View
224
Download
2
Category
Preview:
Citation preview
Strategic Position:
Strategy and Culture
•Strategic Management (5 ECTS)
•Ismo Vuorinen
•Principal Lecturer
•Autumn 2010
The Implications of Culture
Strategic
drift
Historical
influencesCultural
influences
Cultural
web
Management
implications
What is Strategic Drift?
Strategic drift is the tendency for
strategies to develop incrementally on
the basis of historical and cultural
influences but fail to keep pace with a
changing environment.
Strategic Drift
Reasons for Relative Continuity
in Successful Businesses
Alignment with environmental change
Success of the past
Experimentation around a theme
Why History is Important
Managers’ organisational experience
Avoiding recency bias
Misattribution of success
What if questions
Detecting and avoiding strategic drift
What is Path Dependency?
Path dependency is where early
events and decisions establish policy
paths that have lasting effects on
subsequent events and decisions.
Path Dependency and Lock-In
What is
Organisational Culture?
Organisational culture is the basic
assumptions and beliefs that are shared by
members of an organisation, that operate
unconsciously and define in a basic taken-for-
granted fashion an organisation’s view of
itself and its environment.
Cultural Frames of Reference
The
Individual
NationalOrganisational
field
Functional/
divisional Organisational
What is an Organisational Field?
An organisational field is a
community of organisations that interact
more frequently with one another than
with those outside the field and that
have developed a shared meaning
system.
Culture in Four Layers
Culture’s Influence on Strategy
Development
The Cultural Web of an Organisation
Stories Symbols
Structures
Power
structures
Control
systems
Rituals/
routinesParadigm
Assessing Stories
What core beliefs do the stories reflect?
How pervasive are the beliefs?
Do stories relate to corporate success or
failures?
Who are the heroes and villains?
Assessing Symbols
Are there particular symbols of the organisation?
What status symbols exist?
What does the language and jargon signify?
What aspects of strategy are highlighted publicly?
Assessing Structures
How mechanical/organic are the structures?
How flat/hierarchical are structures?
How formal/informal?
Do structures encourage collaboration?
What types of power structures do they
support?
Assessing Control Systems
What is most closely monitored?
Is emphasis on reward or punishment?
Are controls related to history or current
strategies?
Are there many/few controls?
Assessing Routines and Rituals
Which routines are emphasised?
Which are embedded in history?
What behaviour do routines encourage?
What are the key rituals?
What do core beliefs reflect?
What do training programmes emphasise?
Recommended