Global Strategy - blog

The Micro-origins of Organizational Routines and Competencies conference held last weekend in Suomenlinna, Helsinki, brought together top-researchers of the field to discuss the individual-level (beliefs, preferences, expectations, or abilities, characteristics) and aggregational (social interactional dynamics) factors that play a central role in the origins of organizational routines and capabilities.

 

Relative to my recent critical account of public sector strategizing it is fair to offer at least some guidelines of what practical steps would be necessary for better performance in academic research and teaching. The key points deal with organizational architecture, strategic repertoire, personal development, and managing the past-present-future (illusory) continuum. Brought to the context of my own university, these would be the immediate actions I would undertake having the power:

As an occasional observer and sometimes an adviser in public sector strategy processes, one may easily ask to what extent business strategy is applicable in the strategic management of, for example, universities? Or to be more specific: what kind of strategic management would be of any help in public sector strategizing? The specification is important as (a) firms generally are a rather bad benchmark for any activities meant to last longer than three years. A statistical fact is that most for-profit firms die young; die painfully; or otherwise cease to exist. In this sense, there is not much to learn from the sudden success stories which may be explained more by random evolutionary processes than skillful strategic thinking. Even less we may learn from the constant failures of small and large firms. Also, what organizations optimize (profit, survival, efficient public good production) already makes for-profit organizations entirely different relative to non-profit organizations. The specification is also important because (b) strategy practices differ considerably from firm to firm. To keep things simple: there is two ways (bad and good) for strategic management. (1) many firms still follow 'old-school' strategy based on belief that top management have super-human skills in seeing into future, and acting accordingly. This 'old-school' approach respects strategic planning, control, heavy administrative processes, and other activities meant to hamper innovativeness and emergence. From a performance and survival perspectives, this approach is like flipping a coin because we still not have managers with those super-human qualities (called as 'psyches'’ in science fiction).

My work and world in general are increasingly composed of zeros and ones flying here and there – a trend that I both like and resent simultaneously. I suspect all of you reading this are aware of at least the most obvious pros and cons of the internet taking over our lives, so I guess I can skip telling how life without email might actually do wonders for everyone's blood pressure, and cut straight to the point. This post is me offering a helping hand to ease the pains of everybody who spends a lot of time online doing collaborative work and needs to collect, store and share lots of different information. I hereby present thee my Top 5 chaos management tools.

Author: Ville Airo (2010).Download file: Regulation and Coordination in European Generic Medicines Industry: A Fuzzy Set Analysis Masters thesis, Aalto University School of Science and Technology

The global pharmaceutical industry is changing. A number of factors, like rising health care costs, indicate that the importance of generic medicines is growing. The European companies have particularly been affected by the harmonization of inner markets and changes in legislation. Therefore, the main research problem of the thesis is: what kind of business environment favors generic medicines industry. Secondary problems of the thesis discuss the industry dynamics at the European level in more detail through regulatory and other factors.

In ‘Holy Smoke’, a famous Jane Campion film, PJ Waters (Harvey Keitel) and Ruth (Kate Winslet) are engaged in an epic psychological struggle that eventually spoils the life of Waters yet also emotionally affects Ruth’s interpretation of life. In one central scene, PJ Waters requests Ruth to “be kind”. Linked to an academic context ‘being kind’ means respecting (a) earlier work done in the field; (b) giving value on the work of close-by faculty members; and (c) longer term academic traditions. Having good manners never hurts. However, ‘being kind’ specifically helps you to communicate with your supervisors, enhances your understanding of yourself as a part of academic continuum, and results in better research. Be kind!

Author: Emmi Tuomainen (2009).Download file: Competitive Actions and Profitability in the U.S. Forestry Industry Masters thesis, University of Tampere

Profitability is an extremely important issue for every company as it is an essential part of its continuity. Competitive actions taken by a company have an influence on the company’s performance and thus its profitability. It is not, however, clear what kind of actions promote and what kinds of actions, on the contrary, hinder the profitability of a company.

Author: Sihvonen, Antti (2010).Download file: Success Strategies in Declining Industries Masters thesis, Aalto University School of Economics, Department of Marketing and Management

The Abstract

Objective of the study

The broad aim of this research is to understand how organizations can succeed in declining industries. This is examined from the viewpoint of strategy, where strategy types are used to explain success in declining industries. In particular, this research aims at uncovering what kind of strategies lead to success in certain kinds of decline conditions. Existing research on this topic has focused on population ecology and strategic management. This research aims at linking these two discourses to produce an investigation of how a member of a distinct population can succeed, when the population faces decline.