Assignment: Week 23

1)      In your own words and using referenced quotes describe what is meant by the term “strategic leadership".

Strategic leadership is the process of managing, motivating and persuading the employees to communicate the same vision, which could be important tool for creating an organizational structure within a business. It is a process of implementing well defined strategies to share a vision for an organization. This style of leadership is dynamic by nature and requires a high level of commitment and work involvement (Lynch, 2009).

2) Identify two interesting similarities and two differences between the 5 Elements of Successful and Effective Strategic Leadership model and the Transcendent Leadership model.

The similarities between the 5 elements of successful and effective strategic leadership model and the Transcendent leadership model are as follow:

The model helps in gain sustainable competitive advantage by emphasizing on the environment change.

The models build an effective relationship with the stakeholders within the company as well as outside the organization by providing benefits. 

The differences between the 5 elements of successful and effective strategic leadership model   and the Transcendent leadership model are as follow:

• The transcendent leadership emphasizes on leadership for organization benefits as well as self-leadership that involves transcending own desire to help others while the five elements of successful and effective strategic leadership model only emphasizes on the leadership for the organization profit by motivating the employees. 
• The strategic leadership focuses on human resources to develop the relationship in the organization whereas transcendent leadership focuses rules and regulation. 

3. How would you describe Jeff Bezos strategic leadership style?

Is there evidence that he demonstrate all the elements of strategic leadership from the two models? Which elements are strongly evident in the case and which less so?

The Lynch strategic leadership as well as the transcendent leadership styles is addressed by the Jeff Bezos leadership style. According to him, the interest of stakeholders and the customers are essential factors for the growth of the company that company should bother about rather than the competitor’s action. It is also important to communicate with them for which, Jeff Bezos frequently gives interview with the motive to communicate with the stakeholders. Similarly, Jeff Bezos can also come up with long term plans that are innovative and can provide completely new taste for the customers.

However, the leadership elements like prizes and incentives for the employees have not been addressed, though it has been mentioned that the organizational culture is of fun. Similarly, leadership for other is also hardly mentioned. Further, Bezos also gives less priority to self-awareness and competitor’s action (Peyer& Hansen, 2013). 

References:

Ø  Lynch,  R., (2009) Strategic Management, 5th Edition, Prentice Hall, chapter 16

Ø  Crossan, M., Vera, D and Nanjad, L. (2008) Transcendent Leadership: strategic leadership in dynamic environments, T

Ø  Hansen, M.T., Ibarra, H., Peyer, U. (2013) The Best Performing CEO’s in the World, Harvard Business Review.

Assignment: Week 22

What is your understanding on the Balanced Score Card approach? Bow useful is it for the companies?

Balance Score Card approach is a strategic planning and management system that is used by the very body from industry to government to nonprofit organization throughout the world to coordinate the organizational activities with its mission, vision, goals and strategies and improve internal as well as external communications along with monitoring its overall performance. Developed by Dr Robert Kaplan and Dr David Norton as a performance measurement framework, it has evolved from its early simple performance measuring tool to full strategic planning and management system. Balanced Score Card helps to transfer the strategic planning documents of an organization to ‘matching orders’ on daily basis for the organization. This method eliminates all the disadvantages and limitations of previous management instruments and clearly directs the organizations towards its goals, helping the organizations to improve their strategic performances and results. Balance Score Card can help to transfer the strategic planning from a regular strategic exercise into the nerve center of the organization.

 Balance Score Card approach has four main perspectives as how we view the Organization. They are:

Learning and Growth: This perspective states that employee training and corporate cultural attitudes related to both individual and corporate self improvements. In an organization, knowledgeable employees are the true resources of the organization and in this changing technological era, employees also continuously need to be updated in the knowledge and skills.

Customer: It has been proven that customer focus and customer satisfaction is a must in any business. if customers aren’t satisfied with a company’s products and services, they are bound to move to other supplementary products and services. Poor performance in this sector can seriously damage the financial aspects the company. So customers should be analyzed in detail so that products and services can be provided according to their wants and desires.

Financial: Financial data are must for any organizations. Timely and accurate financial data should always be of great priority. It is only from these data that an organization can move forward with other aspects of the business.

Internal Business Process: Metrics based on internal business processes allows the managers to know how well the business is carrying on. These metrics should be carefully designed by the people who have the knowledge of the process most closely.

Present your thoughts and understanding on the article “The Strategic Management Process”?

               

References:

Performance Management. Available: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/performance-management/reference-materials/historical/using-a-balanced-scorecard-approach-to-measure-performance/

Last accessed 19 December 2013.

List of sample KPIs in 5 perspectives of BSC. Available: http://www.bscdesigner.com/list-of-sample-kpis-in-5-perspectives-of-bsc.htm.Last accessed 19 December 2013.

Assignment: Week 21

Emergent strategy, also known as Realized strategy is a pattern of action that keeps on developing and modifying over time in an organization in order to achieve a specific mission and goals.

1.       Was Honda’s entry strategy in the US more deliberate or emergent?

Honda’s entry strategy in the US at first was deliberate, and then later on it went for emergent. Honda at its initial market entry stage, deliberately started its sales from the west coast and moved eastward over a period of four- five years. They advertised their products toward young families giving slogans like “You meet the nicest People on Honda” to dissociate motorcycles from “rowdy”, “Hell’s Angels” types of group of People, who were trouble making kind of groups in US. Later on in order to compete with other companies, who were upgrading their products, Honda followed Emergent strategy which helped it a lot to win the market share.

2.       Which of the accounts seems more accurate and why? Why do you think the two accounts differ so much?

The interview account seems more accurate as it is the facts spoken by the executives of Honda. The two accounts differ so much because the first one may be a review or report published on some newspaper or magazines where as the second one was personally interviewed to the executives of Honda Company.

3.       Did Honda’s entry strategy demonstrate the characteristics of ‘logical instrumentalism’?

Yes, Honda’s entry strategy demonstrated the characteristics of ‘logical Instrumentalism’. According to Logical instrumentalism, strategies aren’t developed on a single time decision but are rather developed through making many small decisions that are made through logical experiments, learning and experiences. As the case study clearly conveys Honda’s strategy to this, Honda definitely demonstrates the characteristics of ‘logical instrumentalism’.

4.       Do you think Honda would have been more or less successful if they had adopted a more formalized strategic planning approach to the launch?

According to me, Honda would have been less successful if they had adopted a more formalized strategic planning approach to the launch. Companies should always have long terms goals and objectives, but they should always be flexible to the changes occurring around them and be able to adapt to changes. Only following formalized strategies can fatally hamper the targets of the organization due to its rigidness, so it’s much better if companies are flexible in their strategies.

References:

Andrew Mair. 1999. Learning from Japan? Interpretationof Honda Motors . [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.nissan.ox.ac.uk/sites/sias/files/documents/NOPS29_0.pdf. [Accessed 09 December 13]

Strategic Management. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.essay.uk.com/free-management-essays/strategic-management.php. [Accessed 09 December 13].   

Bhat- Bhateni Super Market

References:
Online accessed on: www.bbsm.com.np. [accessed on 2013]