Research In Business For The Turbulent Environment: Strategies And Planning

Problem Statement

Describe about the Research in Business for The Turbulent Environment.

The turbulent environment in a company can be defined as the change that occurs in the business process due to the change in the external environmental condition. The environmental turbulence can have a huge impact on the internal condition of a company. The change in the external market can occur due to many reasons like global recessions, financial crisis and unemployment. An enterprise can face huge financial loss due to the impact of the turbulent environment. Hence, the turbulent environment can damage the performance of the organization.  Chan & Cui (2016), stated that the negative effects related to the turbulent environment can lower the reputation of the company. In the modern age of business, rapid change in the business environment is highly common phenomena. The change that occurs in the external environment due to turbulent is of uncertain and unpredictable in nature. Hence, it is highly challenging for the management of an organization to deal with the changes. The small and the medium scale industries are affected worst due to the effect of turbulent change. According to Eden & Ackermann (2013), it is difficult for a company to characterize the nature of the turbulent environment and thus preparing suitable plan to deal with these situations is challenging. The company needs to do extensive research work from a different context to make the best use of the situation that has led to the turbulent environmental condition. The socio-economic condition is one of the best ways that can be adopted by the company to make effective strategic planning. The companies also need to make economic planning avoid financial loss due to the unpredicted business condition.

According to Dibrell, Craig & Neubaum (2014), a business organization need to have effective strategic management planning to minimize the adverse effects related to the turbulent environment. Flexibility in the planning process of a company can help to deal with the changes that occur in the external business environment. In spite of the fact that it is difficult to predict the changes that occur due to turbulent environment, it is crucial to prepare contingency plan for the unfavorable scenario. One of the most important characteristics of every successful enterprise is to predict these unfavorable conditions ahead of their business rivals so that it is possible to minimize the financial loss. Moreover, it is also necessary to respond faster and even try to make best competitive advantage of the situation.

Research Objective and Research Questions

The high-performance rate and effective planning of the large scale business firms are the keys to avoiding the adverse effects that are associated with the turbulent business environment. The managers of the company need to have effective decision-making skills to make effective planning during the time of crisis (Wolf & Floyd, 2013). With the help of strategic planning, it is possible to make critical planning during the time of turbulent environment.

The globalization is one of the most commonly occurred phenomena in the modern day business. However, due to the globalization, the small and medium scale industry faces huge problem due to the stiff level of competition. The demand of the consumer changes vastly due to the introduction of innovative marketing strategies. The frequent changes in the international business environment are the main reasons for the turbulence. McDonald (2013), believes that this turbulent business environment is mainly responsible for the failure of the small and the medium scale industries that are trying to establish their brand name in the international market. The multinational companies are also facing huge financial loss due to these crisis situations of the market. Hence, these companies are forced to reduce the total number of workers, thereby leading to the problem of unemployment.

The rapid rate of progress in the technological world is also causing the huge change in the international business. In spite of the fact that the technological revolution is helping in the expansion process of international business, on many occasions, they are associated with turbulent environment condition. The turbulent environment can be of different types depending upon the nature of and origin of change. External forces like political, economic, ecological, legal, infrastructure and technological factors are mainly responsible for these turbulent environments.

The main challenge that is associated with the turbulent environment is that it is nearly impossible to predict this external environment and hence, the small and medium scale industries can never prepare the continence plans. Moreover, the workers in the companies may not be prepared to accept the change in the policy that is implemented by the management hence; they are not able to perform to their best capability. This, in turn, can lower the performance level of the company.

The main aim of this research project is to investigate policies adopted by high performing business organizations to deal with the turbulent business environment. These strategies can be implemented by small and medium scale industries to minimize the adverse effects related to the unfavorable turbulent environment. Moreover, it will help the business firms to predict the future unfavorable business environment with high level of accuracy.

Justification of the Research Project

What is the strategic management process of high performing business firms to deal with the unfavorable turbulent environment?

How can the small and the medium scale industries prepare for the turbulent business environment?

How is it possible to predict the turbulent business environment with high level of accuracy?

What planning is necessary for newly developed firms and startups to avoid the adverse effects of unfavorable business environment?

Channon & Jalland     (2016), believes that the corporate level strategy planning can be highly effective to deal with the turbulent business environment. It helps an organisation to evolve by adopting the cognitive representation of the competitive environment of the firm. It also helps in the evolution by shifting the balance of the company at the organizational level and thereby increasing the dynamic strategy of the company. The long jump strategies at the corporate level are highly effective to deal with the unpredictable changes. The corporate planning can also help in the process of organizational architecture. This helps to develop the corporate framework of the company and thereby assist in the process of coordination among the employees.

The effectiveness of the corporate level of planning to deal with the turbulent environment has been a matter of great debate. According to Mitchell (2013), the corporate strategy can have a negligible effect to neutralize the adverse effects related to unfavorable business conditions. Nevertheless, with effective planning, it is possible for large-scale corporation to make the best use of any unpredicted adverse situations. The turbulent environments in the large scale enterprise are mainly characterized by the high level of complexity, dynamism and uncertainty. During the time of turbulent environment the company is not able to meet the demand of their clients and hence have to compromise the level of client satisfaction. However, the strategies that are prepared by large scale Business Corporation are highly effective to deal with the turbulent environment and additionally gain competitive advantage.

The main purpose of this research is to understand the cause of the turbulent business environment. This will help the small and the medium scale industries to make contingency plan and thereby better preparations for all unfavorable external business environment. Strategy formulation is one of the main reasons for the high performing business firms are able to discover innovative techniques to deal with the turbulent environments. It is important for the business firms to lower the level of uncertainty with the help of better prediction power. The final report of this research work will help in the framing of the strategy that is effective in the turbulent environment. The success in the modern business is highly dependent on the capability to predict the coming of turbulent environment (Peppard, Galliers & Thorogood, 2014). Therefore, prediction of these conditions is crucial for all business companies. This can help an enterprise to gain competitive advantage over the rivals. The result of this research work will also help to measure the level of turbulent and also identify the underlying reasons for them.

The outcome of these research works will help to understand the reasons for the occurrences of the turbulent business environment. This will ultimately help the small and medium-sized industries to make effective strategy planning for improving the business performance during unfavourable external business environment. The research will also be able to highlight how the large scale companies implement strategic planning to overcome the adverse business conditions. The outcomes of this research will help to fulfil all the objectives and provide answers to all the research questions.

The result of this research will help the newly formed business firms and startups to make effective planning for the adverse business conditions and make the best use of the turbulent environment.     

Research Methodology

According to Bergh & Ketchen (2011), selection of appropriate research methodology aligning with the particular research study helps to conduct a research systematically and ethically. In this research, the researcher would undertake appropriate research methodology based on the research aim and objectives. The author, while conducting this research would incorporate the following components of research methodology:

According to Bernard (2011), epistemology is one of the important branch of philosophy, which includes positivism, interpretivism and realism. The positivism philosophy supports the assessment of available primary data based on the existing evidences, facts and true facts recorded. In contrast, interpretivism philosophy supports human perception, which influences the researcher to deal with the research issues based on self-perception in a particular situation (Harrison & Reilly, 2011). I contrast to these two theories, the realism philosophy is a perception that depict, the reality related aspects could be independent from the conceptual aspects or perceptions in a ontological way. Based on the research objective, which includes the investigation of high performing firm’s presentation in a turbulent business environment, the researcher would select the positivism philosophy to be suitable for this study. It is because, with the help of this philosophy, the author would be able to undertake logical and critical investigation on the business performance of the firms.

There are two types of theoretical underpinning or research approach, i.e., inductive and deductive approach. Pickard (2012), claimed that inductive approach is crucial for the research work, when there is a need for the establishment of new theories according to the research issue. It helps the researcher to gather information and themes related to the research topic, and at the end of the study, a theory or hypothesis if being established. On the other hand, deductive approach helps to gather primary empirical data from the research field and analyze them with theoretical underpinning and literatures already existing on the research topic. In this context, this study would explore the firm’s performance in turbulent environment. Thus, investigating through primary data collection would be more effective, than establishing new hypothesis in this domain. Therefore, deductive approach would be suitable for this study, compared to the inductive approach. 

Selecting the research design is very important, because based on the research design, the data collection method, type of sample and the research strategy is selected (Lichtman, 2012). Therefore, it is important to select the appropriate research design, based on the research aim and objectives. There are three types of research design; explanatory design is implemented when the cause and effect relationship is being established within the research variables, the exploratory research design helps the researcher to gather the peripheral information to build up knowledge on the research topic. In contrast, the descriptive research design helps the researcher to stress on the assessment of associations between uncontrolled, dependent and independent variables, while analyzing the factors affecting the research variables. Here, the researcher would select the analytical or descriptive research design, as this research design would allow the researcher to carry out the research process with different paradigm, focusing on different variables. This design also allows the use of mixed data collection method, including both quantitative and qualitative methods (Crouch & Pearce, 2012).

Selection of appropriate data collection method enhances the accuracy and efficiency of data analysis method and potential to gain expected research outcomes. For the primary study, there are two types of data collection methods, including the quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. The quantitative data collection method includes the collection of numerical data, whereas the qualitative data collection method includes the collection of descriptive data with in-depth information, whereas a mixed data collection method involves both quantitative and qualitative data collection method. Based on the research objectives, the author would select the mixed method of data collection, which would involve both quantitative and qualitative data collection (Erickson, 2012).

Based on the data collection method, the research strategy is being selected. Within several relevant strategies for the primary research, the researcher would select survey and interview strategy for this research. Both of the research strategies are suitable for this study. The survey strategy helps the researcher to collect the numerical data, which can enrich the research by incorporating wide range of numerical information. Through a series of survey questions, different themes would be revealed, based on which the analysis would be done. 50 employees of a high performing firm in Australia would be surveyed by providing online survey questionnaire and feedbacks would be collected in the same way. The questions would include the company’s strategies and competitive aspects, as well as the factors promoting the strengths. In the questionnaire, there would be 5 options against each question, following the five-point Likert scale, where 1= strong positive effect and 5 = strong negative effect. On the other hand, for collecting the qualitative data, 5 line managers of a high performing organization in Australia would be interviewed. It would provide descriptive in-depth data, which would be helpful for understanding the perspectives of managers about the firm’s competence and their contribution to the firm's performance. In this context, managers would be able to express their experience in the organization and the factors that are contributing to the organizational performance in turbulent environment.

Two types of data analysis methods would be used in this study, the quantitative analysis and qualitative data analysis method, for the quantitative and qualitative data respectively. The quantitative data would be obtained in numerical form, thus, the statistical analysis would be done in this case and the findings from the data analysis would be represented in graphical and tabular form; these would include excel sheets, pie charts and figures (Crowther & Lancaster, 2012). For quantitative data analysis, descriptive statistics is used, if required, where the mean, median, mode and standard deviation of the collected data are done, to enhance the reliability of the data findings. In contrast, for analysis the qualitative data collected from the manager’s interview, the statistical methods cannot be applied, as the information or data collected from the method would be descriptive, instead of being numerical. In this case, the managerial transcripts would analyzed by thematic analysis, where different themes would be identified from the manager’s opinion and these would be analyzed with the pre-existing data in related literatures.

According to the Data protection act 1998, the researcher need to follow all the ethical considerations important in the research work (Miller et al., 2012). In this context, the researcher would allow the complete freedom to the participants about the participation in the research work. on the other hand, the researcher would ensure that all the personal and professional information collected from the participants would be kept confidential. In this regards, the researcher would not use any of the the important information from the participants in any other work except this research. In addition, the participants would provide an information sheet, where all the important aspects of this research would be clearly stated along with the role of the participants in the research (Creswell, 2011). The participants would not be asked any kinds of questions, which is not related to the research work.

The mixture of all the above methodologies would be undertaken by the researcher to get the expected results related to the research problem. Selection of appropriate research methodologies would be helpful for the researcher to conduct a potential research study.

The study would be organized in the following manner:

Gantt chart

Setting a fair budget is important for the research. In this research, for primary data collection, the budget would be decided considering all the necessary resources (Bernard & Bernard, 2012). Based on the data collection methods and the other requirements. It has been estimated that around $4500 would be required for competing for the study within the given timeframe according to the proposed research organization. For collecting the primary data, arrangement of online survey and feed collection, posting and mailing cost are included in the budget. On the other hand, to arrange the manager’s interview, recording and other staff’s would also require financial resource. The budget for both the quantitative and qualitative data collection would require around $2500. The proposed budget can vary slightly if there is a change in sample size, which would only be decided, once the access to the participants are obtained. In addition, the analysis of the would require the access of charts, tables, figures from the government websites and hard documents. It would cost around $1000. Finally, for the thematic analysis of the qualitative data, a thorough review of existing literature would be required, which would also need allocation of some costs. It would include the literature search from the reliable search engines and libraries. This would cost around $700. For accessory requirement, $300 would be allocated. Therefore, in summary, the budget would be:

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