دانلود رایگان مقاله پیامدهای عملکرد تغییرات استراتژیک

Abstract

Companies often initiate strategic changes to adapt to an evolving environment and/or to improve their competitiveness and performance. In this article, I examine why some strategic changes are fruitful for the companies that initiate them whereas others are not. I propose a framework for understanding the fruitfulness of strategic changes based on their expected impact on competitiveness and likely stakeholder commitment to the changes. I propose that strategic changes are likely to be most fruitful when their potential to enhance competitiveness is high and the stakeholder commitment is likely to be high. At the other end of the spectrum, companies should avoid implementing strategic changes that have low potential to enhance competitiveness and where the stakeholder commitment is low. Being poor strategic choices, these changes may not enhance competitiveness or performance, but, in fact, detract from them. I provide case-based evidence for the framework drawing on strategic changes implemented by Starbucks, McDonald's, and Tupperware and also identify conditions, specifically relating to the decision-making process and corporate governance, under which detrimental strategic changes may be implemented. I also offer a set of recommendations to companies to help them avoid making poor strategic choices. Keywords.

6. Recommendations and concluding remarks

While I have focused on strategic changes that ultimately proved to be detrimental, sometimes companies may persist with strategies that have been successful in the past. Continuation of a past strategy, however, poses its own set of risks. Consider the cases of Blockbuster and Nokia. Placing great faith in its existing business model and its importance to the Hollywood studios, and fearing cannibalization of its existing bread and butter product of VHS videotapes, Blockbuster Video postponed the changeoverto DVDs and sowed the seeds of its eventual demise. For its part, Nokia persisted with an inappropriate business strategy based on the twin beliefs that customers would place great value on a broad line of phone models, and that emerging market consumers would continue to prefer cheaper-feature phones to expensive smart phones; these incorrect assumptions caused Nokia to slip from the position of dominant industry leader to eventually exiting the industry altogether. The cases of Nokia and Blockbuster suggest that even extremely successful business strategies need to evolve due to the dynamic broader environment (e.g., technology); competitive issues (e.g., new strategies implemented by competitors); and managements’ own ambitions, especially as regards growth (Pangarkar, 2012). From a managerial perspective, it is important to identify–—using the 2x2 matrix (see Figure 1)–—the positioning of a planned strategic change. Managers and companies might also improve performance by focusing resources on those changesthat are located in the most favorable quadrant (Quadrant I): they are competitiveness-enhancing, aswell aslikely to receive strong commitment from key stakeholders. It may be equally important to avoid implementing strategic changesthat fitin the leastfavorable quadrant(Quadrant IV): they do not enhance competitiveness and stakeholder commitment will be lacking.