Contextual Factors Shape Strategic Decision Making. #essay

Identify five (5) journal articles that match the first five topics of this unit.  That is, you must find one journal article per topic:

Organisational structures or governance,

Environmental forces,

Risks confronting the firm,

Organisation and business practices, and

The functions of diverse firms.

You should search the library databases via the online ‘advanced search’ function of the CQUniversity library.  By choosing the ‘advanced search’ function you can select the actual journal you wish to search.

Write a short 150 word introduction discussing why the contextual factors are important to organisational decision making. The introduction is 150 words in total not 150 words per article.

Write approximately 250 words per journal article that:

Defines the main contextual factor being discussed in the journal article,

Discusses the new findings in relation to the contextual factor, and  

Highlights what these findings mean for managers in organisations.

Write a short 200 word conclusion recommending one specific contextual factor as most important to CQUniversity’s organisational performance. Explain your reasoning.

Write a reference list correctly:

It must use the APA referencing style

Each reference appears before each annotated bibliography

It has a hanging indentation

There are specific fonts and formatting that must be used:

Explaining how major contextual factors affect business decision making .

Defining key terms, theories and concepts presented in Topics 1-5.

Critical evaluation of managerial actions in relation to the contextual factors discussed in Topics 1-5.

Demonstrating understanding of the impact of a contextual factor on organisational performance .

Correctly using the APA referencing system to cite academic sources in-text and in the reference list .

Correctly using appropriate conventions of academic writing .

Decision-making is regarded as one of the most vital functions of managers in any form of organizations. Among various managers’ decisions, strategic decision-making is identified as a complex procedure which must explicitly be comprehended before being effectively implied (Kuipers et al., 2014). As a result, the ones accountable for strategic decision-making tend to encounter extensive level of intricacies, challenges and ambiguity (Blacklock et al., 2016). Strategic decision-making is incremental and mutually dependent and are further determined by a range of contextual influences emerging from past events, current circumstances along with perspectives of the future (de Vente et al., 2016). However, one of the primary characteristics of strategic decisions of organization is their lack of proper structure essentially because of the increasing rate of complexities of the strategic issues and challenges (Camisón & Villar-López, 2014). The following paper will explicitly evaluate the organizational structure and governance by further shedding light on significant environmental forces as well as the increasing level of risks and challenges pertaining modern business firms along with importance of organizational and business practices existing in contemporary business environment.

Mair, J., Mayer, J., & Lutz, E. (2015). Navigating institutional plurality: Organizational governance in hybrid organizations. Organization Studies, 36(6), 713-739 DOI: 10.1177/0170840615580007

The article aims to discuss the way hybrid business enterprises have been an integrated area of discourse and have attained a considerable degree of recognition from a broad range of marketing practitioners as well as policy-makers both in the public, private as well social domains. The authors of the article explicitly evaluated the areas which reveal the reasons why hybrid organizations show high level of incompetence in positioning themselves into well-established segmentations of organizational forms, segments or certain institutional spheres but on the other hand tend to underline diverse organizational ideas. These hybrid organizations as a result, can easily be comprehended as socially established with significant periodic patterns of material standards, principles, perceptions, values and rules. Furthermore, the authors have further shed light on the recently developed institutional multiplicity whereby diverse institutional assumptions and beliefs are functional and further have further been encouraged as vital perceptions which facilitate the understanding of hybrid organizations. The article has further explained that hybrid business enterprises are often being perceived as temporary or unsteady phenomenon as they exhibit greater degree of propensity to be extensive during the process of development or disconcerted domains where enterprises in the market domain act as carriers of the potential negotiations which may further tend to pursue various competing purposes by developing certain level of divergence, discrepancies and contestation. The article appears to have significantly provided well-established analysis by proposing new understanding and insights which further aims to reconcile newly developed and accepted perspectives based on institutional perceptions and values.

Lechner, C., & Gudmundsson, S. V. (2014). Entrepreneurial orientation, firm strategy and small firm performance. International Small Business Journal, 32(1), 36-60. DOI: 10.1177/0266242612455034

The purpose of the article is to review the way individual entrepreneurial orientation aspects tend to persuade the association between factors of competitive strategy, approaches as well as organizational performance. The authors of the article further state that factors related to entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is recognized as forms of strategic-formulating processes, structures along with behavioural patterns of the enterprises which are exemplified by high level of innovativeness, accuracy, risk-taking ability, competitive hostility  and self-sufficiency which tends to aid the pursuit of areas of avenues. The article further aims to contribute in two critical approaches whereby it tends to effectively aid to the elevating domain of strategic entrepreneurship by further incorporating two essential concepts such as entrepreneurial orientation and competitive approaches and strategies. Furthermore, the article identifies aspects of Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) as a construct which have the tendency to impact on other performance-persuading variables. The strength of the article lies on the suppositions it has made related to the distinctive association between organizational strategies, approaches, growth, performance and competitive gains in order to generate significant level of revenues. However, while diverse range of frameworks is easily accessible in order to categorize organizational strategies, the authors have emphasised on the importance of Porter model which suggested four vital competitive strategies such as extensive cost leadership techniques, wide ranging differentiation, cost orientation and segmentation focus. The article further explored the functions of individual EO aspects related to competitive strategy and approaches as well as the critical outcomes of competitive strategy on organizations’ performance and progress.

Environmental Forces

Teece, D., Peteraf, M., & Leih, S. (2016). Dynamic capabilities and organizational agility: Risk, uncertainty, and strategy in the innovation economy. California Management Review, 58(4), 13-35. DOI 10.1525/cmr.2016.58.4.13

The article explicitly confers the implications of ‘organizational agility’ which is often been considered as an undisputable and immutable quality, whereby it is further been signified that modern organizations significantly require to attain a greater degree of stability during the process of transition. However, the authors state that these opinions tend to disregard those forms of developments and transitions. Furthermore it has been observed that several evaluations of agility or other forms of flexibility tend to state that modern business enterprises must fundamentally seek to develop agility regardless to the rate of expenditures and sustaining the elevating rate of redundancy by further remaining in an unvarying position of fundamental alterations. It has further been assessed by the authors that the extent of risk is noted to be related with relevant consequences where the likelihood of the number of reoccurrences can comprehensively been attuned. Thus firms aim to distribute wide range of resources and further regulate the organizational activities in order to condense the level of risk with highly expected circumventions. Authors have stated a simplest example is when in order to restructure and enhance the level of risks, large multinational business enterprises comprise certain offshore subsidiaries and further aims to manufacture all inputs vital for those subsidiaries existing in the offshore economy. The article however serves a comprehensive analysis and reveals the dimensions by which managers of these organizational firms could standardize the required degree of organizational flexibility and delivers its cost in a proficient manner by relating to the organizational strategies and approaches.

Adams, R., Jeanrenaud, S., Bessant, J., Denyer, D., & Overy, P. (2016). Sustainability?oriented innovation: a systematic review. International Journal of Management Reviews, 18(2), 180-205. DOI: 10.1111/ijmr.12068

The primary aim to the article is to provide a significant contribution to the persistent rate of development of conceptual contexts related to Sustainability-Oriented Innovation (SOI) and further aims to provide initial facilitation to the rise of sustainability. Author has shed light on the increasing concern related to resources over-consumption, factors associated to environmental degradation along with social inequity. However, it has been noted that the importance of technological advances and innovation in refurbishing range of products and services, restructuring the organizational structures and further ensuring its probability of endurance which is rarely being argued. The article incorporates the innovation activities related to operational optimization whereby the aspects determining the process of innovation primarily aims to emphasize on the incremental developments, inclined towards a single area of complexity and associated to technical dilemmas as an approach to essentially reduce the rate of influences while making the business highly sustainable. However, such examples are being focused on by the authors of the article which aims to reduce the rate of intensity of resource utilization along with improved waste management or pollution controlling system, reutilization and recycling methods. Furthermore, the article stresses upon the propensity of equipped optimization on being highly attainable through effective mobilization of current significant innovation and advanced technological abilities. The authors have been efficient in providing a well comprehensive evaluation of the existing forms of innovation procedures  which can further be identified as a vital antecedent of sustainable orientation innovation in contemporary business enterprises. However, the article in certain areas overlooked the aspects of synthesis approach which is involved in developing sustainable orientation approaches in contemporary business domain.

Risks Confronting the Firm

Manikandan, K. S., & Ramachandran, J. (2015). Beyond institutional voids: Business groups, incomplete markets, and organizational form. Strategic Management Journal, 36(4), 598-617. DOI: 10.1002/smj.2226

The paper discusses the rich knowledge area that has broadening the perspective organizational gaps pertaining to business sectors by further analysing the elevated rate of competence of two of the essential distinguishing attributes of contemporary business sectors related to diverse range and multi dimensional organizational form. The author focuses on the factors that modern business enterprises possess greater level of competence which efficiently aids the affiliate business enterprises by further forming an internal market sphere that reserves the lack of capital firms’ endeavours and proficient in addressing regulatory bodies. However, it has been noted by the authors that the availability of capital resources and competencies of the collective business operations facilitate the ability of business firms to function in an resourceful manner and further exploit areas of avenues which are not obtainable to non-group organizations. Certain major areas of strengths of the article lie on the analysis of the authors which state that business organizations aim to reveal high level of heterogeneity and forms vital association with extensive diversified portfolio whereby it has been observed that diversified businesses within the sphere of the organizations’ portfolio could be controlled under a single legal unit. The article further reviewed the rate of increasing rate of resources around the world which have been exemplified by wide-encompassing market-oriented developments which tend to decrease the level of intervention by the any administrative or governmental bodies and enhance the operational level of products.  However, the authors have successfully maintained that firms portfolio range affiliates the advantaged availability of opportunities and scopes which are often disregarded by deficient strategic factor markets.

Conclusion

Therefore from the above discussion it can be stated that certain educational goals must fundamentally be regulated through functional centralization while on the other hand means to attain goals of CQ University should be in the hands of the university that is further regarded as functional decentralization. Proper utilization of organizational goals can be regarded as one of the contextual factors which are essentially necessitated by CQ University to develop improvements to its success path. It is significant to note that apart from the national level, the purpose or model aiming to underline the goal can be effectively applied at the local level, university level as well as classroom level as a proficient university improvement strategy. However, these forms of strategy would necessitate SMART (smart, measurable, attainable, realistic, time frame) goal setting along with effectual accountability and further providing support at the local contextual level, university level as well as classroom level. These progressive approaches comprise certain considerable achievement success. However, the core strategy implemented in order to ensure high level of student achievements is the use of accurate data with university students and to establish targets at both collective as well as individual level.

References

Adams, R., Jeanrenaud, S., Bessant, J., Denyer, D., & Overy, P. (2016). Sustainability?oriented innovation: a systematic review. International Journal of Management Reviews, 18(2), 180-205. DOI: 10.1111/ijmr.12068

Blacklock, C., Bradley, D. C. G., Mickan, S., Willcox, M., Roberts, N., Bergström, A., & Mant, D. (2016). Impact of contextual factors on the effect of interventions to improve health worker performance in Sub-Saharan Africa: review of randomised clinical trials. PloS one, 11(1), e0145206.

Camisón, C., & Villar-López, A. (2014). Organizational innovation as an enabler of technological innovation capabilities and firm performance. Journal of business research, 67(1), 2891-2902.

de Vente, J., Reed, M. S., Stringer, L. C., Valente, S., & Newig, J. (2016). How does the context and design of participatory decision making processes affect their outcomes? Evidence from sustainable land management in global drylands. Ecology and Society, 21(2).

Kuipers, B. S., Higgs, M., Kickert, W., Tummers, L., Grandia, J., & Van der Voet, J. (2014). The management of change in public organizations: A literature review. Public administration, 92(1), 1-20.

Lechner, C., & Gudmundsson, S. V. (2014). Entrepreneurial orientation, firm strategy and small firm performance. International Small Business Journal, 32(1), 36-60. DOI: 10.1177/0266242612455034

Mair, J., Mayer, J., & Lutz, E. (2015). Navigating institutional plurality: Organizational governance in hybrid organizations. Organization Studies, 36(6), 713-739 DOI: 10.1177/0170840615580007

Manikandan, K. S., & Ramachandran, J. (2015). Beyond institutional voids: Business groups, incomplete markets, and organizational form. Strategic Management Journal, 36(4), 598-617. DOI: 10.1002/smj.2226

Teece, D., Peteraf, M., & Leih, S. (2016). Dynamic capabilities and organizational agility: Risk, uncertainty, and strategy in the innovation economy. California Management Review, 58(4), 13-35. DOI 10.1525/cmr.2016.58.4.13