be conceived a discourse comprising norms, worldviews, and values that define what is appropriate for an individual to be considered a competent and recognized member of this community. Given the diversity characterizing the field, there are multiple discourses surrounding professionalism of management consultants, and these discourses are shaped by work settings. Work settings are a combination of the type of organization professional partnership or professional service firm and the employment status (employee or self-employed). Drawing on the empirical evidence from various work settings (professional service firms, professional partnership, and self-employment), I investigate four clusters of practitioners identified in 55 biographical and semi-structured interviews conducted with management consultants in Italy. Four types of professionalism emerge from the clusters. Organizing professionalism is the sole professionalism that appears in all work settings. Other discourses (corporate, commercialized, and hybrid professionalism) are context-dependent and more likely to be found in specific work settings.

INTERNATIONAL CORPORATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP WITH BORN GLOBAL SPIN-ALONG VENTURES — A CROSS-CASE ANALYSIS OF TELEKOM INNOVATION LABORATORIES' VENTURE PORTFOLIO

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (03) ◽  
pp. 1440007 ◽  
Author(s):  
SARAH MAHDJOUR ◽  
SEBASTIAN FISCHER
Keyword(s):  
Innovation Management ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Corporate Entrepreneurship ◽  
Domestic Market ◽  
Perceived Threat ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Early Internationalisation ◽  
Cross Case Analysis

This study investigates a special kind of corporate ventures, so called spin-along ventures, and their motivations to internationalise early. Insights are built from a multiple case study approach, investigating the spin-along program of Telekom Innovation Laboratories (T-Labs). Our results show that early internationalisation can avoid or reduce challenges that spin-alongs face when entering the domestic market. Four major motivations for early internationalisation could be identified: (1) avoid termination based on the parent's perceived threat of cannibalisation of existing products, (2) enable a venture's collaboration with competitors, (3) overcome restrictions of parental assets in the domestic market, and (4) address markets that offer greater chances for success than the domestic market does. Based on our findings we derive concrete implications for practitioners and academics in the field of innovation management.

Automating attendance recording of contingent labours at a large construction site

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (8) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Saroj Koul
Keyword(s):  
Power Plant ◽  
Radio Frequency Identification ◽  
Power Plants ◽  
Subject Area ◽  
Management Control ◽  
Class Discussion ◽  
Construction Site ◽  
Large Power ◽  
Content Type

Subject area Operations and human resourcing. Study level/applicability This case study is intended for use in graduate, executive level management and doctoral programs. The case study illustrates a combined IT and HR driven participative management control system in a flexible organization structure. It is intended for a class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Case overview The case describes the situation of managing unskilled workforces (≥14,000 workers) during the construction phase of the 4 × 250MW power plants both for purposes of turnout as well as due compensation, in the event of an accident. The approved labour forces appointed for 45 × 8 h. Man-days after a rigorous fitness test and approvals of the safety officer are allocated housing and other necessary amenities and a commensurate compensation system. Expected learning outcomes These include: illustrating typical organizational responsibility structure at a construction site of a large power plant; illustrating the planning and administrative control mechanism in implementing strategy at a construction site of a large power plant; offering students the opportunity to understand and view a typical operational (project) structure; allowing students to speculate adaptations in the wake of an ever-changing business and company environment; and providing an opportunity to introduce a power scenario in India, Indian labour laws and radio frequency identification technology and to relate this to the case in context. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available; please consult your librarian for access.

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