Lecture 1: introduction
Organisation and Environment is all about strategy formation
The strategy formation process consists of the following:
The question is if this really reflects reality. Strategy formation is done by
visionaries and is formed by humans, which means biases in strategic decision-
making like attention and intuition issues.
Strategy is formed by whoever is the strongest politically. Strategy is also former
by imitating what other firms do, and there are many more of these perspectives.
The perspectives and schools discusses in this summary are the following
There are so many theories, in order to teach everyone perspectivism, which also
includes going from theory to practice, and from practice to theory
,Lecture 2: The Design School
What is strategy?
- Plan: a consciously intended direction, guide or course of action to move from
a present state to a desired future state.
- Ploy: A maneuver to outwit an opponent
- Pattern: recognizable similar actions that emerge over time
- Position: The organisation’s location in the imaginary landscape of the
competitive environment.
- Perspective: The interpretation of managers of the organisation and its
environment.
the design school is a rising school with more and more attention within strategic
management research.
The characteristics and premises of the Design School
- Strategy formation as a deliberate process of conscious thought.
- One person develops strategy: CEO/head of organisation
- Process of strategy formation should be simple and informal.
- Strategy should be one of a kind
- Strategy should be developed to attain match or fit between internal
capabilities and external possibilities (SWOT analysis)
- The strategy design process is complete when strategy appears fully
formulated as a perspective
- the strategy is explicit
- Implementation follows formulation and articulation
the process
,As mentioned before, there is one strategist, namely the CEO or head of the
organisation. His tasks consist of:
- Gathering information, analysing information, organising information and
formulating strategy.
The idea of having a CEO to be the main strategist is still very much alive:
- Uncommon CEO names lead to more deviating strategies ((Kang, Zhu, &
Zhang, 2021)
- CEO’s cognitive flexibility aids the development of dynamic capabiities (Kiss
et al., 2020)
- CEO characteristics determine the kind of acquisitions (Chen et al., 2020)
With the Design School, organisation structure follows strategy.
- The strategy determines the long-term goals and objectives, the course of
action and allocation of resources.
- Structure is the design through which to administer the strategy.
- Changes in an organisation’s strategy lead to problems that require a new
structure.
SWOT analysis design school
, Design School summary assumptions
- The CEO has complete and perfect information and has the mental capacity
to accurately process all information.
- the environment can always be understood
- Situations and environment are predictable
- All information is documented and available
- Strategy is centrally formulated
Criticism & limitations of the Design School
- It is unrealistic for most organisations for structure to follow strategy
- There is an overall unrealistic assumption of universality
- The capacity to learn is ignored by analytical assessment of environment and
internal capabilities
- The design school causes a promotion of inflexibility with hierarchy,
centralisation and explicit strategy formulation
- It causes a detachment of thinking from acting.
- The CEO is unlikely to have all and perfect information and the capacity to
process this information.
- The economic man/homo economicus: “Agent who has complete
information about the options available for choice, perfect foresight of the
consequences from choosing those options, and the wherewithal to solve an
optimization problem that identifies an option which maximises the agent’s
personal utility.” -> Bounded rationality: Rationality is limited, and individuals
make imperfect decisions (difficulty of problem, boundaries to cognitive
capacity and limited time).
The design school, as with any school, should be embedded in context for it to be
understood as influential. Further contributions of the Design School are the added
vocabulary and tools for strategy, having a grand strategy, the fit between external
environment and internal capabilities, and the school started to promote the
relevance of strategy in organisations and as a field of research.
Organisation and Environment is all about strategy formation
The strategy formation process consists of the following:
The question is if this really reflects reality. Strategy formation is done by
visionaries and is formed by humans, which means biases in strategic decision-
making like attention and intuition issues.
Strategy is formed by whoever is the strongest politically. Strategy is also former
by imitating what other firms do, and there are many more of these perspectives.
The perspectives and schools discusses in this summary are the following
There are so many theories, in order to teach everyone perspectivism, which also
includes going from theory to practice, and from practice to theory
,Lecture 2: The Design School
What is strategy?
- Plan: a consciously intended direction, guide or course of action to move from
a present state to a desired future state.
- Ploy: A maneuver to outwit an opponent
- Pattern: recognizable similar actions that emerge over time
- Position: The organisation’s location in the imaginary landscape of the
competitive environment.
- Perspective: The interpretation of managers of the organisation and its
environment.
the design school is a rising school with more and more attention within strategic
management research.
The characteristics and premises of the Design School
- Strategy formation as a deliberate process of conscious thought.
- One person develops strategy: CEO/head of organisation
- Process of strategy formation should be simple and informal.
- Strategy should be one of a kind
- Strategy should be developed to attain match or fit between internal
capabilities and external possibilities (SWOT analysis)
- The strategy design process is complete when strategy appears fully
formulated as a perspective
- the strategy is explicit
- Implementation follows formulation and articulation
the process
,As mentioned before, there is one strategist, namely the CEO or head of the
organisation. His tasks consist of:
- Gathering information, analysing information, organising information and
formulating strategy.
The idea of having a CEO to be the main strategist is still very much alive:
- Uncommon CEO names lead to more deviating strategies ((Kang, Zhu, &
Zhang, 2021)
- CEO’s cognitive flexibility aids the development of dynamic capabiities (Kiss
et al., 2020)
- CEO characteristics determine the kind of acquisitions (Chen et al., 2020)
With the Design School, organisation structure follows strategy.
- The strategy determines the long-term goals and objectives, the course of
action and allocation of resources.
- Structure is the design through which to administer the strategy.
- Changes in an organisation’s strategy lead to problems that require a new
structure.
SWOT analysis design school
, Design School summary assumptions
- The CEO has complete and perfect information and has the mental capacity
to accurately process all information.
- the environment can always be understood
- Situations and environment are predictable
- All information is documented and available
- Strategy is centrally formulated
Criticism & limitations of the Design School
- It is unrealistic for most organisations for structure to follow strategy
- There is an overall unrealistic assumption of universality
- The capacity to learn is ignored by analytical assessment of environment and
internal capabilities
- The design school causes a promotion of inflexibility with hierarchy,
centralisation and explicit strategy formulation
- It causes a detachment of thinking from acting.
- The CEO is unlikely to have all and perfect information and the capacity to
process this information.
- The economic man/homo economicus: “Agent who has complete
information about the options available for choice, perfect foresight of the
consequences from choosing those options, and the wherewithal to solve an
optimization problem that identifies an option which maximises the agent’s
personal utility.” -> Bounded rationality: Rationality is limited, and individuals
make imperfect decisions (difficulty of problem, boundaries to cognitive
capacity and limited time).
The design school, as with any school, should be embedded in context for it to be
understood as influential. Further contributions of the Design School are the added
vocabulary and tools for strategy, having a grand strategy, the fit between external
environment and internal capabilities, and the school started to promote the
relevance of strategy in organisations and as a field of research.
