Strategic Management
Essays

Global economy no longer allows firms to operate separately as individual entities. Working in isolation is definitely not an option and more and more firms have realized that dependence on other firms has become…

¶ … Strategic management is very important today and, indeed, there must be a plan of action when it comes to developing a company both locally and globally. There are many important issues that must be taken into…

This paper is about the institution based view of international business (IB) strategy. A paper on the work is reviewed for the quality of its arguments. These are assessed against other international business strategy journal articles, including those on the resource based view and the industry based view. The institution based view holds its own.

Resource Dependence Theory states that the external resources that surround an organization have a direct effect on that organization. Getting external resources is important for the tactical and strategic management of…

There are a number of different strategies used by firms to determine the way prices will be set. The paper uses the example of a media distribution and a firm selling Aspin to explore some of the ways that pricing may be determined. Strategies such as market orientated pricing, psychological pricing, cost plus pricing and target pricing are all discussed.

Civics Education for 21st Century "Digital Natives": Educating the Next Generation of Citizens

The case study of the Griffith Hotel in Tel Aviv is examined to identify the causes of the problems on the front desk. The problems are all associated with poor interpersonal communication, starting at the top of the hierarchy and filtering down. The different aspects of the problem are all identified. A literature review examining social exchange theory is presented to explain how and why the problems are occurring. The paper ends with a plan to implement a new communication strategy to improve the skills of all employees in the department.

The enterprise software industry is going through a series of disruptive innovations that are disrupting the economics of the industry while also shifting the balance of power away from the Chief Information Officer (CIO) to the line-of-business leaders including the Vice Presidents, General Managers and Directors of Business Units. As this balance of power shifts throughout enterprise software, many long-standing approaches to developing, delivering, monetizing, and supporting software are also changing. One of the most successful companies in the enterprise software industry, specifically in the Aerospace and Defense sector, is Cincom Systems. Cincom has been able to attain a highly profitable business model by creating very customized systems for customers' needs while at the same time creating maintenance agreements that ensuring highly profitable recurring revenue stream over the long-term. This strategy has been largely responsible for the company's ability to withstand the recurring recession globally that has occurred over the last five years. It has also given Cincom Systems, which is privately-held, a strong foundation for investing in new technologies and accelerating their Research & Development (R&D) spending as well. The one significant organizational challenge the company faces today is transitioning from its primarily on-premise platform to a Cloud-based one, specifically on the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) architecture that the majority of its competitors are using today. The economics of Cloud Computing and SaaS specifically are completely reordering the competitive landscape of the enterprise software market and pose a very significant threat to Cincom over the long-term. There are many challenges that Cincom must overcome to deal with this shift in product strategy, and will also have a corresponding impact on their overall financials and profitability. The intent of this paper is to analyze and explain how Cincom can rely on leadership theories to overcome these challenges and capitalize on them over the long-term.

Staying in step with customer and client needs is more than fulfilling their requests on a periodic basis and meeting their basic expectations, as any company that excels in client management understands. It is the ability to align every aspect of an enterprise to the needs and expectations, experiences and requirements of clients. Often internally-based organizations including those that are given the objective of being client-focused, end up paradoxically being the most myopic and inward-focused, resistant to change. Any organization that is experiencing this is in danger of losing the most valuable relationships and trust they have with customers. As leaders must continually push accountability, ownership and a clear sense of responsibility for results to the front lines of their enterprises, when traditional management and leadership strategies fail to deliver results, change is required. The intent of this analysis is to provide prescriptive guidance on how leaders can manage this level of disruptive change, defining how managing and leading are vastly different. It is often said that a manager is what one does, and a leader is who one is. The CEO attempting to lead this change management effort or strategy will have to contend with powerful political forces internally that managers who believe in command-and-control will use to subvert and force this initiative to fail. Managers who are accustomed to command-and-control will also fight for their political power base in the organization, despite the fact their often authoritarian and transactional leadership styles are highly ineffective in transforming organizations. The wealth of studies completed on change management indicate that a CEO with Emotional Intelligence (EI) and transformational leadership skills is the most powerful change agent there is in any organization or enterprise (Fitzgerald, Schutte, 2010) (Yarberry, 2007). The CEO needs to model the behavior that is needed to assist these managers in moving beyond their often highly charged political agenda of internal power to realize that by becoming more transformational as leaders they significantly open up their own potential professional growth in the process. The best transformational leaders can more focused on the win-win of personal and professional development also benefiting the organization (Lewis, 1996). These factors are all critically important for the leader looking to bring transformative change to their client organization. Implicit in the structural change of the organization is the even more powerful and potentially disruptive political one. For the leader to be effective in making these changes, they will have to exhibit a very high level of EI, transformational leadership and show a compelling vision of the future, all built on a strong foundation of trust (Wilbanks, 2011).

Throughout history a wide variety of products have been introduced, which are having a tremendous impact on the way everyone is living their daily lives. One such example of this can be seen by looking no further than…