 Strategic Management: Strategic Managment Gregory G. Dess,
University of Texas at Dallas
G.T. Lumpkin,
University of Illinois--Chicago
Implementing Strategy: Creating Effective Organizational Designs
Application Questions| Application Questions and Exercises
1. Select an organization that competes in an industry in which you are particularly interested. Go on the Internet and determine what type of organization structure this organization has. In your view, is it consistent with the strategy that it has chosen to implement? Why? Why not?
2. Choose an article from Business Week, Fortune, Fast Company, or another well-known publication that deals with a corporation that has undergone a significant change in its strategic direction. What are the implications for the structure of this organization?
3. Go on the Internet and look up some of the public statements or speeches of an executive in a major corporation about a major initiative such as entering into a joint venture or launching a new product line. What do you feel are the implications for making the internal and external barriers of the firm more flexible and permeable? Does the executive discuss processes, procedures, integrating mechanisms, or cultural issues that should serve this purpose? Or, are other issues discussed which enable a firm to become more boundaryless?
4. Look up a recent article in the publications listed in question 2 above that addresses a firm’s involvement in outsourcing (modular organization) or in strategic alliance or network organizations (virtual organization). Was the firm successful or unsuccessful in this endeavor? Why? Why not?
Ethics Questions
1. If a firm has a divisional structure and places extreme pressures on its divisional executives to meet short-term profitability goals (e.g., quarterly income), could this raise some ethical considerations? Why? Why not?
2. If a firm enters into a strategic alliance but does not exercise appropriate behavioral control of its employees (in terms of culture, rewards and incentives, boundaries—as discussed in Chapter 9) that are involved in the alliance, what ethical issues could arise? What could be the potential long-term and short-term downside for the firm?
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