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QUESTION
There needs to be 2 scholarly references, 1 required from list below, and 1 biblical references from the King James bible in the paper
Must use one of these in references:
1. Gamble, J., Peteraf, M., & Thompson, A. (2021), Essentials of strategic management, McGraw-Hill Course Content Delivery (7th ed.), New York, NY. ISBN: 9781260785791.
2. Keller, T. (2014), Every good endeavor: Connecting your work to God’s work, Riverhead Books, New York, NY. ISBN: 9781594632822.
3. Krogerus, M., & Tschäppeler, R. (2017), The decision book: 50 models for strategic thinking., W.W. Norton & Co. (Revised ed.), New York, NY. ISBN: 9780393652376.
4. Rumelt, R. (2011), Good strategy/bad strategy: The difference and why it matters., Crown Business, New York, NY. ISBN: 9780307886231.
Discussion Thread: Setting Direction, Advantages / Disadvantages, and Decision Models
Strategy is critical to the process of charting a company’s direction in the business environment. When evaluating strategic choices, it is important to understand key advantages and disadvantages of the various options under consideration. Decision models continue to impact strategy development and should continuously be evaluated, and others considered.
Use the following outline:
• Introduction
• Process: Setting the Company’s Direction with Strategy – What is the process in no less than 200 words
• Strategic Thinking: Discussion of a Key Advantage or Disadvantage from Rumelt –
What is it and why is it important in no less than 200 words
• Decision Model: no less than 100 words
• How do my decision models aid / hinder this process and why
• What other decision models are being considered and why
• Conclusion
• Support your factual assertions with citations.
Include an Annotated Bibliography, in current APA format, of the 2 scholarly Sources:
Minimum of 250 words in each annotation
Summary of Key Points
Evaluation of the Quality of the Publication Evaluation of the Quality of the Author(s) Where this fits into the discussion
ANSWER
Setting Direction, Advantages / Disadvantages, and Decision Models
Introduction
Managers are responsible for devising strategies that will help their organizations achieve a competitive advantage in the market. Thus, the leaders must have knowledge and skills in strategic management. This paper provides an overview of the process involved in setting a company’s strategic direction, the advantages and disadvantages of strategic thinking, and decision models used in strategic thinking and their limitations. The paper also provides an annotated bibliography to further reader’s understanding of strategic direction.
Process: Setting the Company’s Direction with Strategy
Step 1: Develop a Strategic Vision, Mission Statement, and Company’s Core Values.
The company’s senior management should formulate the company’s strategic vision, i.e., a statement communicating where the organization is headed in the long run. After creating the strategic vision, the company should develop a mission statement and link this mission with the company’s vision and core values.
Step 2: Setting Objectives
Setting objectives involves breaking down the strategic vision into performance targets, i.e., the results and outcomes you want to accomplish. A balanced scorecard can help management establish short and long-term financial and strategic objectives.
Step 3: Create a strategy
The next step is developing a corporate, business, and functional-area strategy. This process involves answering the “how” question: how will the business grow, how will customers be satisfied, how will the business’s functional segment be managed, how will we achieve the financial and strategic objectives, etc. Selecting the ideal strategy involves analyzing the company’s external environment and internal operating environment to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Step 4: Implement and execute the Strategy
This process involves converting the created strategies into actions or business activities. Managers will allocate resources to support the core business activities, create a company culture, and implement best practices and information or operating systems to facilitate employees’ work. Strong leadership skills are imperative at this stage.
Step 5: Review Performance
This stage involves monitoring business activities and processes and implementing corrective adjustments to ensure the company’s strategy and direction match the industry and competitive conditions.
Strategic Thinking
Strategic thinking is a rational thought process that allows organizations to analyze critical factors that may influence their long-term success and pofitability. The primary advantage of strategic thinking is that it helps organizations effectively deal with obstacles, enhancing organizational performance. Rumelt (2011) argues that managers can only achieve higher performance by identifying and overcoming challenges blocking their progress.
For example, DARPA’s strategy anticipates real-world challenges to be overcome, eschews fluff, and concentrates resources on surmounting those challenges. Rumelt (2011) attributes DARPA’s success to this strategy. Companies such as Chen Brothers and Chad Logan’s graphics Arts Company applied Rumelt’s strategic thinking principles and succeeded. The common theme between these two companies is that strategic thinking helped them forge a way forward, concentrate company resources, and achieve one or two critical objectives (Rumelt, 2011). Once these objectives were accomplished, new opportunities opened up, and the companies set more ambitious goals.
Strategic thinking is important because it enables companies to identify major challenges and the best pathway or option for overcoming them. It also allows companies to concentrate resources, attention, and energy on a selected option. This resource concentration can create new opportunities and help businesses grow.
Decision Model
- How do my decision models aid / hinder this process, and why
Using the wrong decision model may result in wrong projections or distorted conclusions. Gamble et al. (2011) indicate that cognitive biases are common even when managers use a rational decision-making models. A business is likely to fail if it makes strategic decisions based on misleading conclusions.
- What other decision models are being considered and why
The John Whitmore model helps managers check whether the established goal correlates with its fourteen requirements. Another model, the crossroads model, helps managers consider different alternatives during decision-making. The cognitive dissonance model points out actions or decisions inconsistent with our beliefs. This model is similar to the “management by Value” model, which believes managers’ personal values, beliefs, and experiences influence their decisions. Therefore, this tool aims to align an individual’s personal values with the organization’s values.
Annotated Bibliography
Steptoe‐Warren, G., Howat, D., & Hume, I. (2011). Strategic thinking and decision making: literature review. Journal of Strategy and Management, 4(3), 238–250. https://doi.org/10.1108/17554251111152261
These authors point out that many businesses today face complex challenges due to globalization and increased competition. These challenges require companies to constantly redefine themselves and adapt, underscoring the need for strategic thinking. The authors sought to understand the competencies required for effective strategic thinking. They reviewed psychology and management literature on strategic decision-making to identify competencies associated with strategic thinking and factors that influence strategic decision-making.
The authors found that good strategic thinkers are good at envisioning, empowering others, and maintaining flexibility. The core technical competencies of a good strategic thinker include knowledge management skills, managerial cognition, leadership, social and intrapersonal competencies, systems thinking, and decision-making ability. The authors emphasize managerial cognition and leadership skills as the most important. Managerial cognition refers to a manager’s abilities in analytical thinking.
The authors also found that a manager’s personal values strongly influence their decision-making. Thus, a manager’s personal characteristics and values will influence the manager’s strategic choices and decisions. The authors recommend professional development programs to strengthen managers’ weak competency areas. They also indicate that companies must ensure value congruence between personal and corporate goals to enhance organizational outcomes.
This article is credible because it is peer-reviewed. The authors identify the aim and need of the study in the introduction section. The literature review is comprehensive but does not include recent empirical literature. The study’s conclusions are consistent with the research objectives and answer the research questions. Also, the authors discuss the study’s implications and limitations. These factors demonstrate this study’s quality.
Steptoe‐Warren, G., Howat, D., & Hume, I. (2011). Strategic thinking and decision making: a literature review. Journal of Strategy and Management, 4(3), 238–250. https://doi.org/10.1108/17554251111152261
The authors claim that little is known about the elements of strategic thinking despite the concept being widely used in organizations. According to Steptoe‐Warren (2011), strategic thinking has not been adequately theorized, limiting how it is used for professional demands. These authors systematically reviewed 125 articles on strategic thinking to further understand the concept. The authors found that many research studies use strategic thinking and strategic planning synonymously even though the concepts are different. According to the authors, strategic planning means directing business insights into an action plan, while strategic thinking involves identifying challenges and opportunities and using that information to direct the company. The authors indicate that strategic thinking is more important than strategic planning.
Another theme that emerged was manager characteristics. According to the authors, certain characteristics make some managers more capable of reasoning and making rational choices for their organizations than others. These characteristics include agile/tactical thinking, proactiveness, exponential mindset, divergent thinking, intellectual opportunism, and entrepreneurship.
Apart from manager competencies, some organizational factors can also serve as enablers of strategic thinking. These factors include organizational culture and resources (internal) and technology and market conditions (external factors). Lastly, the authors reported three main outcomes of strategic thinking: sustainable development, strategic vision, and competitive advantage.
This article is peer-reviewed primary research; hence, it is credible. The introduction section explains the need for the study, and the literature review is comprehensive. It includes recent literature, the sample of studies used is sufficient, and the authors also performed a quality appraisal of each included study. They used tables to summarize findings and draw reasonable conclusions from the evidence. These characteristics demonstrate the study’s quality.
Conclusion
Strategic thinking is a core competency for managers in the business industry. It promotes sustainable development, enables strategic vision, and enhances a firm’s competitive advantage. Although decision models can help managers in strategic thinking, they are also subject to cognitive biases. Professional development courses can equip managers with strategic thinking competencies. Unfortunately, there is no consensus on which competencies promote good strategic thinking. Personal value systems also influence a manager’s strategic choices; hence, organizations must ensure value congruence between staff’s personal values and corporate goals.
References
Gamble, J., Peteraf, M., & Thompson, A. (2011), Essentials of strategic management, McGraw-Hill Course Content Delivery (7th ed.), New York, NY. ISBN: 9781260785791.
Smriti, V., Dhir, S., & Dhir, S. (2020). Strategic Thinking in Professional Environment: A Review of the Literature. International Journal of Business Innovation and Research, 1(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.1504/ijbir.2020.10028592
Steptoe‐Warren, G., Howat, D., & Hume, I. (2011). Strategic thinking and decision making: literature review. Journal of Strategy and Management, 4(3), 238–250. https://doi.org/10.1108/17554251111152261
Rumelt, R. (2011), Good strategy/bad strategy: The difference and why it matters., Crown Business, New York, NY. ISBN: 9780307886231.
