Business Strategy Articles Review

Title of the article

A Contingency View of Porter’s “Generic Strategies”

Date of publication/ volume and issue

Vol 13, Number 3

Author name

ALAN I. MURRAY University of Alberta

Purpose

This article by Murray talks about the generic strategies of Porter and his opinion on cost leadership and differentiation of product that can be followed concurrently, however only under rare circumstances. This article takes into consideration Porter’s generic strategies that are associated to the preconditions at the external level. This article discus the method or such an approach that depicts the generic strategies to not being equally limited where each strategy has the ability of associating to variety of strategic means.

Theory

Porter’s Generic Stratgies

Methodology

Qualitative Analysis has been done

Data analysis

No

Findings and conclusion

The generic strategy is stated to be of greater interest as it criminates the high performing firms’ strategies from that of the organizations that are less successful competitors. It is stated to be confusing at times within the article, where a lack has been found by the author on the ways generic strategies should be implemented.

How did the article contribute to the theories and concepts of business strategy?

This article also attempts in providing Porter’s theoretically based contingent advancement of the generic strategies. Starting off with the focus strategy, it is being hypothesized that the feasibility of each generic approach is mainly reliant on the external conditions, mainly on the structures of the specific industries or the characteristics of the customer and their preferences.

There are external preconditions for the strategy of leadership though as stated in this article the factor of price understanding is thought as a minor deliberation where the viability of the cist leadership factor depends on the cost structures varying transversely the competitors within a production than in the direct ratio to the productivity.

Moreover, this article states that the situation where a customer do not value the products that differs along the dimensions of non-price, they would not be valuing a distinguished product and under no circumstance would be paying more for the same. Therefore, it can be depicted that the strategy of product differentiation only becomes viable if the customers at the point of making purchase decisions, give more weight to the attributes of the products other the factor of pricing. However, the success of product differentiation cannot be guaranteed with identifying the characteristics of the consumers. The article has gone about discussing the insinuation of these results on the structuring of the organizations.

Title of the article

Making strategy: learning by doing

Date of publication/ volume and issue

1997, 75(6)

Author name

Clayton M. Christensen

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to focus on the correct implementation of the business strategies in the organization. The managers of the organization need to practice the appropriate use of implementing strategies in the organization.

Theory

This article has made use of the theories and concepts pertaining to strategic thinking.

Methodology

It can be found out from the article that the researcher has made use of secondary data.

Data analysis

The collected data was analyzed by using visual tools of mapping.

Findings and conclusion

It can be found out that the managers need to make appropriate use of strategies in the organization.

How did the article contribute to the theories and concepts of business strategy?

The article has made appropriate use of the business strategies by taking examples of different companies.  

Title of the article

A conversation with Edgar Schein: aligning strategy, culture, and leadership. People & Strategy

Date of publication/ volume and issue

2017/40(2)

Author name

Darling, J

Purpose

The purpose of the following article is to determine the proper alignment of strategy, culture and leadership and its importance in modern marketing.

Theory

The theories of leadership and marketing have been discussed in the following article.

Methodology

The researcher has interviewed Ed Schein, Professor of MIT Sloan School of Management to achieve the aims and objectives of the following article.

Data analysis

According to Ed Schein, Professor of MIT Sloan School of Management the following alignment is utmost necessary for the smooth operations of the modern business. According to him it is very much difficult for the organization to assess the kind of business, the kind of technology and the kind of culture that needs to be aligned so the term has become very much generalized. He says that it is important for them to be aligned but it can also be said that strategy and culture are parts of the same thing. Culture is believed to be the addition of what a group of persons or a community or in very short concept a group of employees in a company have learned throughout its history to survive in the world and adapt to the different changes. He further adds that culture and the other two elements are often generalized which must not be as because generalizing these three things shortens the scope of the study and limits its ability to align with each other.

Findings and conclusion

Leaders have a great responsibility on the smooth operations of the organization. The thought of the leaders and the thought of the management of the company might differ from each other while solving a particular problem. In such cases both of them sit together and finds out an effective solution liked by both of them. The HR on the other hand has to keep a note of the total functioning of the culture and accordingly train the employees to follow such a cultural context.  It is important for the employees to follow the overall culture as because such a proper alignment can help the organization to function in a better way.

How did the article contribute to the theories and concepts of business strategy?

The interview with Ed Schein was the significant achievement. It helped the readers to get a clear idea of the modern market and the proper steps needed for the alignment of the three elements of business.

Title of the article

The relationship between organizational culture and strategy formulation in South African firms.

Date of publication/ volume and issue

2002, 33(1)

Author name

Struwig & Smith

Purpose

The article discusses regarding the relationship between the organizational culture and strategic formulation of South African firms.

Theory

The overall intention of the article is to analyze whether the organizational culture of the South African firms formulate in a same manner or not. The concept of organizational culture is however, difficult to define and various writers and authors have given different definitions of the term. Schein defined organizational culture as a particular pattern of the basic assumptions, which is invented and discovered by a specific group in order to cope up with the given problems. On the other hand, strategic formulation can be defined as a comprehensive process that plays a crucial role in the process of strategic management.

Methodology

In order to investigate the relationship, an empirical study was adopted. Samples were selected and questionnaires were form on the basis of that. Other methods included, pilot studying, collection of data, surveying the samples, processing and analysis of the data.

Data analysis

The types of organizational culture can be categorized as power culture, role culture, task culture and person culture. The power culture is dependent on the source of central power, which influences in spreading out a central figure. The role culture is however, stereotyped or segregated as bureaucracy. The task culture is more project or job oriented and lastly, the person culture refers to the group of professional individuals. In addition to this, the article also discusses about the interaction between the organizational culture and strategic formulation. In order to maintain a balance between the two, the organization needs to harmonize their culture with the strategic planning, exploit all the available opportunities for improving the alignment between strategies and culture and lastly, ensuring that the decisions are in line with purposeful creation of desired culture.

Findings and conclusion

The findings of the article confirm the statistical significant relationships between the firms and various types of organizational culture. It can be concluded that the firms should lay more emphasis on aligning the existing culture with their strategies. In accordance with that, several attempts can be made on the basis of financial implications and formulating strategies as well.

How did the article contribute to the theories and concepts of business strategy?

The article helped in identifying the organizational theories and structures. It also contributed a lot to the findings of culture building values as well as organizational behavior. Moreover, it mentioned about the relationship between the firms with the power culture and the way the strategies can be formulated.

Title of the article

Strategic Management: How to Apply it to Firms in the Hospitality Industry

Date of publication/ volume and issue

1983, Vol-3 no. 3

Author name

Arie Reichel

Purpose

The article focuses on the contribution made by strategic managers in order to ensure smooth work progress in hospitality industries. The article focuses on the changes that take place in the business environment and the knowledge and experience that is derived from the application of strategic management on such changes.

Theory

The article uses the theoretical concept of strategic management and explains product life cycle in order to provide a clear understanding of the longevity of a product in the market. The product life cycle helps in following the journey of a particular product in the business market, however, it is to be noted this process does not provide a particular time at which a product may mature or decline. A gap analysis has been conducted that analyses the advantages derived from the implementation of strategic management in the hospitality industry.

Methodology

From the article, it is seen that the authors have used secondary sources of information in order to collect the data. This can be considered as an effective method of collecting information as an in-depth theoretical knowledge can be gained with the application of secondary collection method. The positivity about the article is the fact that it is not related to cross-cultural and does not have any biases on any industry or people.

Data analysis

In this regard, it can be said that since the analysis was done using secondary analysis, statistical tools were not used.

Findings and conclusion

Thus, it can be concluded that the article on strategic management on hospitality industry provides a detailed analysis of models and concepts related to strategic management. The use of theories such as product lifecycle helps in the understanding of the different stages a product or organization passes through.

How did the article contribute to the theories and concepts of business strategy?

The article contributes heavily to the theories and concepts related to business strategy across industries and organizations around the world.